Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[newHAPPYuser2015]

Hi,

For movies and tv shows it's possible to choose a location for the cover art folder in options. Is there a similar setting for thumbnails generated for home videos and the likes? Every time (not often of course, but still) I reinstall MC I have to do right click on the videos and choose 'cover art > rebuild thumbnails'. A bit inconvenient.

Thanks

[rudyrednose]

Greetings,

All thumbnails are kept there :
C:\Users\windows_username\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Thumbnails\{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}\Normal (v3)\
The {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx} part depends on the MC library used (if you use/have used multiple libraries).

Personally, I take advantage of it to keep a copy of my main library on my work computer (the library, not the media data files).
I do a library backup at home and restore on the same library name at work, then copy the thumbnails.

Cheers.

[glynor]

You can redirect this location via a Registry key if you know what you're doing. Details have been posted on this forum in the past.

If you move it to a slow location, it will cause serious performance problems in MC. It cannot be reliably placed on a Network Share, for example. That's why there is no setting for it in the user-facing Options dialog.

[blgentry]

For movies and tv shows it's possible to choose a location for the cover art folder in options.

Well, sort of.  The directory you're talking about is used as a container for the Series and Season cover art for TV shows.  For Episode cover art and Movie cover art, it is not used at all.  Instead JPG files are written next to the individual video files.  So, SpiderMan.mkv will have SpiderMan.jpg right next to it in the same directory.

Every time (not often of course, but still) I reinstall MC I have to do right click on the videos and choose 'cover art > rebuild thumbnails'. A bit inconvenient.

For home videos, or others than don't have cover art that gets downloaded, MC generates a thumbnail from a specific position inside that video file.  You can control what that position is in the Options.  Once you have a thumbnail you like, you can force MC to write that thumbnail out to a JPG file, so it gets saved:
<right click> Cover Art > Save Cover Art to external location...

The advantage here is that MC won't EVER try to regenerate a thumbnail by looking inside the video.  Instead, it will go straight to the JPG file.  This will happen VERY fast.  As opposed to generating from inside the video, which is comparatively slow.

Note that, if you are particular about your thumbnails, you can generate your own with an external utility and then tell MC to import the thumbnails, one by one.  If MC just won't give you a representative thumbnail, you can go into something like VLC, and save a video snapshot.  Then tell MC to use it:  <right click> Cover Art > Add from file.  MC will then ask if you want that file copied next to the video.  When you say yes, MC will copy it into place and from then on use that JPG file for the video cover art, and generate it's thumbnails from there.  In this way you can have great control over the exact video frame used for thumbnails and have them saved for future use. 

If you ever get to a point where some or all are not showing thumbnails, you can do:  <select files> <right click> Cover art > Quick find in cover art directory .  This happens super fast and regenerates thumbnails in a snap.

Brian.

[newHAPPYuser2015]

Once you have a thumbnail you like, you can force MC to write that thumbnail out to a JPG file, so it gets saved:
<right click> Cover Art > Save Cover Art to external location...

I've tried it with no success and then:

For home videos, or others than don't have cover art that gets downloaded, MC generates a thumbnail from a specific position inside that video file.  You can control what that position is in the Options.

Your post prompted me to take another look at the options. I didn't know one had to tick 'generate thumbnails for videos' checkbox (or was it ticked by default and I've unticked it?) in order for MC to save them to a jpg file using <right click> Cover Art > Save Cover Art to external location.

I guess I expected thumbnails to be saved as jpg next to videos automatically upon being generated. Anyway, problem is now resolved. Thanks.

[blgentry]

I've tried it with no success and then:
Your post prompted me to take another look at the options. I didn't know one had to tick 'generate thumbnails for videos' checkbox (or was it ticked by default and I've unticked it?) in order for MC to save them to a jpg file using <right click> Cover Art > Save Cover Art to external location.

Oh wow.  I didn't know that switch was there!  I had a problem a few weeks ago where video thumbnails wouldn't save to external any more.  I restored an old library configuration and it started working again.  I just tested it and this switch is probably what caused my problem.  Thanks. 

I guess I expected thumbnails to be saved as jpg next to videos automatically upon being generated. Anyway, problem is now resolved. Thanks.

They definitely are NOT saved unless you tell MC to save them, for each file.  You can highlight a bunch at once and choose to write the JPGs to disk.  But it absolutely will not do it on it's own for the types of videos we are discussing.  If you want them saved, explicitly do it for the files you want to save the thumbnails.

Brian.