Gallery Moviesheet/Thumbnail Trick

WD Legacy Products WD TV Themes
41

yes if you export as .jpg from TG its a non-transparent image

if you export from TG as .png it is transparent

however the hub can not read png so renaming .png to .jpg in windows with make it recognizable by the hub and keep the transparency of the png.

42

yes, worked, even though once you change it to jpg windows draws it as grey, the hub keeps it transparent.

The only caveat using the sheet as the jpg , as I see it, is that when you play the movie and the thumbnail is displayed for a moment it is actually the sheet and , too bad for that. 

43

HomerJ

With the current batch of moviesheet tricks been developed, i dont feel there is a need to make tranparent moviesheets anymore.

I would just make a normal moviesheet in thumbgen as a jpg and use something like Joey or any other moviesheet mods available …

For example firetix has a new List view, and i am about to release my new List view as well

44

yes, I’m sure these are the early days of the themes, so far so awesome.  I am amazed at the shear brilliance of you guys and the precision of your mods, very much thinking outside of the box.  Lots of hard work by you all is Greatly appreciated.

45

Im waiting to see the finalized version of joeys to check it out.

46

Another question on my quest to figure it all out.

In gallery view the Hub grabs the thumbnail which is positioned to the left of the movie info box and displays it below as a thumbnail for the scrolling correct? 

So here in Joey’s mod, the thumbnail is actually a large created sheet and since we want a reflection the area to grab has been modded to grab the thumbnail which is something like 300x573 , a little longer in size, in order to display the reflection. 

What element in the xml can be edited to crop the cover to normal size if you dont want the reflection in the thumb below?

Only asking because in the case where there is no sheet created , only a thumbnail exists the result is a oblong cover that is partially clipped.

Maybe I’m way off base here.  See pic above for some clarification, my apologies to Joey for using his screenshot to demo what I mean. Thanks

47

That fine, ive noticied it too (the oblong shape… when there is no thumbnail)

I Guess you can modify the Live Hubs Default thumbnails for No Cover Art as a solution ?

I didnt have time to sort it out…( 'cause it was just an experiment…  im still  tinkering with the Hub too :slight_smile:

48

Yes, I know it’s a work in progress, I’m just trying to tinker a bit…a very little bit as my knowledge of the workings is very little.

Thanks for the reply, appreciate the info.

49

Just remembered, there were a few ‘No Coveart’ thumbs i resized in the demo… in the Gallery folder.

changed the width and hieight…

maybe i try gimp and make the bottom 1/4 transparent ?

anyways, im playing around with transparent thumbs and sheets now… working good so far.

cool thing is, you can change the background wallpaper and no need to re-do any sheets or thumbs :slight_smile:

1 Like
50

so if you can change the wallpaper now without issue can you include the ‘rainbow’ burst wallpaper, it is very cool looking and would be nice to have it.

thanks

Showed my wife and kids the Gallery layout and they love it,  no going back now.  Just doing up template for my tv shows.

51

Hi, Homer

Sorry about the thumbnail aspect ratio/clipping issue with the Live Hubs default thumbnails.

I Fixed it today, just redid the template to ‘offsett’ the thumb in the movie template and then readjusted the co-ords in the XML to compensate for this.

So, Basically… the moviesheettrick thumbs have a reflection… and standard Live Hub thumbs are correct aspect and not ‘distorted’ now.

I hope you havent spent to much time creating the sheets… as they will have to be redone.

As long as you had/have the option in ‘Thumbgen’ to create a “metadata file” …which is actually a zip file with all the info and pics scraped the moviedb…  You can redo sheets in a click or two… Click ‘Create From Metadata Option’ in Thumbgen.

I have about 100 movies … and have the Metadata, which allows me to bulk change my sheets in a couple of clicks and maybe an hour.

Will up the new template tommorrw, … been working on my list view…

Edit: I will upload soon, when ive done/fixed a few more things… and tried out a couple more theories.

52

yeah, already di the sheets for about 100 movie/tv shows but am glad to do it, gives me practice and enables me to learn a thing or 2 . Can wait for the mod, awesome looking.

53

I’m new at this and I just can’t get the folder images right.

I’ve read this thread but I just don’t understand. The moviesheets looks great though.

Please help me get it right.

54

what I did for my folders was use the ‘demo folder’ as a sizing guide, then I created thumbnails at 300x460 and pasted them in the upper part and applied a gloss finish png over the top.  Works for now.

55

Just a little of what of been doing :slight_smile:

Finally sorted out the ‘Aspect Ratio’ for ‘Thumbs’… Live Hub uses a slightly different Aspect to what i typically use.

So, the Template got ‘Redesigned’ to allow for this.

The Advantage of this different layout allowed me to ‘Recycle’ the ‘One’ Sheet for Different views.

ie. The one sheet in my experiment is Realinged/Re-Positioned for Gallery View,List View,Video Browse & Large Video Browse.

havent got around to Preview View at this time.

Also, decided to not hide the Poster in the sheet anymore, basically because the whole design looked ‘kinda small’ on my big screen tv.

Experimented with Sheets/Thumbs with rename *.png to *.jpg trick … Visually results were great and did offer many design ideas.

However, Gallery Mode slowed down Dramatically, and i also experiened frequent ‘Reboots’ of the Live Hub (usually after browsing through movies and then pressing the ‘back’ or ‘home’ button… which 90% of the time resulted the Live Hub Rebooting itself.)

Went back to using ‘True’ *.jpg’s and havent had the problem since.

Anyways, in closing … just tinkering and experiments so far (Screenshots,Video are WIP and Not Final) , until i have the time to fully focus on doing a complete theme.

Moving house in the next week or two, so i dont want to commit to anything just yet.

Cya

Youtube Video Demo of the 4 Views with 1 Sheet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFN4aAMq5B8

P.S. Just to be clear, You only need the 1 sheet for the movie, the Live Hub and the XML Code does the rest for  displaying it,  4 different ways. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
56

:smileyvery-happy:

Man you’re so pro!!!

Great work!!

Can’t wait to use your theme!

57

same issue with my theme : some reboot after back and forward navigation

the Hub doesn’t like very much png fake but I dont want to lose my transparency :smiley:

58

Well Joey this truly amazing, considering work still in progress.

Any chance you can upload theme for testing or at least the moviesheet template so I can get cracking on cretaing moviesheets?

Thanks

59

Very amazing looking.  I’m loving my Hub because of the networking ability and because of the beautiful project you are putting out.  Anxiously awaiting the finished product, and I have learned alot along the way from the mods.  Thanks for everything.

Just checked out the video…Wow, looks so Amazing.

60

yes please post the moviesheet template :stuck_out_tongue: