Thumbnails criteria

Hi

Can somebody please explain to me what the criteria is for thumbnails to show for TV shows? I have seen various recommendations varying from using folder.jpg to 1.metathumb, what is the correct way?

Also does each season level folder need to have a thumbnail or just the main show folder? If only the main show folder will the 1st metathumb file in the foldr be used as the season thumbnail?

Which thumbnail gets choosen as the main thumbnail when looking at the list of TV shows in media library mode?

BTW I am using both the media library view (with built in cpontent scrapers enabled) and the network share view.

Regards

Tommy

Well,

Inside of the main folder, you will need to put a .jpg picture with the name of the folder and is the same for each one of the folders. So the picture for each one of the folder goes inside of each folder with the same name of the folder.

This depends on how you have your files and what you are using for your file thumb.

If you have each show in it’s own folder and then each season in it’s own folder, with each episode as a seperate file.  And if you are using the internal scrapper to gather the metadata and thumbs, then you will need to set up like this.

Show Name (folder)

     1.metathumb (folder thumb)

     Season 1 (folder)

      1.metathumb (season folder thumb)

       showname.S01E01.avi

       showname.S01E01.metathumb

 

If you are using the internal scrapper then all of your file thumbs will be .metathumbs and you can not use “folder.jpg” because .metathumb will override the .jpgs and the first .metathumb will be used for the folder thumb.  And when using .metathumbs it uses the first .metathumb in the folder, that is why you have to name it “1.metathumb”.

 

If you are using .jpgs for your files then using “folder.jpg” is what you have to use. 

 

And if you want a thumb to display, then yes, you will need to have a thumb for each folder.

 

Also, a .metathumb is just a .jpg.  All you have to do is change the extension of the .jpg to .metathumb.

            

1 Like

Hi Tinwarble

Thanks for taking the time and providing an excellent detailed reply, I think I will go back and rename the folder.jpg files that I have in there to 1.metathumb based on the below as I have my folderand file structure laid out exactly as you have detailed below.

What was really throwing me was that the season level in media library mode was only picking up the last added folder.jpg file rather than the one directly in it.

Also are you awra eof any issues with the inbuilt scrapers and the last firmware release? it seems that they have stopped working for both the TV Shows and the movies for me and also the schedule to rescan the media library also seems to constantly trhink it is aasleep and needs a reboot to start it going again picking up new files added.

Thanks and Regards

Tommy

Hi, I’m new to this player and am frustrated with the same problem as the OP. 

Is this information valid for the latest firmware (1.2.14 on streaming player with USB drive) as I still cannot get the thumbnails to show? 

With “media library” on,   “content info” set to auto,  TV series in series folders (tried season sufolder as well) and format “series.SnnEnn.title” the .xml & .metathumb are created for every episode and:

  • No cover for series or season folders

  • Covers (default series one) for all episodes apart from first one in each season

  • xml is displayed correctly for each episode.

  • Fanart backgrounds are displayed fine.

I can go into each individual season, select the first episode and do a “rescan info” which will set the (default) cover for  that epsiode, the season and the series (though no extra files seem to be created).  I don’t really want to have to do this for each season of each series though.

Putting the suggested additional folder.jpg or 1.metathumb seems to be ignored even after a rescan or clear of the media library.  I have also tried using WDTVHubGen to create the XML/JPGs but although the XML is read OK the JPGs are again ignored (all the auto content files including the .wdtv folder were deleted first and library cleared).

I’ve scoured this and other forums for up to date guidelines on this but nothing seems to agree with my own testing. 

Thanks for any advice.

This isn’t a complete answer to your question, I hope Tinwarble will do that, but just a tip - 

I have found a few times the WD is very reluctant to use some of my thumbnail images and will keep using ones I don’t want downloaded from the internet.  It would even replace my thumbnails with its scraped ones when I cleared and rescanned.  Even after I go into the drive, delete the thumbnail and replace it with the one I want, and then delete the .wd_tv folder at the root of the drive, it still would use that bad image!

I discovered that the .wd_tv folder was still in the trash, and the WD was actually going through the trash can to find the image it liked.  Emptying the trash solved the problem and made it use the image I wanted. 

Thanks, I’ll check this out.  Would still like to know if automatic thumbnails not showing is a bug though.  Can’t believe with all the images that are scraped automatically that no show/folder thumbnails show by default.

Getting really frustrated with this.  Trash clearing did not help,  I can’t seem to get folder thumbnails to display even when manually putting a 1.metathumb file in the folder (as suggested in many posts).

Really want to use the gallery view (I think that is what it is called) as you get nice backdrops and the episode synopsis but it is spoiled by the blank green folder icons.  As this does not seem to work I’ll have to look at an external solution to create the metadata.  Though Thumbgen seems to be the tool used I am reluctant as it seems to be very manual to keep the library updated. (especially as I use it only for TV Shows with multiple folders being updated regularily with the odd episode, most people seem to be using it mainly for large movie collections).  The internal (TVDB) scraper does benefit from being fully automated.

Anybody have a nice solution working for TV Series?

As a final update found that automatic covers do show if the sorting is changed from “TV Show” to “Folders”.  Not a solution though as episode ordering is all wrong then.  Think I will try to get confirmation this is a bug to be fixed rather than try an overkill solution (for me) such as Thumbgen.