First let me say how much I appreciate your efforts and posts in helping everyone with your frequent contribution of answers, ideas, themes, and more.
Some months ago you posted a link to your June 5, 2011 “Genre Folders.zip” file which I downloaded and have now started to use when filtering/viewing by Folder – now that I’ve reorganized my movies, TV series, and music into Genre Folders stored across 2 NAS devices. The only things still living on the Hub’s internal drive are personal/family photos.
Your thumbs hit most of my genres and then some (some I left the genres as downloaded from the various metadata sources, some I have edited the XML to more accurately reflect my own opinion).
However, I’m looking for genre thumbs for the following:
Suspense – movies like Hitchcock, Wait Until Dark, Red Eye, etc)
Travel – Travel movies from various sources like the Travel Channel that don’t readily fit into Documentary)
Multimedia – an umbrella genre that could include movies, music, tv, everything before a drill-down)
I can guess at how busy you are with theme development and other things, so feel free to “just say no” - but if you could point me in the right direction instead to do it myself I’d appreciate it.
Right now I’m really busy, but when I get some free time I’ll see what I can do. If you have personal requests though, you can PM me rather than posting on the open forum.
Also, for Suspense, I just use Thriller since suspense and thriller fall under the same catagory.
Thanks, TW, for those links. One last question – Where do I place each “genre jpg” so it will show up as an image for the genre folder? I tried them at the genre folder and .wdtv folder levels, but that wasn’t correct (I guess) since it didn’t show up.
Folder thumbs must be true .jpg, (re)named to folder.jpg and placed in the Genre folders. Then clear the .wd_tv/thumb folder, restart the hub and the folder thumbs should be visible.
At least this works for FW 2.07.17 … Can’t tell you if it’s still this easy with later FW.
By “clear the wd thumb folder” do you mean I should delete all contents of the thumb folder on the WD or in the genre folder where I also see a “thumbs.DB” file?
I think I have the correct area now – looking at the content of the .wd_tv/thumb I see three folders and one “movies.thumb”. Am I just clearing or deleting the movies.thumb file?
Just delete the thumb folder in the wd_tv folder (delete the entire folder).
Also, the thumbs are already “true jpgs” so you don’t have to do anything but copy them to each genre folder you need, then rename theme “folder.jpg”. Then put your HUB into standby, access the HUB’s HDD and delete the “thumb” folder, turn you HUB back on then wait for it to compile. You should then see your new genre thumbs.
hazmat96 wrote: … in the genre folder where I also see a “thumbs.DB” file? … I see three folders and one “movies.thumb”…
Maybe this explains something about the …thumb and .db files…
The movies.thumb file you mentioned is probably a product of a later FW you had on the Hub before you rolled back to FW2.07.17.
The thumbs.db files are (hidden) Windows files made by Windows Explorer. These files can be deleted but will there again the next time you browse through your folders.
I have the same problem for thumbs. I have a JPG inside each “genrefolder” with exactly the same name than the folder (folder.jpg). I deleted the all “Thumb” directory of the HUB and I switch the power off. But when I turn it ON again, only one of my folder takes the good image. And all the others folder take the same thumb than a movie inside the folder… I use Devicious Theme with the last Firmware.
I must admit I’m trying to remplace thumb of a lot of different folders since a long time! And sometimes it works, but the most of the time, it doesn’t.
I have given up trying to try to understand, I have the same issues with metadata thumbs. It shows a thumb but never adds it. Random films …and I have had the same problems as yourself and gave up on themes in general. It just seems to be one of those freaky things. Look at the latest firmware, how can some end up with either a boot loop or video play errors when most of us have no issues whatsoever. Sometimes I do feel for WD as it all seems to be based on wind direction and star alignment.
I think he does say that. like I said I used to have the same problem. I don’t know what causes it. and is another reason I left themes and older firmwares. I do pray for Joeys efforts on newer firmware especially after his latest detective skills.
Well it works much better by renaming each image by “folder.jpg” and to unplug the HUB before updating ! ^^ Unfortunately, any of my images directories still don’t work… I will try again, and try to understand why.
If that doesn’t work, put the HUB in standby, then access the HUB from your PC and go to .wd_tv folder and delete the “thumb” folder. Unplug the HUB, the plug it back in.
Standby is when you turn off the HUB, short press on the power button, a long press (5 sec) will completely turn off the HUB. Then access the HUB, open the “.wd_tv” folder, then delete the “thumb” folder, the entire folder.
To clear the medial library, on the HUB go to Setup > System > Media library > Clear Media Library.
Interestingly, since I now have everything except for Photos off-loaded to NAS, no thumb folder ever gets created in the .wd_tv folder on my internal drive. However, to get things to clear/show I do have to clear the media library and reboot the device. Sometimes I have to turn the library off, then clear it (no rebuild at that point), then reboot, then turn library back on and allow to rebuild.
Also, not sure if it’s really needed but just in case the image’s file date plays a part in caching the thumbs, I open and save (no change) any new thumb I’ve added that is to replace another one to make sure it is “more recent” than the original. I figure the shotgun approach works best since nothing is documented on how the caching works or how to assure a clean flush.
I do see that any edits I make to an existing XML file (to fix typos, bad grammar, or simply state plot things the way I want them) almost immediately show up in the hub’s display on-screen without any rebuild or reboot. I *think* this is new with the latest firmware although it might be I just wasn’t paying close enough attention before.
I’m not even sure how effective the caching and/or preparsing of the XML is. I see fairly significant delays in thumb display in scrolling through the media files even when it’s the second or thrid time through. I “wish” there was a way to place all thumbs and XML files on the internal drive with a pointer/link to the media file itself to try to improve responsiveness.
Unfortunately, it’s not really better… I’ll try what Dfrench say about to turn off the media library before to unplug and to turn it on then rebuild it. How knows…
