FYI, I access my videos via “Local Drives” icon. Then there is an attached USB external hard drive and also network shares (“nfs” and “cifs”). There are about three parent/root folders in total. 1 = USB drive; 2 = “nfs” network share; 3 = “cifs” network share.
When I click on “Local Drives” Icon, it shows the folders for the USB drive and network shares but I don’t see my custom thumbnails for these particular parent/root folders. But when I click on any of these folders, I do see the thumbnails for all the subfolders.
For each parent/root folder, I have a .jpg file located in the root directory of each folder named after the same name as the parent/root folder. For example, my USB hard drive’s name is called “Videos1” and the .jpg file is called “Videos1.jpg” and is located at the root of the drive. The same goes for my network shares; their corresponding .jpg files are in the root directory of the shared folder with the same name. For instance, the “nfs” network share folder is called “Videos2” and a “Videos2.jpg” file is in the root directory of this network share.
I also tried changing the jpg files to “folder.jpg.”
All folder thumbs must definitely be named “folder.jpg” so forget the custom names. They also must be located IN that folder, so that every folder would have “folder.jpg” immediately in it.
After you’ve done this, delete the small WD file/folder on your attached USB drive (so it can rebuild the thumbs) and you should be okay (assuming your thumbs aren’t bigger than 70K or so). However, be aware you cannot (no matter what you do) eliminate the very very root folder of your net share or attached drive (which is to say you’ll always have at least one root folder that shows only as a folder – no way around this – but since it will be the only folder showing there won’t be any confusion).
Some users can use large 1000x1500 jpg images as their thumbs and report no issues… others have thumbs start to not display when they’re larger than about 80kB.
I’ve always resized mine down to 200x300, which usually keeps them between 30 and 60KB, and never had issues with them not showing up.
I don’t see much point in making them any larger, since they don’t display any larger on the WDTV anyways, but then I have ThumbGen making them all for me and it handles the re-sizing.
And for the OP’s question, the stock firmware does just show the stock USB icon for the root, no matter what you do. I believe if the drive is partitioned, then each partition would show up with a given thumb (partitionname.jpg) in your first level of browsing, but when the partition is the only one on the drive, I don’t think there’s a way to get a different thumb to show up for it.
When the Live caches the thumbs for USB connected drives, it makes them 160*240, so there is probably no reason to make them bigger … I don’t know, if thumbs from shares are cached.
On the Theater Movies I have HD avis of all movies, no folders or anything. So in order to show the Movie Cover (main movie photo thumbnail) i have to create a folder to put the mian movie in and ten create another with folder.jpeg and in here put the movie jpeg?
So in order to show the Movie Cover (main movie photo thumbnail) i have to create a folder to put the mian movie in and ten create another with folder.jpeg and in here put the movie jpeg?
No, _ moviename _.jpg will be used as the thumb for _ moviename _.avi – you don’t have to have them in separate folders. But the filenames must exactly match except for the extension.
Got it! I am still transfering my movies from my Iomega SCP to the WD Elements, so once that done I will try.
What about for Photos? I have folder for 2001-2002, et, etc, and in each year folder i have individual folders for each event. Would the Live Plus catch the first photo as thumbnail? like on Windows?
I have a question about showing thumbnails for AVI files - I know they should be named identically, but I have a slightly different issue.
I have the files named correctly I believe, for example:
Octopussy.jpg
Octopussy.avi
In the folder with my movies, I see *both* files - each one with the correct image, but I don’t want to see the .jpg file - it’s only in the folder to match the image with the AVI file. I have several coworkers with WD TV units (not live like mine), and they only see their AVI files with the correct thumbnail displayed. Why the heck do I see both individual files, and is there any way to *not* display the JPG files separately?
It seems like a not-very-useful feature to have to scroll through all the JPG files until I get to the AVI’s, to browse for the movie I want to play… I have gone through the different options, and they all seem to display the two distinct files and not just the movie with thumbnail like I’d prefer.
Coworkers are probably using local USB storage, not network storage. Thumbnails for network shares have never worked right, and doubtful they ever will fix it…
Thanks Tony, I have a big folder named “Theater Movies” and inside that I have all .avi’s file. What i did was to download several jpegs of several movies, named them exactly as the avi it self and place them in the same “Theater Movies” folder. But they don’t show up…
Do I need to make individual folders for each movie? I though I don’t have to?
On the other hand, I saw one picture on the actual WDTV Live Plus package box, where the guy is looking at his Movie archives in "Preview mode, but has thumbnails of each clip instead of a circular dics and movie clip icon. How can this be done…?
Ok, So I wanted to comment on this as well, becuase I did have all my pictures of movie posters displaying and then as I add new folders and movies to that main folder they seem not to display the picture for the folder. Heres how I have them listed. - Most of my pictures for the folders do display, some dont.
Movies
|_Family Guy > Family Guy.avi and folder.jpg
|_Ghost > Ghost.avi and folder.jpg
|_ James And The Giant Peach > James And The Giant Peach.avi and folder.jpg
TV Shows
|_Burn Notice
folder.jpg
Season 1 > Burn Notice - 101 - Pilot.avi and folder.jpg
Season 2 > Burn Notice - 201 -"Name OF EP.avi and folder.jpg
Season 3 > Burn Notice - 301 - “NAME OF EP.avi” and folder.jpg
Season 4 > Burn Notice - 301 - “NAME OF EP.avi” and folder.jpg
The TV shows all list that way, and the folders are all displayed Its the Movies that sometimes dont show the pictures of the movies. Not sure why that is, and some of the pictures for the movie posters are Huge and they show, but the not so big files dont show. Previous to there firmware updates I did have all of the Movies and .jpg files in 1 folder with there same names. I wanted to seperate them all and this worked. But keeping them all the same name didnt work.
This is how I have them and it works. 300+ movies and 30 Tv Series. I Hope this helps out.
Ok, since I have also the movie trailers, i did a folder for every movie. So inside the main Theater Movie Folder i have for sample:
Takers (Folder)
Takers.avi
Takers.jpeg
and an empty folder named "folder.jpeg
______________
1- So now when I am in the preview mode, in the preview window, i see a big grey folder and the movie jepeg on the bottom right…not small but not so big.
2- When i switch to List view, I only see the round DVD and the name of the movie. thats it.
3- Isn’t there a way to see the jpegs bigger on preview mode?
