I put together a photo slide show for my grandmother’s 85th birthday and I put all 150 pictures in order then selected all the pictures and named them all “Grandma” and as most of you all know, when you select multiple pictures in Windows and name them the same thing, Windows will put the name you typed then append numbers at the end. So for me, picture #1 would be named “Grandma” and picture #2 would be named “Grandma (2)” and so on…until it ended with picture #150 called “Grandma (150)”
Well, the WDTV Live Streaming media player puts the pictures out of order. For some reason it wanted to put “Grandma (10)” in-between the pictures named “Grandma (1)” and “Grandma (2)” so it thinks the number 10 is greater then 1 but less then 2 which of course is wrong. There were also other places where it messed up the numbering order.
I tried this on multiple WDTV Streaming media players and all have the latest firmware. If you want to replicate this problem, just grab a bunch of pictures and select them all and name them the same thing. Put the pictures on a USB key and stick it into the media player, when you go to select the pictures you will notice the pictures are out of order.
To bypass the problem I had to create 3 different folders, first folder with pictures #1-9, 2nd folder with pictures #10-99 and the 3rd folder with pictures #100-150. Of course, that meant I had to stop twice during the photo slide show to select the next folder which broke up the smoothness of the presentation.
A better solution would be to name the Grandma (1) picture Grandma (01), Grandma (02) and so on, that way you can have all of the pictures in the same folder.
Gigahertz21 wrote:
Well, the WDTV Live Streaming media player puts the pictures out of order.
It’s not a bug.
Files are sorted by the WD alphabetically.
File 1
File 10
File 100
File 2
…
That’s a correct alphabetical sort; all files beginning with “File 1xxx” are sorted first, because “1” is before “2.” Doesn’t matter how many trailing characters there are after that initial sorting column.
You’re wanting “natural sort” order, which the WD doesn’t do.
Alucardx23 wrote:
A better solution would be to name the Grandma (1) picture Grandma (01), Grandma (02) and so on, that way you can have all of the pictures in the same folder.
Yep, you have to remember that “zero”
Well, that was pretty unintuitive code then for whoever wrote it. When people using Windows select multiple pictures and name them the same name like I did and want to keep the order of the pictures, the media player will not do that since it does not do a “natural sort.” That is a huge fail, it should keep the same order that Windows does. This media player is useless then if you want to play a slideshow of photos in order. Yes, there are ways to bypass it but most people will not understand why all their pictures are out of order once they try to play them back using the media player.
It only makes sense to put pictures in order using their numbers from low to high if they all have the same name. 1…2…3…4…5…etc. NOT 1…10…100…2…
ritaben wrote:
Alucardx23 wrote:
A better solution would be to name the Grandma (1) picture Grandma (01), Grandma (02) and so on, that way you can have all of the pictures in the same folder.
Yep, you have to remember that “zero”
Yeah, but that means you have to go back then and manually do it since Windows does not automatically put a 0 in before single digit numbers. Not a big deal, but your average consumer will not understand why the 100th picture in their slide show is between the 1st picture and 2nd picture.
I just tried putting a 0 in front of the single digit numbers but that doesn’t fix the ordering issue. For 10-19 I made them into triple digit numbers by adding a 0 in front of them like 011, 012, 013 all the way to 019. But after 019 it puts picture #100 there. So for pictures 20-99 I guess they would need to be made into tripe digit numbers as well. I don’t know, I’m all confused.
In Windows choose arrange (or sort) by name and what do you see.
parnott100 wrote:
In Windows choose arrange (or sort) by name and what do you see.
The problem isn’t Windows, it’s the way the WDTV Live Streaming sorts them. If you don’t have 150 pictures stored on your computer to see what I’m talking about then just create a txt file in a folder and then rename the extension from .txt to .jpg to create a blank empty picture file. Then copy and paste that empty picture file a bunch of times so that you have 150 copies in 1 folder. Then rename them all to the same name and transfer the folder to a USB stick. Look at how the media player sorts them.
How do I rename them so that the media player sorts them so that numbers 1-150 are in order numerically?
And then view them in Windows Explorer after sorting them and you will find it is the same. It is all to do with how computers sort things.
parnott100 wrote:
And then view them in Windows Explorer after sorting them and you will find it is the same. It is all to do with how computers sort things.
I think you are confused or don’t get it…unless it’s me. As was mentioned the WDTV doesn’t do a “natural sort” so if you have lets say 150 pictures with the 1st picture named “birthday (1)” and the last picture named “birthday (150)” Windows will put all those picture in numerical order as is the proper way. With the WDTV it will not, the only way I think to do it with the WDTV is to make all numbers that are not triple digits into them.
So for example, numbers 1-9 should have 00 in front of them (001,009, etc) and numbers 10-99 will have a 0 in front of each number so that 10 now becomes 010 and 99 now becomes 099. Once you do this then the WDTV will now display the 150 pictures in numerical order I believe. The thing is though you will have to click on each picture name and add either 00 or 0…which is a huge pain in the **bleep** just to get a slide show to display in numerical order.
As a test, turn off Media Library (assuming you have it on) and then view the order. I know with the mamba theme, files are sorted “naturally” and i’m not sure whether that’s a result of the theme coding or by virtue of ML being off.
Rubicon99 wrote:
As a test, turn off Media Library (assuming you have it on) and then view the order. I know with the mamba theme, files are sorted “naturally” and i’m not sure whether that’s a result of the theme coding or by virtue of ML being off.
It’s already off, I don’t have it on.
The WD SMP has a lot of issues, but this isn’t one of them. Everybody telling you it’s how computers sort things is completely correct. You have to use a filename mask with leading zeroes to eliminate it, so that you see them as (filename)-001.jpg, (filename)-011.jpg, (filename)-111.jpg, etc. This is how I have sorted my photos for years, because of that very issue.
There are programs which will do this for you automatically. I use PIE Studio to do this, along with editing the metadata of my photos (great for inserting GPS coordinates, aligning date/time EXIF into, lossless rotation, etc.) If all you want is renaming your files, I think PIE free version will do that. You can find it at http://www.picmeta.com.
Toddler wrote:
The WD SMP has a lot of issues, but this isn’t one of them. Everybody telling you it’s how computers sort things is completely correct. You have to use a filename mask with leading zeroes to eliminate it, so that you see them as (filename)-001.jpg, (filename)-011.jpg, (filename)-111.jpg, etc. This is how I have sorted my photos for years, because of that very issue.
There are programs which will do this for you automatically. I use PIE Studio to do this, along with editing the metadata of my photos (great for inserting GPS coordinates, aligning date/time EXIF into, lossless rotation, etc.) If all you want is renaming your files, I think PIE free version will do that. You can find it at http://www.picmeta.com.
Why can’t they just fix it so that it sorts photos just like Windows where it goes 1…2…3 instead of 1…10…100. It should be easy to fix the firmware to make it intuitive like how Windows sorts photos.
Gigahertz21 wrote:
Toddler wrote:
The WD SMP has a lot of issues, but this isn’t one of them. Everybody telling you it’s how computers sort things is completely correct. You have to use a filename mask with leading zeroes to eliminate it, so that you see them as (filename)-001.jpg, (filename)-011.jpg, (filename)-111.jpg, etc. This is how I have sorted my photos for years, because of that very issue.
There are programs which will do this for you automatically. I use PIE Studio to do this, along with editing the metadata of my photos (great for inserting GPS coordinates, aligning date/time EXIF into, lossless rotation, etc.) If all you want is renaming your files, I think PIE free version will do that. You can find it at http://www.picmeta.com.
Why can’t they just fix it so that it sorts photos just like Windows where it goes 1…2…3 instead of 1…10…100. It should be easy to fix the firmware to make it intuitive like how Windows sorts photos.
You’re still looking at it wrong. The WD SMP is no different than any other computer in this regard. It’s not a bug, so there’s nothing to fix.
The Windows Explorer interface does list them differently than the file system does, which is part of the problem. Honestly, the right-click Rename feature in Windows is horrible for doing it that way. I hate to paste something so long here, but it may be the only way to explain to you how computers work.
I created an empty file and renamed it like you did, Grandma (x). If you run the DIR command from a CMD window, here’s how it looks (with carriage returns removed):
Grandma (1).txt Grandma (10).txt Grandma (100).txt Grandma (101).txt Grandma (102).txt Grandma (103).txt Grandma (104).txt Grandma (105).txt Grandma (106).txt Grandma (107).txt Grandma (108).txt Grandma (109).txt Grandma (11).txt Grandma (110).txt Grandma (111).txt Grandma (112).txt Grandma (113).txt Grandma (114).txt Grandma (115).txt Grandma (116).txt Grandma (117).txt Grandma (118).txt Grandma (119).txt Grandma (12).txt Grandma (120).txt Grandma (121).txt Grandma (122).txt Grandma (123).txt Grandma (124).txt Grandma (125).txt Grandma (126).txt Grandma (127).txt Grandma (128).txt Grandma (129).txt Grandma (13).txt Grandma (130).txt Grandma (131).txt Grandma (132).txt Grandma (133).txt Grandma (134).txt Grandma (135).txt Grandma (136).txt Grandma (137).txt Grandma (138).txt Grandma (139).txt Grandma (14).txt Grandma (140).txt Grandma (141).txt Grandma (142).txt Grandma (143).txt Grandma (144).txt Grandma (145).txt Grandma (146).txt Grandma (147).txt Grandma (148).txt Grandma (149).txt Grandma (15).txt Grandma (150).txt Grandma (151).txt Grandma (152).txt Grandma (153).txt Grandma (154).txt Grandma (155).txt Grandma (156).txt Grandma (157).txt Grandma (158).txt Grandma (159).txt Grandma (16).txt Grandma (160).txt Grandma (161).txt Grandma (162).txt Grandma (163).txt Grandma (164).txt Grandma (165).txt Grandma (166).txt Grandma (167).txt Grandma (168).txt Grandma (169).txt Grandma (17).txt Grandma (170).txt Grandma (171).txt Grandma (172).txt Grandma (173).txt Grandma (174).txt Grandma (175).txt Grandma (176).txt Grandma (177).txt Grandma (178).txt Grandma (179).txt Grandma (18).txt Grandma (180).txt Grandma (181).txt Grandma (182).txt Grandma (183).txt Grandma (184).txt Grandma (185).txt Grandma (186).txt Grandma (187).txt Grandma (188).txt Grandma (189).txt Grandma (19).txt Grandma (190).txt Grandma (191).txt Grandma (192).txt Grandma (193).txt Grandma (194).txt Grandma (195).txt Grandma (196).txt Grandma (197).txt Grandma (198).txt Grandma (199).txt Grandma (2).txt Grandma (20).txt Grandma (200).txt Grandma (201).txt Grandma (202).txt Grandma (203).txt Grandma (204).txt Grandma (205).txt Grandma (206).txt Grandma (207).txt Grandma (208).txt Grandma (209).txt Grandma (21).txt Grandma (210).txt Grandma (211).txt Grandma (212).txt Grandma (213).txt Grandma (214).txt Grandma (215).txt Grandma (216).txt Grandma (217).txt Grandma (218).txt Grandma (219).txt Grandma (22).txt Grandma (220).txt Grandma (221).txt Grandma (222).txt Grandma (223).txt Grandma (224).txt Grandma (225).txt Grandma (226).txt Grandma (227).txt Grandma (228).txt Grandma (229).txt Grandma (23).txt Grandma (230).txt Grandma (231).txt Grandma (232).txt Grandma (233).txt Grandma (234).txt Grandma (235).txt Grandma (236).txt Grandma (237).txt Grandma (238).txt Grandma (239).txt Grandma (24).txt Grandma (240).txt Grandma (241).txt Grandma (242).txt Grandma (243).txt Grandma (244).txt Grandma (245).txt Grandma (246).txt Grandma (247).txt Grandma (248).txt Grandma (249).txt Grandma (25).txt Grandma (250).txt Grandma (251).txt Grandma (252).txt Grandma (253).txt Grandma (254).txt Grandma (255).txt Grandma (256).txt Grandma (26).txt Grandma (27).txt Grandma (28).txt Grandma (29).txt Grandma (3).txt Grandma (30).txt Grandma (31).txt Grandma (32).txt Grandma (33).txt Grandma (34).txt Grandma (35).txt Grandma (36).txt Grandma (37).txt Grandma (38).txt Grandma (39).txt Grandma (4).txt Grandma (40).txt Grandma (41).txt Grandma (42).txt Grandma (43).txt Grandma (44).txt Grandma (45).txt Grandma (46).txt Grandma (47).txt Grandma (48).txt Grandma (49).txt Grandma (5).txt Grandma (50).txt Grandma (51).txt Grandma (52).txt Grandma (53).txt Grandma (54).txt Grandma (55).txt Grandma (56).txt Grandma (57).txt Grandma (58).txt Grandma (59).txt Grandma (6).txt Grandma (60).txt Grandma (61).txt Grandma (62).txt Grandma (63).txt Grandma (64).txt Grandma (65).txt Grandma (66).txt Grandma (67).txt Grandma (68).txt Grandma (69).txt Grandma (7).txt Grandma (70).txt Grandma (71).txt Grandma (72).txt Grandma (73).txt Grandma (74).txt Grandma (75).txt Grandma (76).txt Grandma (77).txt Grandma (78).txt Grandma (79).txt Grandma (8).txt Grandma (80).txt Grandma (81).txt Grandma (82).txt Grandma (83).txt Grandma (84).txt Grandma (85).txt Grandma (86).txt Grandma (87).txt Grandma (88).txt Grandma (89).txt Grandma (9).txt Grandma (90).txt Grandma (91).txt Grandma (92).txt Grandma (93).txt Grandma (94).txt Grandma (95).txt Grandma (96).txt Grandma (97).txt Grandma (98).txt Grandma (99).txt
As you know, that’s the same way the WD SMP sees them. Point is, it’s not a bug. Operating systems, databases, spreadsheets–that’s just what they typically default to. Yes, the WD engineers could change it, but considering how many true bugs they aren’t fixing, I would be shocked if your complaint gets any attention.
So once you accept the fact that it isn’t going to be changed, give PIE a try, or a VBScript or whatever you choose. Embrace the help you’ve been given to resolve the issue for yourself.
Toddler wrote:
Gigahertz21 wrote:
Toddler wrote:
The WD SMP has a lot of issues, but this isn’t one of them. Everybody telling you it’s how computers sort things is completely correct. You have to use a filename mask with leading zeroes to eliminate it, so that you see them as (filename)-001.jpg, (filename)-011.jpg, (filename)-111.jpg, etc. This is how I have sorted my photos for years, because of that very issue.
There are programs which will do this for you automatically. I use PIE Studio to do this, along with editing the metadata of my photos (great for inserting GPS coordinates, aligning date/time EXIF into, lossless rotation, etc.) If all you want is renaming your files, I think PIE free version will do that. You can find it at http://www.picmeta.com.
Why can’t they just fix it so that it sorts photos just like Windows where it goes 1…2…3 instead of 1…10…100. It should be easy to fix the firmware to make it intuitive like how Windows sorts photos.
You’re still looking at it wrong. The WD SMP is no different than any other computer in this regard. It’s not a bug, so there’s nothing to fix.
The Windows Explorer interface does list them differently than the file system does, which is part of the problem. Honestly, the right-click Rename feature in Windows is horrible for doing it that way. I hate to paste something so long here, but it may be the only way to explain to you how computers work.
I created an empty file and renamed it like you did, Grandma (x). If you run the DIR command from a CMD window, here’s how it looks (with carriage returns removed):
Grandma (1).txt Grandma (10).txt Grandma (100).txt Grandma (101).txt Grandma (102).txt Grandma (103).txt Grandma (104).txt Grandma (105).txt Grandma (106).txt Grandma (107).txt Grandma (108).txt Grandma (109).txt Grandma (11).txt Grandma (110).txt Grandma (111).txt Grandma (112).txt Grandma (113).txt Grandma (114).txt Grandma (115).txt Grandma (116).txt Grandma (117).txt Grandma (118).txt Grandma (119).txt Grandma (12).txt Grandma (120).txt Grandma (121).txt Grandma (122).txt Grandma (123).txt Grandma (124).txt Grandma (125).txt Grandma (126).txt Grandma (127).txt Grandma (128).txt Grandma (129).txt Grandma (13).txt Grandma (130).txt Grandma (131).txt Grandma (132).txt Grandma (133).txt Grandma (134).txt Grandma (135).txt Grandma (136).txt Grandma (137).txt Grandma (138).txt Grandma (139).txt Grandma (14).txt Grandma (140).txt Grandma (141).txt Grandma (142).txt Grandma (143).txt Grandma (144).txt Grandma (145).txt Grandma (146).txt Grandma (147).txt Grandma (148).txt Grandma (149).txt Grandma (15).txt Grandma (150).txt Grandma (151).txt Grandma (152).txt Grandma (153).txt Grandma (154).txt Grandma (155).txt Grandma (156).txt Grandma (157).txt Grandma (158).txt Grandma (159).txt Grandma (16).txt Grandma (160).txt Grandma (161).txt Grandma (162).txt Grandma (163).txt Grandma (164).txt Grandma (165).txt Grandma (166).txt Grandma (167).txt Grandma (168).txt Grandma (169).txt Grandma (17).txt Grandma (170).txt Grandma (171).txt Grandma (172).txt Grandma (173).txt Grandma (174).txt Grandma (175).txt Grandma (176).txt Grandma (177).txt Grandma (178).txt Grandma (179).txt Grandma (18).txt Grandma (180).txt Grandma (181).txt Grandma (182).txt Grandma (183).txt Grandma (184).txt Grandma (185).txt Grandma (186).txt Grandma (187).txt Grandma (188).txt Grandma (189).txt Grandma (19).txt Grandma (190).txt Grandma (191).txt Grandma (192).txt Grandma (193).txt Grandma (194).txt Grandma (195).txt Grandma (196).txt Grandma (197).txt Grandma (198).txt Grandma (199).txt Grandma (2).txt Grandma (20).txt Grandma (200).txt Grandma (201).txt Grandma (202).txt Grandma (203).txt Grandma (204).txt Grandma (205).txt Grandma (206).txt Grandma (207).txt Grandma (208).txt Grandma (209).txt Grandma (21).txt Grandma (210).txt Grandma (211).txt Grandma (212).txt Grandma (213).txt Grandma (214).txt Grandma (215).txt Grandma (216).txt Grandma (217).txt Grandma (218).txt Grandma (219).txt Grandma (22).txt Grandma (220).txt Grandma (221).txt Grandma (222).txt Grandma (223).txt Grandma (224).txt Grandma (225).txt Grandma (226).txt Grandma (227).txt Grandma (228).txt Grandma (229).txt Grandma (23).txt Grandma (230).txt Grandma (231).txt Grandma (232).txt Grandma (233).txt Grandma (234).txt Grandma (235).txt Grandma (236).txt Grandma (237).txt Grandma (238).txt Grandma (239).txt Grandma (24).txt Grandma (240).txt Grandma (241).txt Grandma (242).txt Grandma (243).txt Grandma (244).txt Grandma (245).txt Grandma (246).txt Grandma (247).txt Grandma (248).txt Grandma (249).txt Grandma (25).txt Grandma (250).txt Grandma (251).txt Grandma (252).txt Grandma (253).txt Grandma (254).txt Grandma (255).txt Grandma (256).txt Grandma (26).txt Grandma (27).txt Grandma (28).txt Grandma (29).txt Grandma (3).txt Grandma (30).txt Grandma (31).txt Grandma (32).txt Grandma (33).txt Grandma (34).txt Grandma (35).txt Grandma (36).txt Grandma (37).txt Grandma (38).txt Grandma (39).txt Grandma (4).txt Grandma (40).txt Grandma (41).txt Grandma (42).txt Grandma (43).txt Grandma (44).txt Grandma (45).txt Grandma (46).txt Grandma (47).txt Grandma (48).txt Grandma (49).txt Grandma (5).txt Grandma (50).txt Grandma (51).txt Grandma (52).txt Grandma (53).txt Grandma (54).txt Grandma (55).txt Grandma (56).txt Grandma (57).txt Grandma (58).txt Grandma (59).txt Grandma (6).txt Grandma (60).txt Grandma (61).txt Grandma (62).txt Grandma (63).txt Grandma (64).txt Grandma (65).txt Grandma (66).txt Grandma (67).txt Grandma (68).txt Grandma (69).txt Grandma (7).txt Grandma (70).txt Grandma (71).txt Grandma (72).txt Grandma (73).txt Grandma (74).txt Grandma (75).txt Grandma (76).txt Grandma (77).txt Grandma (78).txt Grandma (79).txt Grandma (8).txt Grandma (80).txt Grandma (81).txt Grandma (82).txt Grandma (83).txt Grandma (84).txt Grandma (85).txt Grandma (86).txt Grandma (87).txt Grandma (88).txt Grandma (89).txt Grandma (9).txt Grandma (90).txt Grandma (91).txt Grandma (92).txt Grandma (93).txt Grandma (94).txt Grandma (95).txt Grandma (96).txt Grandma (97).txt Grandma (98).txt Grandma (99).txt
As you know, that’s the same way the WD SMP sees them. Point is, it’s not a bug. Operating systems, databases, spreadsheets–that’s just what they typically default to. Yes, the WD engineers could change it, but considering how many true bugs they aren’t fixing, I would be shocked if your complaint gets any attention.
So once you accept the fact that it isn’t going to be changed, give PIE a try, or a VBScript or whatever you choose. Embrace the help you’ve been given to resolve the issue for yourself.
Yeah, I get how it sorts it but it’s just stupid. Your average person cannot do a slide show that is in order because of the way it sorts the pictures. They should change the code to make it do a “natural” sort like Windows Explorer, maybe this is not possible but I would think it would. Of course, as you mentioned this is not really a bug just a major inconvenience for people trying to use this media player to display picture slide shows in order. I doubt WD will do anything to fix this, but maybe they will eventually since the coding shouldn’t be that difficult.
But in fairness, I doubt if most people are using the Windows right-click “Rename” because it renames items in a way unlike anything else, and without any ability to use a filename mask for standardization. I just don’t think many people will have media named the way you do. Even naming conventions for episodic tv shows follow the same logic–S01E01–with leading zeroes for that very reason. So do utilities like Adobe Bridge or other auto-importers, like when they sense a camera attached to the PC, they will import and name the media files accordingly.
Honestly, give PIE a try. It takes seconds to rename entire directories, and it can even rename them based on the metadata/EXIF, in sequential order, with leading zeroes.
Ok, now I’m confused. All my TV shows have always had the lead-zero naming convention i.e show.name.S01E01.xxx
One of my bug bears when I first got the SMP was that episodes were listed 1,10,11…2,21…even with lead zeroes for the episode 1-9.
It wasn’t until I was running the mamba theme with media library off that I noticed they were showing in proper order.
So am I remebering this correctly? Did a firmware update address the lead zero issue?
For all I know, the Microsoft / Mac behavior is quite likely patented. It is VERY complex logic. It requires a LOT of code to determine which elements of an alphanumeric string take a higher priority than others in a sort. For one thing, there are variations in natural sorting based on internationalization and language settings.
Rubicon:
Media Library ON: The WD is sorting by the TITLE (as defined in the XML data) alphabetically, not the FILE NAME.
Media Library OFF: It sorts by FILE NAME, but DISPLAYS the TITLE.
By the way, themes have nothing to do with it; sorting behavior is entirely defined in the firmware; nothing in the theme definitions can modify sorting.
