Question about Movie sheets ThumbsGen and WD Live Hub

WD Legacy Products WD TV Themes
1

Hey guys

I know I am ■■■■■, and I apoligze for asking a question that I am sure has been answered, before but here it goes,

I havve downloaded and installed the goodbye Black Mamba Theme as well as player around with Thumbsgen to pick my backgrounds for the thumbs, movie sheets, and extra sheets. I have it to the point after I genererate the all the files, and then go over the same folder again, everything in the Current movie file window on the bottom left windows shows up the way it should.

However when I connected it to the External drive to the WD Hub, and even rescan it, the graphcs are there, but, fthumbs of the folder icon, arent the ones I choise, the movie sheets are completly diffent, norhing, that i did in the thumbsgen showed up in the WD Hub.

I aplogiize for the post, and I am fairrly new ot this, but what am I doing wrong or what am I missing.

I am getting more into the movie files and how that all  works but, but what part of the process am I missing. I have install the Black Mamba bundle, and all of that and everything looks good if it would only show up on wd like the way I am planning it out on thumbgen.

Any help is greatly apreciated,

Thanks,

soundguy

2

Mods, may want to move this to Themes Topic

You are not an ■■■■■, this stuff can be confusing. :smiley: I am assuming you are using Good Bye Black Mamba (linksheet) version

if I understand correctly, you have installed the bundle, chosen it in Thumbgen, and then generated a thumbnail and a linsheet  for your movie.

If you have done this correctly, you will end up in he main directory with your movie (we’ll call it movie.mkv) and the thum,bnail "movie.jpg. You will also get the linksheet that is also called movie.mkv in the directory above this. The linksheet (the one in the directory above the movies directory) is the backdrop. You should be able to open it up in any graphics editor or just double click on it and see that it is the linksheet that you made in thumbgen. It should look exactly like the one you made just made. Then rename it to the exact name of the movie (movie.mkv) and move it to the root of the theme.

The below is something like the structure afer you generate with TG

FOLDER_ROOT

–>MOVIE.JPG (this is the linksheet you will rename to movie.mkv)

----->FOLDER_MOVIES

----------->MOVIE.MKV

----------->MOVIE.JPG

Remember, you can open the lnksheet and see if it looks like what you made in TG. Then rename the file extension and copy it to the root of the theme.

  1. Does this make sense?

  2. Is this what you have been doing so far?

I may be a little off as i have modified a bit and am going by memory, but this is the general idea. DeVicious’ sheet on how to make linksheets for the theme is pretty self explanitory. If you don’t hav a copy, you can download it from the link below

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?f7oxt83t6dkw15t

Good luck. It may seem complicated, but you’ll get the hang of it quickly and it’ actually pretty simple.

-P

3

Hi, Thanks for the reply,

I understrand about, putting the Jpg in the root directory, but I think the problem is with the black mamba itself.

It did infact install corretly on the hub, but It not showing the movie sheets at all that was created in the thumbs genrator.

I have chaed the aperarnce setting the view settings and all that and still nothing.

I thought with the black mana theme you could change the 4 different ways of displaying the information. If so I can`t seem to find it.

The menus look like the black mamba these but it still operates as if in the deafult WD interface even though the black mamba is selected.

Also on a side note, is there options for the pop up as I have seen on other demos as your scolling through your dvd’s the folders and the movies enlarge a bit to let you know which one is selectrd, and is there a way to link in sample clips into the menu system.

Anyways, I see the preview of the blakc mamba setup, and love how professional sharp and classy it looks, and trying to understand how to make my dvd setup look as sharp.

Again any and all help is greatly apreciated,

Thanks,

soundguy

4

Sorry but I am a bit confused. Lets see if we can sort it out. 

First off maybe you are confusing what you can do in TG vs what views you get on your hub. When you make your linksheet in TG, using the BM template, you can change the two innner and outer picture suing the “F” button, as well as some of the wording and choosing a different cover. That’s about it using the template. Ther are other templates and you can also create your own, but this is the one made for the theme you are using.

When you view your movies on screen though, you have five views that you can use by selecting the yellow button. Only one uses your linksheet, the rest show the thumbs or just a list. use the yellow button to cycle through your views and see if you get to the one that shows linksheets. If you just get the thumbs on the bottom in that view with no linksheet from TG, good chance you named it differently that the movie or did not put it inthe correct directory.

Four thing to make sure of:

1) are you checking the JPG that is created in the directory above the movies directory before you rename it? does it look like what you made in TG? If so, renaming an copying to the root of the theme will make this work

2) Are you sure you have changed the file extension  to match the movie’s extension? I dont know what OS you are using but by default, windows does not show you file extensions. You need to either turn them on, or you could do this in a DOS window (CMD.EXE).

3) Are you abslutley sure you are putting the linksheets in the right directory? It should be in ".wd_tv \ theme\ Goodbye Black Mamba Theme" . It is the same directory that has all of your xml files for the theme.

4) Are you sure that you are in the correct view mode? As above, cycle through the five view with the yellow button. If you are seeing several rows of thumbs, you are looking at the wrong view. the linksheet view will just have the thumbs at the bottom so you have room for the sheet.

Here below is the setup. The top picture was geerated by TG and put one level up from the movie (The.Green.Lantern.jpg). I opened it up as a jpg,checked that it was ok, and then I changed the extension from .jpg to mkv to match the movie exactly (The.Green.Lantern.mkv). I then put the file into the root of the theme ".wd_tv \ theme\ Goodbye Black Mamba Theme". Once completed, the second picture below is what the linksheet looks like when I am on my TV using that specific view. Five views…only one of them shows the linsheet.

696×792 109 KB

Per yout other question, GBBM  does not enlarge the selected video, you get a gold/yellow border around that one. Coder’s choice, that’s just how she desiged it. There are many other great themes available, some of which do enlarge the thumbnail of the selected movie in the middle of the screen.

Check the four  steps above and let us know what happens.

-P

5

Hey

sorry for not replying, sooner, i got busy with work so I haven`t had much time to play with this.

2 thngs I check jpg’s of links sheets and they are what I want. I realize now thta you to move them into theme directory of black mamba, with tthe other xml files.

Which I did.

Their also the same exact files as the actual movie.

Now when I cycle through the different modes, I get the list option, the preview where small tv pops up on the right side and the movie beings to play, in the small tv.

One thing interesting there is before the movie starts to play, it appears that the link sheet that i have been trying to get working appears in that tv.

Also on another option, I get all of the movie wallpapers from the movie, starts to play as a slide show which is really vool and I like.

But I am still haveing problems getting the link sheet to work.

Keep in mind that I have each movie in their own folder, and in the case of movies like transfomers and Men In black, and iron man, I have them under header folder.

So for instance if you want to watch iron man, you click on iron man from the list, and then from there you click on Iron Man 1, IIron Man 2, Iron Man 3.

Is that whats also causing a bit of the problem, I have done with movies like avenger from its own “single folder” to no avail as well, but I just wanted to check if the folder system I am using is part of the problem.

On a side note as I do want the link sheet to work, what about the exta sheet from Thumbsgen does that also display.

Again I really apreciate the ongoing help,

thanks,

soundguy

6

Keep in mind that I have each movie in their own folder

1) Whoa…First, having each movie in it’s own folder is going to make this much more complicated. You are only going to get the linksheets when you are in the folder that actually contains the movie. This and other themes are not really designed to be used this way. For this reason, most people use “Genre Folders” that contain many movies. You can make sheets for folders, but this is a whole different issue and I would suggest that you get your sheets working for your movies first before dealing with this.

So:   Do your linksheets work when you go into the individual folders that have the movie? To see the linksheet, you have to be inside the folder that has the movie. The way you are setup with individual folders, you are not going to get a thumbnail for each folder. You would have to make a thumbnail, name it folder.jpg and put it in the folder.

2) Noting that you mention that a slide starts to play, did you setup the slideshow transition under photo setup like it is displayed on page 3 of the PDF that comes with the theme? It is critical that you have the interval set to 5 minutes

3) Views:

I am unclear from your post how many views you are able to see. Sounds like just three. You should be able to get the five following views by cycling through with the yellow button. If you dont get all five, I am guessing there is a real issue with the install

Gallery View for Linksheet (thumbnails on bottom)
Preview Mode (TV Screen on the right)
Video Browse Mode (2 Rows of each 8 thumbnails)
Large Video Browse (1 Row of thumbnails with reflections
List View Mode (looks like a folder structure)

4)  Read Both Manuals that come with the Theme:

The theme has two PDFs that come with it. One is the v1.9 user guide, and one is the linksheet guide. You need to read these several times and make sure you have installed the theme correctly and understand the sheets. DeVicious wrote out step by step how to install, how to setup the HUB, and how to use Thumbgen. You need to follow the steps EXACTLY for the install. If you are getting nowhere, I would even try deleting the theme and starting from scratch just to make sure it has been done correctly.

5) Do the Demo:

When you unpacked “goodbye Black Mamba Theme Pack.rar” to get theme, you got a folder called “Demo (look inside first)”. Try the demo to see if you can get that to work. There is a folder full of linksheets that you copy to the root of the theme, and Movie and TV demos that you can copy onto your HUBs root like you would for a folder of movies of your own. When the demo is installed, you will have a folder of movies and tv shows on your hub, and they should show the linksheets. Get the demo up and working, and you will see what you need to do to get your own setup working.

If you cannot get the demo working, I am not sure where to go from there. Sure you could have a bad install of the theme. You could delete it an reinstall. I also would full reboot the HUB from powered down after you build a bunch of linksheets. Sometimes this helps.

That’s about the best I can tell you with the info posted. I would get the demo working, and you will be able to see how the files are supposed to be setup and working.

Good luck, hopefully some of this info helps.

-P

7

Hey Pearl,

Huge thanks for the info.

I am understanding this allot better but still not quite there yet,
Frist off I have all 5 view screens.

I have adjusted the photo slide show options to the fade and 5 min interveal time and all that.

Now according to the Black Mamba Guide, I am supposed to have 3 new files after the thumbgen  process, but I am only getting 2 of the 3 files. I am getting the movie.Bluray.jpg, and the movie.Bluray.xml , but I am missing the movie.Bluray.mkv_sheet.jpg

So I am not sure why thats being generated.

Also when I go over the movie, the link sheet does come up, but just briefly and then gets replaced by the dvd cover of the movie which then stays on.

So I am not quite sure whats going on there.

Again I apologize for the constant questions. I am trying to understand the menu system as I am trying to load the hard drive up, and get it setup so I can take this to the lake, in the next little bit.

again I apreciate all the help,

Thanks,

soundguy

8

Now according to the Black Mamba Guide, I am supposed to have 3 new files after the thumbgen  process, but I am only getting 2 of the 3 files. I am getting the movie.Bluray.jpg, and the movie.Bluray.xml , but I am missing the movie.Bluray.mkv_sheet.jpg. So I am not sure why thats being generated.

Ahhh, and it all becomes very clear. You have not read the Link SHeet Manual that both comes witht the theme, and I posted a link to in this very thread.

  http://www.mediafire.com/view/?f7oxt83t6dkw15t

It is a one page sheet that very clearly states:

.

"XML FILES NO LONGER NEEDED
The XML file is no longer needed with Black Mamba…

That does not mean that the theme does not use XML files, it means that you will no longer be generating them for you movies

It goes on to say:

"ThumbGen will create you 2 files:

1x Cover Box and 1x Sheet
both files have the exact same name.   The Cover Box will be stores in the folder of your movie file and  the sheet will be saves in the upper level folder (one folder backwards in case you don’t understand  „upper level“

No XML, No sheet called moviename.mkv_sheet.jpg. These were for the older version that was not a linksheet version. Either you have installed an older non-linksheet version of Black Mamba, or you are using older templates in Thumbgen. 

Here are the steps you must follow.

  1. Install “good bye black mamaba” and follow setup from v1.9 manual that was included. (setup stayed the same)

  2. READ THE LINKSHEET MANUAL THAT BOTH COMES WITH THE THEME AND I HAVE POSTED FOR YOU ABOVE

  3. Install Goodbye Black Mamba by DeVicious.bundle in Thumbgen

  4. Choose “Black Mamba Final Movie Sheets by DeVicious” from dropdown menu

  5. Create your two files and follow the instructions in the linksheet manual, that explains how to rename the and move the linksheet.

If you have installed the correct theme and bundle, it would seem to me that you are opting for “Black Mamba Movie Sheets v.4” instead of “Black Mamba Final Movie Sheets by DeVicious” when you choosing the template for making your linksheets. 

-P