Video Thumbnails - Using a Different Frame?

[12Iceman]

I would like to find a way to get the thumbnail feature in Windows XP to display something besides the first frame of the movie as the thumbnail. In most cases the first frame of a video is completely black and this makes thumbnail view pretty borring. Windows Vista manages to do this (by displaying what looks like a random frame), and I was hoping that someone knew a way to do this in Windows XP as well.

Thanks in advance!

Edited September 5, 2006 by 12Iceman

[12Iceman]

As much as I hate to bump my own thread (at least give me credit for waiting a couple of days), I would really like to see if there is anything out there that can do this. Windows XP's video thumbnails are almost useless in their current form and it would be nice to have something useable without having to go all out and use Vista.

[Angel Blue01]

That frame cant be changed in XP.

[Supex]

I have the same problem. :crazy: I don't know who was the master mind behind making the first frame the thumbnail. Like you said, 99% of the time, the first frame is black. I was hoping they'd change that in Vista, but apparently, it will still be the first frame. On the macs they usually choose a random frame, and display that. I would also love to know if there is a patch, or some kind of software that could do that.

[12Iceman]

I have the same problem. :crazy: I don't know who was the master mind behind making the first frame the thumbnail. Like you said, 99% of the time, the first frame is black. I was hoping they'd change that in Vista, but apparently, it will still be the first frame. On the macs they usually choose a random frame, and display that. I would also love to know if there is a patch, or some kind of software that could do that.

Actually, they do fix this problem in Vista (at least in RC1 its there). I am just trying to find some way to do something similar in XP.

[Supex]

They fix that in Vista?! That's great to know. Well, I think we're both on the same hunt. Haven't seen anything that does that. :(

[TheChevalier]

What would be truly great is if they had little animated icons so you can differentiate between images and video without having extensions visible or how about a play button watermark over a random video frame(kinda like a smaller version of youtube).

[MaJoR]

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/videothumb.htm

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....s/shell_ext.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....etthumbnail.asp

Well, I'm no programmer, so I can't make much of all this. However, it seems to me that it is possible to do this with a simple registry edit.

[rtyuiop]

Actually we have 2 options:

1 decompile Shmedia.dll and find the function that create the thumbnail,and modify it.

2 copy the windows vista dll, MediaMetadataHandler.dll and patch it to Xp.

both things are diffcult to do,

Another method could me make a program that generate the thumbnails and then register it to be on Explorer.exe in thumbnails view.

This can be made doing a shell extension and replacing the default:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]

@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

I think this can be make but don't know how to start

[zmysta]

i think this might be an easy work-around. directshow is used to capture the first frame, what needs to be done is to make it so the filter skips the first few frames, or decodes only a certain frame in the middle, like 1 minute in.

do it with ffdshow and avisynth. add

trim(1500,1501)

in the avisynth section and make sure ffdshow is the default decoder. delete all the thumbs.dll files from your folders and visit them again in thumbnail view. you should end up with nice thumbnails for all your videos.

i haven't tried it, im just quoting a good friend of mine, who is a moderator at a video forum told me it will probably work

[rtyuiop]

Omg!! I am going to try it!

i think this might be an easy work-around. directshow is used to capture the first frame, what needs to be done is to make it so the filter skips the first few frames, or decodes only a certain frame in the middle, like 1 minute in.

do it with ffdshow and avisynth. add

in the avisynth section and make sure ffdshow is the default decoder. delete all the thumbs.dll files from your folders and visit them again in thumbnail view. you should end up with nice thumbnails for all your videos.

i haven't tried it, im just quoting a good friend of mine, who is a moderator at a video forum told me it will probably work

What file shoud we modify??, please explain a little bit.

[zmysta]

you don't need to modify anything. to roughly quote him:

*install avisynth

*install ffdshow, from here http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/. make sure you tick avisynth processing/plugin while installing

*click start, then programs, then ffdshow, then video decoder configuration. select avisynth and tick the box next to it. type "trim(1500,1501)" without the quotes, then click ok

*find yourself an xvid or divx avi file and go to the folder it is contained in. click tools, then folder options. select show hidden files and folders and untick hide protected operating system files, then click ok.

*check if there is a thumbs.dll file in the folder your video file is in. if there is, delete it. close the window

*go back to the folder and windows will generate a new thumbnail

[azz0r_wugg]

Does Vista choose a random frame or does it use like 10% in? I never have black frames in Vista.

[rtyuiop]

Does This Works For Someone?

[nurriz]

I've tried this, but I can for the life of me not make it work. It really surprises me that noone has found a solution for this issue. I scoured teh internets and can't seem to find anyone who actually succeeded with this.

[ring0]

i just tried the avisynth/ffdshow idea and my cpu spiked for a while, like it was reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally trying to do something, but in the end cpu use died off and no thumbnails were generated at all.

anybody know an ms engineer who would understand the logic behind wanting this changed/figured out? :D

[vktRus]

Try it.

Thumbnail_enable_custom_frame.zip(Matroska Splitter + reg-hack.)

[Rudy]

major revival.....but at least you posted something good :)

[Kamnitzer]

does it work ?

[vktRus]

does it work ?

For me it works for avi, wmv, mpg, mpeg, mpe, asf, mkv.

Look file thumbnail_enable.reg, to add your format.

Edited November 9, 2008 by vktRus

[StarLion]

Does Vista choose a random frame or does it use like 10% in? I never have black frames in Vista.

I think Vista uses a frame dead-center in the middle of the video.

[vktRus]

I think Vista uses a frame dead-center in the middle of the video.

Forum title: Customizing Windows XP?

[Cyber-Ghost]

Try it.

Thumbnail_enable_custom_frame.zip(Matroska Splitter + reg-hack.)

Hello and thank you very much for this solution. I was looking for it a long time ago and it's also working on Vista 32bits for my mpg videos.

[Hermann965]

I've finally came up to this thread, while I was struggling to find this answer, and the proposed solution seems to work.

But I'm facing two problems:

- mp4 & wmv thumbnails are spoiled: upside down, or "frame B" (looks like the rendering has been done without using keyframes

- half of flv have a white thumbnails

regardless of what offset is being used.

It looks like Haali Media Splitter is doing something wrong, or may I solve the problem tweaking ffdshow...

Can someone help?

(the only codecs I have installed are CCCP)

[Dr. M]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I have a riff on vktRus's fix that is a bit of an improvement.

There are a few important things to know about this issue.

On 19/12/2009, Shell Integration was removed from Haali Media Splitter. That's the bit that generates the thumbnails! Supposedly it will later be available as a stand alone download. At the moment it's non-existent.

The fix previously posted works around the issue by installing the last version of the Haali filter that still has the feature.

The attached file has the missing component (mmfinfo.dll) which you want to copy to your Haali installation folder and register it.

This gives us a fix that will work with all recent versions of HMS. (You can download the latest here: http://haali.su/mkv/)

The other problem is that occasionally the {BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1} key already has a (default) value.

If it is not {327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}, the thumbnail_enable.reg may not replace it with the correct value.

So if you still have a few stubborn thumbnails, go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.XXX\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1} (.xxx is your problem file type), and make sure (Default) is {327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}. If not change it or create new keys/strings as needed.

Besides adding extra steps to the readme file, I expanded the thumbnail_enable.reg file to include:

.asf, .avi, .mpe, .m2v, .mpeg, .mpg, .wmv, .ogm, .mp4, .mpv, .flv and .mkv.

Feel free to add or subtract whatever you want.

Btw, some people say that .mkv thumbnails do not work with Haali/CoreAVC. I use CoreAVC and my thumbnails work just fine with this method.

So now you know the root of the problem and have a fix to go with it that you can customize as needed.

Edit: Hmm. Can't make the attachment stick (yes the file is below 2mb.)

Here's a RapidShare link. Maybe someone else can figure out what I'm doing wrong and attach it: http://rapidshare.com/files/410938832/Enable_Thumbnails.zip