thumbnails failure

[tovid-suite]

From rosc2112@yahoo.com on January 30, 2011 12:03:11

Been trying to get tovid-0.33 to create thumbnails properly but it's only generating a thumbnail for every other file within the project.

EG:

Menu title: "LotR Ext. Ed." (adjust with -menu-title) Including the following files: "FotR1" (/sda3/backup/hdc1/downloads/temp/fotr1.avi) "FotR2" (/sda3/backup/hdc1/downloads/temp/fotr2.avi) Current font settings: -menu-font Helvetica -menu-fontsize 30 -titles-font Helvetica -titles-fontsize 20 Current menu settings: -menu-length 20 seconds Video 1: -seek 107 second(s) -chapters 1 Video 2: -seek 107 second(s) -chapters 1

\ NOTE **

Doing all work in directory /home/todisc-work.3 /tmp/todisc-work.0 will be a symlink pointing to this directory

---

Creating a menu title image [2 of 2] Seeking to 107 seconds in fotr2.avi

---

It never generates the thumbnail image for fotr1. I tried making a disk with 6 avi's and then it only generated an image for 2, 4 and 6 (1, 3 and 5 were blank).

I tried specifying a -seek option but that didn't help.

Perhaps as a feature request, an option dialog could be added to specify image files to use for each movie item, instead of having no choice but to use tovid's generated thumbnails?

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/tovid/issues/detail?id=142

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on March 02, 2011 17:22:33

Sorry I didn't respond earlier, google code seems to no longer forward issues to my personal mail as it once did and I just noticed this when browsing issues on the site.

todisc uses a fast seek ( -ss before the -i FILE) now, which in recent ffmpegs and certain files seems to create gray frames for thumbnails. Try using the "-slow-seek" option to todisc (svn head) for now. I will probably revert to using the slower seeking method as default if the problems persist.

thanks, grepper

Status: Accepted
Owner: grepper

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on July 02, 2011 20:44:24

Did using -slow-seek fix the issue for you ? I have added a note about the -slow-seek option to the information printed to user after a cancelled preview.

grepper

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on July 02, 2011 20:46:50

Status: Questions

[tovid-suite]

From rosc2112@yahoo.com on July 03, 2011 07:34:26

Just pulled the latest svn and tried, and it still does not produce a thumbnail image for file1 (only tried with 2 videos.)

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on July 03, 2011 15:38:19

Sorry, is that in answer to my question ? You tried -slow-seek and it didn't work for you ?

thanks, grepper

[tovid-suite]

From rosc2112@yahoo.com on July 03, 2011 17:11:51

Yep. Still not working. Tried with -slow-seek and -slow-seek -seek 127, still just getting a blank image on file1.

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on July 03, 2011 19:36:34

Please attach todisc.log. BTW, are both the preview and the final product with blank frame(s)? Possibly there is something about the way the files were encoded (perhaps badly) that is causing ffmpeg to fail, dunno. grepper

[tovid-suite]

From rosc2112@yahoo.com on July 04, 2011 07:12:31

Looks like it never generates an image1 thumb:

Attachment: todisc.log

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on July 04, 2011 16:39:26

Okay, that is the avi, which is fair enough and still an issue of course. But could you try it on the final mpg ? I'd be interested if it is just because of a dodgy encode (the avi) or something else. As well the final encode uses transcode (yuv) piped to ffmpeg so could you let it run through? In any case I think I will go back to using slow seek as the fast seek seems dodgy. (it wasn't when I tested it)

I think allowing user thumbnail selection is a good idea that I have thought of implementing in the past, but I am largely retired from the project now and just jumping in for bugs. (If you are a coder, a quick hack might be just having todisc replace the generated image with the provided one after it is created.)

A better, workable idea might be to use the existing get_largest() function in todisc which is used for -showcase-framestyle glass. It would involve outputting 10 frames, then picking the largest. The corrupt frames are much smaller and should be avoided this way. Only problem is that the seek might be off by as much as .344 sec (ntsc) or .416 sec (pal).

[tovid-suite]

From rosc2112@yahoo.com on July 04, 2011 19:18:28

Running it all the way through didn't help. Wish I was a programmer so I could be more help.

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on July 05, 2011 20:43:59

Wow, it failed with using both a tovid encoded mpeg AND -slow-seek? I've never had that happen that I can remember... Could you try the attached script on both the avi and the encoded mpeg ? It will create 10 pngs in the current directory (000001.png to 000010.png), then print the name of the largest image and display it. Run with "sh get_largest.sh "Path to video file" "seek" ex. sh get_largest.sh /home/robert/foo.mpg 127

Thanks for testing, grepper

Attachment: get_largest.sh

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on July 23, 2011 21:42:17

Okay, I decided to do some hacking on todisc as I had some free time. I added -user-thumbs for allowing user to specify using his/her own images for the menu buttons. It will also affect the -switched-menu (-static only of course). There is also a -frame-safe option that will output 9 frames instead of just one for previews and static thumbs, and take the largest. Both options are in the just released tovid-0.34. Unfortunately they did not make it into the gui, but you can still use the 'Custom todisc options' control (under 'Behavior' tab) to use them. Example: "tovid disc -files a.mpg b.mpg c.mpg ... ... -user-thumbs 1.png 2.png 3.png -out mydvd"

Please test and report if it works okay for you. grepper

[tovid-suite]

From grepper@gmail.com on August 18, 2011 06:36:10

I am going to retire this issue because of a lack of response and the fact that a work-around for troublesome videos is now in place.

Status: Fixed