How can I change the thumbnail pics for movies in Win XP Explorer?

Discussion in 'Other video questions' started by spills, May 31, 2009.

  1. spills

    spills Member

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    I've got hundreds of car racing videos, as well as stupid viral videos, on my hard drive. I'm trying to figure out a way to change, either individually or by batch, how Windows Explorer (XP Pro) pics the thumbnail. The main reason for this is because a lot of the videos have a black screen for the first frame usually, and that's what Explorer is picking for the video thumb. Anyway to change this without using a 3rd party browser?
     
    spills, May 31, 2009
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  2. attar

    attar Senior member

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    I did this with the odd AVI video that had a black frame at the front.
    It requires that you pick out an existing frame in the source - so it doesn't lend itself to a batch process (unless the same frame was used for each video - but that would also suppose that all the videos had the same resolution).

    Here are my notes.It assumes that the files are AVI and that the required codecs are installed on your PC.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    This procedure requires 'VirtualDub' and the same codec that was used to create the AVI file.
    It assumes that the source video uses either XviD or DivX codec.
    It inserts a selected frame at the start of the video stream.

    In this instance, step (4) is using frame 1592 of the source video: note that it works for DivX or XviD - just

    use default values for the compressor (reminder, the DivX or XviD codec must be installed).
    Start by dragging the source file into VirtualDub.

    1) 'Video' -> 'Fast Recompress'
    2) 'Video' -> 'Smart Rendering'
    3) 'Video' -> 'Compression'... select Xvid or DivX (selection must be the same as the source)
    4) 'Go' > 'Go to frame..' 1592 (or use the slider) and click Start Sel (the first horizontal 'flag' symbol beneath the slider bar)
    5) 'Go' > 'Go to frame..' 1593, (or use the slider) and click End Sel (the second 'flag' symbol)
    6) 'Edit' -> 'Copy'
    7) 'Edit' -> 'Clear Selection'
    8) Use the slider or 'Go to Frame' 0,
    9) 'Edit' -> 'Paste'
    10) 'File' -> 'Save as AVI'

    Frame 1592 will be re-encoded as a keyframe at the start of the video, the rest of the video will be Direct Stream copied (no encoding).
    -----------------------------------------------------------------

    [​IMG]
     
    attar, Jun 1, 2009
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