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slffl · 03:12 PM

I have a bunch of .mov and .avi files on my mac. All the .mov were taken with a Minolta Dimage 7i, and all the .avi's using a Canon S500.

In finder, some of them have the first frame of the movie as their thumbnail, while other just have a quicktime logo thumbnail.

Is there something I'm missing so that ALL of them use the first frame as their thumbnail in finder?

Thanks.

P.S. Under 'show view options' for the folder, 'show icon preview' is checked, and it seems that all images have a preview icon, only some movies don't.

TETENAL · Sep 9, 2004, 03:23 PM

I don't think the Finder automatically creates thumbnails for movies.

What you can do is open the movie in QuickTime Player and scroll to a position that would be a good and representative frame for the move. Then do Edit->Copy to copy this frame. Then switch to Finder, select the movie file and do File->Info. In the Info dialog select the icon at the top left and do Edit->Paste to paste the frame in the clipboard as file icon.

slffl · Sep 9, 2004, 03:30 PM

Thanks, that worked. However the ones that do have thumbnails were created automatically somehow. I sure didn't make them. This way works, but takes more time of course

.

ryju · Sep 9, 2004, 03:34 PM

Some digital cameras will create custom thumbnails of recorded movies for you. My Sony does this whereas on other movies the OS will just show the standard QuickTime icon.

KP* · Sep 9, 2004, 09:51 PM

This is one feature that I'm ashamed to say PCs have had for years. It seems like such a typically Mac thing to have, it makes it so much easier to deal with multimedia files. I'm shocked that OS X still doesn't have this built in.

JKT · Sep 10, 2004, 06:22 AM

The problem is more likely to be the .avi files - any .mov file should have a full preview automatically. .avi files need the correct codec to be installed for Quicktime to be able to play them - it is likely that you don't have that codec and Quicktime will not be able to open the files (and therefore the Finder can not generate the preview). I suggest you download the DivX codec and install it (it is a free download for the codec - the pay for stuff on that page is for the software to create .avi files). This should give you the previews for the .avi files in the Finder.

Note though, that the .avi format is just a wrapper around the actual codec needed for the video which can be one of many, so even with DivX installed, not all .avi files will be playable in Quicktime.

Edit: oops, my bad - I take it that you aren't using column view in the Finder? If you switch to column view, you get a full preview of all files that Quicktime recognises. My comments about .avi files still apply though - if there is no preview, it is because you don't have the correct codec for them.

Uncle Skeleton · Sep 10, 2004, 09:41 AM

I don't think that's it. If QT can parse the file format but not find the right codec, it will pop up an annoying dialog telling you so, not just show a generic icon. Generic icons are usually for files it can't even figure out the file format of. Or if previewing is turned off. Sounds like either a Finder bug or user error (like you forgot you turned previewing off).

slffl · Sep 16, 2004, 04:26 PM

Well all the avi's have come from the same camera, canon s500. Doesn't matter which view in Finder i'm in. The ones that do have the automatically created thumbnails, have a small black border around them. The ones I create myself do not. Also, Quicktime is able to play them so I assume I have the correct codec.

Still searching

slffl · Sep 16, 2004, 04:35 PM

Well I figured out what's creating the preview icons automatically. It's Canon's ImageBrowser software that comes with the camera. I browsed to the directory and it created previews for all the movies, NICE!!! So now when I use Finder, the preview icons are all there

Jasoco · Sep 17, 2004, 02:51 PM

I think OS X should have an option to automatically show a preview for movies too. Like Images. And what they need to do is provide an option top use "Get Info" to select what frame to use. (For the videos that have blackness as the first frame.)

Graphic Converter lets you make thumbs. But it uses the first frame.

Amorya · Sep 17, 2004, 03:15 PM

Originally posted by Jasoco:
I think OS X should have an option to automatically show a preview for movies too. Like Images. And what they need to do is provide an option top use "Get Info" to select what frame to use. (For the videos that have blackness as the first frame.)

Graphic Converter lets you make thumbs. But it uses the first frame.

QuickTime has a feature for choosing a frame which represents the movie - called Poster Frame. The interface for choosing one is there - the Finder just needs to read the data.