Create movie thumbnail in MoviePlayer
 

Though this'll bee too little too late for most, but those still using IC to convert and MoviePlayer to watch these converted movies will value this.

What I found out is that if you can play a movie in MoviePlayer* but you don't have a thumbnail, you can create your own thumbnails (.MAI files). Start playing the video in MoviePlayer, open the menu (e.g. Ctrl+M) and select Thumbnail/Update. Quicker is /U, i.e. to bring up the Command bar (e.g. Ctrl+T) and press U. When you go back to the list view you'll see your nice new thumbnail taken from that shot of the movie.

Furthermore, you can also place markers (called Indexes) in your videos to quickly jump to those points: again, start playing the file, open the menu and you'll find Index/New (/N) and Search... (/S).

I know not a breakthrough for most but I've spent quite some time to find out about creation of .MAI files or conversion of .THM to .MAI without luck so now I'm happy to have found these out.

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* Some remember that .MAI thumbnail files were created by IC1.1 so you could see a small snapshot in the movie list view in MoviePlayer.
IC1.5 only created the movies (and useless .THM files) so you could play back the movie with MoviePlayer but no thumbnail file.
[Finally, IC2.0 (and I think FFMPEG) conversions would not play with MoviePlayer, but only with FullMoviePlayer + VZ codecs (or TCPMP + its own codecs).]
(You don't need this for IC1.1 as it creates its own thubmnails, and IC2.0/FFMPEG won't play with MoviePlayer anyway. And for all the rest, you have TCPMP.)

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Edit: Courtesy of lmame, I learnt that IC1.5 needs the /PALM/Programs/MoviePlayer/100MQV01 folder already created in the drive you want to use to create the .MAIs. If you have that folder, it will create them fine. (No need to play around with the temporary files described below.) Thanks, lmame, for this and all else!!! :)

.MAI created with IC1.5 if conversion done straight to MS
 

I just managed to find out that if you use IC1.5 to convert directly to a MemoryStick (instead of first to your hard drive) it does create a .MAI thumbnail on the MS.

I guess IC2 might also work like this.

You can do it also with ffmpeg (I think, it's been a long time) :)

Yes? That would be cool -- can you tell how? (Or should I do a google search? ;) I guess I'll do one)

IC1.5 Create Temporary File also creates thumbnails
 

I'm having a great time here on my own (and with lmame :) ), hope you guys see it, too. :D

Well, I just realised that there's an option to create temporary files in IC1.5 which places them on your hard drive first (you can see which folder in the Settings page of IC1.5) AND creates the _thumbnails_, too. :)

If you later transfer them with IC1.5 to your MS, the thumbnails are properly moved there, too. So you can create proper files with thumbnails on your hard drive in one batch say overnight and then fairly quickly move them as needed to your MS.

I think I'll drink a beer to that tonight when I get home :D

I found this:
http://forums.knoppix-fr.org/viewtopic.php?pid=66892



Or this:
http://2ch.pop.tc/log/05/05/27/1058/1110042891.html



and there:
http://www.pspusa.com.br/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8651




and there:
http://pspinsidetheconcept.blogstat...res-dans-u.html



I changed some file names...

but I did not try it ;)

Dear Kappa & lmame,
Thank you for sharing that information with the community! It is never "too late" - I've just bought myself a used TH55 and I'm enjoying every moment with it - always fun to learn new things :)

Hello lmame,

thanks a lot for the search (specially for doing it across languages! :) )!

I created a couple of thumbnails according to the commands above (adjusted size to 80x60 and .thm filenames to .mai, also using both singlejpeg and image2) but MoviePlayer still doesn't seem to like it. :( Probably something is missing from the file headers. (ffmpeg most likely creates .thm files that even if remained to .mai are different from .mai) Will try to find the exact differences if I get some time for that.

But thanks once again, lmame, I think I can start building on that! :)

Have a great weekend!

Okay I got it now, it was a long time ago, far far away in my memory :)

In fact the thm file (big thumbnail) is not used, it's for the Psp (mostly) and useless without the mai...
the mai file contains indeed a smaller thumbnail AND in the header some information... The trick is that (at my knowledge) nobody apart Sony make them, I'll have to figure out (if I can) how to build it :)

So for the moment, you can use FMP from CliePet (or the modded version from JAmerican) that makes a thumbnail on its own ;)


Edit:
There are in fact informations in the header AND the footer of the mai file...

Well here is my status so far:
The .mai file is structured like this:

name of the MP4 file
[blah blah blah]
structure for the file size (mai file) and time of the file?
thumbnail in jpeg
name of the original file
structure for audio bitrate / video bitrate / video dimensions.

I found the structure and the codes for the footer:
name of the original file
structure for audio bitrate / video bitrate / video dimensions.
it was not really hard to get the structure...


The tricky thing is the header (structure for the file size (mai file) and time of the file?) I don't really know how they input the data in there...
It seems the fps is event not indicated in the .mai file...

My opinion is that it gets a bit tricky there, I'll see tomorrow if I get a "flash"...

If anyone is interested, I can get him a more accurate point ;)



Edit 1:
I found where was the video duration...

I guess it's ok, I had a wild guess which turned to be right, I found everything I guess, I'll try to code something...

Yeahhh it works, I managed to create a .mai file from scratch ;)

I did a small program that does this:
1°) you have to create a 80x60 jpg file using ffmpeg (see above):
In this example, I extract frame number 3 from test.wmv


2°) you input in the program the parameters of the video file (the MP4 file) (video and audio bitrate, length, duration, and so on),
3°) it generates a .mai file :)

I'll try to make a Php page where you upload the .jpg and you get the .mai in return :)

If anyone if interested, of course :D

By the way, Kappa, I'll need to do some tests, if you can send me some videos or we can share something, contact me ;)

I managed to adapt my software into a php script, it's acessible from there:
http://www.lmame-bug.com/lmai/index.htm

Kappa if you can tell me if it works...

Almost there
 

Well, lmame, you're one very impressive member!! I gave up at the point when I started looking at the data in the .mai and .thm files. I really appreciate all the effort you put into this!

I sent you a PM with a few questions -- maybe you can help me out.

Thanks for spending time on this!!!

But if you use IC to convert your video, it ahould already create a .MAI file...
If you encode on your hard disk (for example c:\), make sure this directory exists:
c:\PALM\PROGRAMS\MoviePlayer\100MQV01

When IC encodes a video, it will place .THM and .MQV in (not sure on this directory):
c:\MQ_ROOT\100MQV01
and .MAI in:
c:\PALM\PROGRAMS\MoviePlayer\100MQV01