Video preview - first frame still not showing?

[j_c_hallgren]

Video preview: if Autoplay is off now the first frame of the video is displayed in the preview. Actually it's the frame at position 200 msec because often videos start with a couple of black, blank, or noisy frames.
Allows you to quickly check video file contents and information without the action and the noise.

I've tried this on a number of my WMV files (the only video files I have presently that XY will play) and I still get a gray preview box.. Is it possible that 200ms is still not far enough into file to get anything?

I've tried playing the file from start (at 00:00) to see what is at 200ms point but have been unable to be able to stop quick enough to prove anything...so...could this value (200ms) be available to change to a slightly larger value, maybe via INI? (This would also help get by lead-ins in video that are similar) Or other alternatives that I don't know of? Maybe just bumping it to 300/400?

As having a frame of video would DEFINTELY be helpful in knowing which video it really is! THANKS!!
Update:
Strange thing happening...when I kept trying preview of these 8 WMV files, the frame somestimes shows and sometimes not At first, I couldn't get it to show at all, but now, it shows maybe 50% of time...

[itsme28m]

The best thing would be that we can put in a value of how many msec far in the video it previews the frame. One reason is, when you make your own videos and you mostly make the first seconds just an image of something of all your own made videos, then you would only see that image as your preview frame for all your own made movies, when you can set your own value, then you wouldn't have that problem.

A new option in tools, configuration, thumnails, msec of previewing a video frame?

Edit: it would be GREAT to also have this option for the views, thumbnails, so you would see right away what video's you have and not to click every one file to see it, this would be a great improvement for people with many smaller videos

[surrender]

Yeah like JC said something for the user to play with .ini would be nice since all of us have different needs.

[j_c_hallgren]

I really doubt that having a thumb/preview would work...as the load times would be tremendous! Especially for a large number of files...

Also, having a user defined intro/offset/whatever, one could set it to zero to bypass any extra overhead of getting to that point and thus skip the feature...

[admin]

I really doubt that having a thumb/preview would work...as the load times would be tremendous! Especially for a large number of files...

Yes. Another problem: if you have hardware acceleration enabled, I cannot grab a frame (just like the Snapshot button does not work then). However, it might be that further research will bring up a solution to this and also make it much faster... video thumbs is really a cool idea, itsme28m!!

Also, having a user defined intro/offset/whatever, one could set it to zero to bypass any extra overhead of getting to that point and thus skip the feature...

Yep, good point.

I wonder whether the static video preview must necessarily be one of the very first frames. Why not take a relatively positioned frame like one at position 10%, 25%, or 50% etc. of the videos runtime?

[j_c_hallgren]

Regarding percent offset: Given the length of most videos, I would think going even 10% into file might take a while! Thus, I'm also revising my suggestion to have an option where one sets the nbr of whole seconds (or maybe with one decimal point so 0.5 would work) with maybe a max of 30 or 60, instead of milliseconds...that should allow us to skip past any intro/blank/junk and still not be that much delay.

I'd also maybe add a toggle to the orange drop-down to switch on/off the offset usage, so one could leave it set to 3 sec but deactivate it easily if desired...not sure what word(s)/title works best for this value..."Intro skip"?

[admin]

I'd also maybe add a toggle to the orange drop-down to switch on/off the offset usage...

I'll add it to the menu, but is "Preview static frame" a good caption?? Hmmm...