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video thumbnails

amyg Member
in General support
I'm using a recent svn version - completely thrilled with the updates - great work!

Regarding video thumbnails - I understand that I add an image with the same name as the video - got that working.
Is there a way to better control the size of the thumbs? (as with images ala 'printCustomAlbumThumbImage' etc.)
As of now, they're being cropped. - I've tried changing the crop size to a larger size - but it looks really bad.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - I need the video album page to look like my photo album page.
cheers
amy

Comments

  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    I don't if I really understand correctly. You don't need already to upload a thumbnail for the videothumbnail. Just upload a normal sized image as if there was no video.
  • amyg Member
    Correct -that's what I've done.(Uploaded the image as the size I want) The problem I'm having is that it ends up being resized.
    It's odd - first I tried setting the thumbnail option to 'not cropped' and entered the size I wanted it to be - no luck.
    Then, I tried setting it to crop but at the dimension that I wanted it to end up - which sort of worked, but it looks really bad -as if it's been made smaller, then upsized..
    I'm guessing I need to find the code where the video thumbs are generated - any thoughts?
    thanks
  • amyg Member
    I probably should have mentioned that I tried a couple different themes - same issue.
  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    All image generation takes place in `zp-core-i.php`. But for hopefully obvious reasons it's not recommended to hack any of the core files.

    I am sorry, I still don't exactly get the problem. The image of course is resized for the thumbnails (it's would not be a thumbnaill if not...:-)) as are all other images, too. Same procedure. Perhaps you could post a link to the image in question?
  • amyg Member
    Sorry I'm doing such a lousy job of explaining!
    I wish I could post a link it - but I'm working locally right now - so it's not on the web.

    The issue is that unlike the thumbnails for the images - I don't seem to have control over the size of the thumbs for the videos. - even when I set the options in the admin panel.

    I use 'customAlbumThumbImage' for the thumbs for the albums of images -In an ideal world, I'd be able to do the same for the video thumbnails.

    I've tried uploading the thumbs at the exact size I want them to appear (300px) and setting the options for the thumbs at this size (both selecting 'crop' and 'don't crop'

    The result is that they'll be 300 px, but they look really bad, as though I'd upsized a smaller image to 300px. (and yes, I set the image and thumb quality to 100%)

    I hope this makes a bit more sense.
    thanks
    a
  • sbillard Member
    I understand all the words, but I still don't understand what you are saying. First let me describe my experience.

    I created a thumbnail image by doing a screen capture of a video. That image--video.jpg is 396x254 pixels. This is smaller than my normal images (800x600) but certainly larger than any thumbnail.

    I am using normal thumbnail functions--not custom ones--to display the thumbnails. The thumbnail for the video looks just like any of the other thumbnails on the page. It is cropped (85x85), but that is necessary since the image is not square to start with.

    I gather that you have set your thumbnail size fairly large (300x300?) I did notice that when I set my thumbnails to 200x200 they have the "jaggies". I will look and see if I can find why that is.

    If you can get your site on the internet it would make it easier for us to understand. "A picture is worth 1000 words...."
  • sbillard Member
    After researching, I believe the most likely cause of your problem is the same as what caused mine. There are several parameters involved in thumbnails. `thumb_size`, `thumb_crop_height`, and `thumb_crop_width`. You will note the comment on the crop height and width parameters that they should always be smaller than the thumb size. I suspect that yours are larger as was the case when I did my test. This causes the thumbnail to be upscaled in the browser resulting in the poor image quality we both observed.
  • amyg Member
    One thing that's interesting is that the only way I can change the size of the thumbnails is to select the 'crop' option. If I leave it unselected the thumbnail size reverts to 85 px - no matter what size I specify in the "thumb size" option.
  • amyg Member
    OK - the problem seemed to be that I'm using the "Super Gallery" and..
    The "printImageThumb" is getting it's size from the theme options from the main gallery rather than from the video album.
    Since all the other albums are Simpleviewer albums, I changed the main gallery thumbnail size to the size I want the thumbs on the video page to be and all is well.

    Once I get the site up (in the next day or so) I'll post a link.
    Thanks again for your help.
  • sbillard Member
    You should probably not be using the super gallery themes. They will be obsolete on the next release. You can do all the cool super gallery stuff by using "album themes" which are available in the current nightly builds.
  • amyg Member
    OH - I miss-wrote - I am using the svn version - I just thought that's what it was called.

    It's really a great step, by the way! I was about to have to use 3 installs for this site - now it's easy to use just one.
    Really great work
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