How to create thumbnails of online movies

CodeGeek

Akiba Citizen
Nov 2, 2010
5,181
1,863
Hello everyone, :hi:

in this how-to I want to describe in detail how you can create thumbnails of online movies.

Maybe you know the situation: You found a nice clip on xvideos.com, userporn.com & Co. and want to know the movie ID or the name of the performer(s). So you post a link in the identification section, but no one responds. Maybe people just to lazy to watch the clip. Or maybe they can't (e.g. if it is on fc2.com which limits access).
How about uploading some thumbnails of the clip as an attachment to your post? That can increase the chance other members will help you.

But how can you do that? Just follow these few steps:

  1. Open http://www.ant.com/video-downloader, download and install the Ant.com Video Downloader. It can download the videos which are played by most of the flash video player.
    If you have installed the plug-in correctly you should see a toolbar containing buttons like download, player and so on.
    Maybe you have to modify the settings (e.g. the download directory where the downloaded videos will be saved).
  2. Go to the clip you want to download. The download button should switch from disabled to enabled. If not, maybe you have to start the clip. Press the button and the plug-in will download the video.
    In this example we will use the following clip: http://www.xvideos.com/video1933544/hot_office_lady_masturbating_while_standing_in_the_office_kitchen
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  3. Open http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/, download the latest version of MPC (Media Player Classic) and unpack it.
  4. Start MPC, load the video & select "File > Save Thumbnails..."
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    In the save dialog you can define how big the picture should be (at least the width) and how many thumbnails it should contain. The more thumbnails it contains the smaller the single thumbnail is.
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  5. Upload the thumbnail file as an attachement to your post on Akiba-Online.
    In the "Additional Options" section you should see an "Manage Attachements" button.
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    Press it and another window will be open. Choose the picture on your computer you want to upload. Then press the upload button. You can choose 5 files at a time, but you can repeat this process over and over again.
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    Now you should see the uploaded files in the lower half of the window.
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    The "Attach Files" section will be updated every time you upload or remove files from your post.
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  6. Now you can look at your post by using "Preview Post" or submit it by pressing the "Submit New Thread" button. Voilà.

Maybe some additional tips:

I'm looking forward to your feedback, critics and suggestions.
 
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CodeGeek

Akiba Citizen
Nov 2, 2010
5,181
1,863
you can use thumbnailme software. it's easy to create thumbnail :joker:

You mean this one? http://www.thumbnailme.com/

It's released under the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License, version 2). And it's available for Windows and Linux, also there seems a problem with the Linux supports as the current version is 3, but only version 2.1 is available. That's especially interesting because it's based QT 4.8.0 Framework which had its debut on Linux (at least as far as I know).

Nevertheless it looks really interesting. Thanks, serializable, for your post. I definitely will have a look on it. I'm curious how many files it really can open - regardless of what is mentioned in the feature list.



P.S.: serializable, you're name sounds like the one of a Java developer.
 

CodeGeek

Akiba Citizen
Nov 2, 2010
5,181
1,863
Okay, here a brief summary of my experience with Thumbnail me v3.0, Windows Edition:

The installer supports English, French, German and Spanish. The program is 32 bit so it should run on every computer. The program needs about 30 MB of space on your harddisk.

The program itself supports English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, Croatian, Portuguese, Chinese and Russian. It will start with the default language of your operating system (I selected English in the installer, but the program started in the language set in my Windows installation).

As you can see in my screenshot you can specifiy the outlook of your thumbnails on the left: The number of thumbnails in rows and column. Based on your selected image width the height will be calculated.

On the bottom are the options which movie files should be processed. As you may guess that program loves to do batch jobs (means processing a lot of movie files in one shot).

In the "Edition" menu you'll find the "Settings" menu item. But don't be afraid: There aren't many options to set up. If you're okay with the selected language you maybe even never will have to enter the settings dialog.

One thing amazed me: There are Internet settings in the settings dialog. And you may have noticed that is something on the top which also seems Internet related. Will that program make call home when you don't expect it???
No, it's the built-in ImageShack support. If you have an ImageShack account (I don't have one so I couldn't test it) it will upload your creations there. Very convenient.

All in all that program is very very easy to use - also I think the MPC is also easy to use. But these one comes with a much more nicer user interface and also has the advantage of being able to do batch jobs.

About the supported movie formats (containers formats as well as video codecs) I can't say much at this point. I tried it with FLV and MP4 which I downloaded on that site I mentioned in my first post. And it worked.
It also worked with AVI and WMV files. But unfortunately it doesn't support not western characters in file names.

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