ThumbGen

Until further notice I'll publish all my future releases at http://www.wdtvlive.net under ThumbGen's section.

Direct link: http://www.wdtvlive.net/forumdisplay.php?16-Releases

You'll find there one main download location and one mirror + release notes.

Here on my blog I'll just announce the release via a post having a link to the wdtvlive.net

We try to organize there a sort of global repository for Templates/Applications and other resources related to WDTV

WDTV ThumbGen v0.12.19 released!

2010-04-18T13:18:00.000+02:00

Version 0.12.19
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Added support for detecting multilanguage .idx/.sub external subtitles
Enabled document() and scripting for XSL
Individual episode rating is used when available
Last selected path when loading backdrop from disk is remembered
Several fixes regarding TVShows/series processing

Disclaimer: THE PROGRAM IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

WDTV ThumbGen v0.12.15 released!

2010-04-16T17:28:00.000+02:00

Version 0.12.15
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Extended filtering to support "without folder.jpg" and "without thumbnail" options
Layout of the Results Page was improved by offering all moviesheets related data grouped in the upper part of the screen. Elements can be dragged/dropped over the moviesheet.
Moviesheets generator class was refactored for better performance and more flexibility
The "Create sheets from metadata" dialog was extended to support creation also of folder.jpg and thumbnail images.
The existing metadata files (.tgmd) are treated similarly with the .nfo files. If metadata is present then movieinfo is loaded from there. Theoretically users who generate metadata always can stop generating also .nfo files.
For batch creating sheets based on metadata there is now multi-core CPU support (spawn threads to be processed by each core available). There is a switch in Options to turn this feature off (the option is not visible/available on systems with one CPU)
Added switch to disable auto refreshing the moviesheet preview. Can be switched on/off from Options or directly using a checkbox under the moviesheet editor. Note: When processing in Automatic mode I recommend letting the option switched on so you can see the preview of the sheet before being generated (there is no performance loss as the sheet is generated only once).
If metadata exists and contains movieinfo then this is loaded as default in the MovieInfo control
Added full support for importing on-the-fly .nfo files from mymovies.dk (all ThumbGen's supported fields are imported)
The default built moviesheet (when entering the Results Page) has now all fanarts also autopopulated (if the options for autopopulating backdrops is not switched off in Options)
A new moviesheet type is available: the sheet for the parent folder (eg. for C:\movies\Action\2012\2012.avi the parent folder is Action). It can be built independently from the other sheets, is automatically placed in the right folder and its name can be adjusted using Options->Naming conventions. To be used with templates specially designed for folders. This sheet must be generated manually and can be generated at any time as long as you are processing a movie inside that folder.
If metadata exists and contains imdbid of the movie then this is also used to locate the movie (same as for .nfo files)
The "Create sheets from metadata" dialog was extended to support updating IMDb rating for the generating sheets using the latest rating from IMDb website. All other movieinfo remains untouched (taken from metadata) only for the rating the newest value from IMDb is taken.
Extended IMDb info to support Release Date (formatted as dd.mm.yyyy)
Extended IMDb info to support MPAA (available in %MPAA% token)
Added automatic mode for processing movies. Identical with the manual mode but each dialog has a predefined action (button) that will be automatically executed when some predefined (settable in Options) timeout expired. The feature allows user at any time to intervene in the process (if movie was not correctly chosen or if the default sheet is not nice) make adjustments and then continue in automatic mode.
Added possibility to define on start page a preferred collector for movieinfo. If there is no metadata this info is automatically selected. For the collectors supporting IMDB Id search the movieinfo is extracted automatically and for the ones without IMDB Id search a dialog will be displayed for the user to confirm the movie.
Added switch to disable auto populating fanarts (Options/Moviesheet). For the users using only templates without fanarts makes sense to switch the feature off (as it is slow)
Added possibility to define on start page a preferred collector for covers/posters. It can be chosen from the selected collectors and when displaying the Results page this one will be first selected (instead of first available cover as before)
Added a new dialog "Test template" where any template can be tested. Includes also display of the xml sent to the rendering engine.
Added XSL support for templates. If there is a template.xslt (XSL 1.0) file near the template.xml then it gets applied over the xml to be rendered. The XML sent to the rendering engine contains a node with subnodes having name="%sometoken%" and as text the value of the token.
Extended support for TVShows/series. A lot of new tokens available (see Templates Documentation) and processing is much faster. Just TheTVDB.com is supported and it is recommended to process your TVShows separately from the normal movies and to choose TheTVDB.com as preferred collector for both cover/info during that session.
Added possibility to drag-drop over the Moviesheet Editor of an image file from your PC (image will be used as background)
Added %EPISODEPLOT%, %EPISODERELEASEDATE%, %EPISODELIST%, %EPISODENAMESLIST%, %EPISODETITLE%
In the (IMDb) movie-preselect dialog it is possible to double click the movie to be used.
In Options/Moviesheet there is now possible to define priorities for the movieinfo sources: Preferred collector/Metadata/.nfo file/IMDb. The program is trying to use them in the priority order. If information from one source is missing the program attempts to get it from the next source and so on.
Extended Plot from IMDb. If possible the Full Summary is retrieved and if not the "short" Plot is returned. The token remains the same %PLOT%
Added "I'm done (go to next)" button; should be pressed when user manually did everything he wanted inside Results page and wants an accurate log entry (it does same thing as "Skip movie" but the log marks movie as Done insted of Skip)
Added option to autofill IMDb Id for the first movie returned by a collector without IMDb Id support (this way that movie gets access to the Backdrops)
Rendering is done at full size for the small sheet preview (same performance as before) but Preview and Generate are not instant (no rendering anymore, just a file copy to target location)
Added few more thumbnails sizes
Added filmaffinity.com for EN and ES
Backdrops of the same movie (same IMDb Id) are grouped and displayed always together (doesn't matter which collector is selected)
Extended autoselecting images to support cover/background/fanart1/2/3 (see Options/Moviesheet)
TheTVDB.com supports multiple languages. In Options/TVShows/Language you can choose the language that should be used (if there is no data retrieved in the selected language then English info is returned by default)
Fixed detection of movie when using "Detect movie based on foldername" to support also TVShows (assuming you use the supported format //episode movie file)
Improved episodes detection

WDTV ThumbGen project goes on

2010-04-11T19:23:00.000+02:00

Hello

No news since some time but the project is not abandoned at all ... I have a lot of nice new features being tested by betatesters and we really hope that soon we'll have a stable release that will be made public and accessible via "Check updates" button.

So stay tuned and don't change the channel ;)

WDTV ThumbGen v0.12.1 released!

2010-03-28T08:30:00.000+02:00

Version 0.12.1
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Fixed: Incorrect processing of the & character. An invalid entity message was displayed

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen v0.12.0 released!

2010-03-27T20:24:00.000+01:00

Version 0.12.0
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Extended logging for invalid templates
Preview window can be closed by Escape key
In Advanced Settings it is possible now to specify what device/mod/firmware and sheets mode is used and the recommended output of the main/extra moviesheets is setup automatically.
Added possibility to choose a different template for the extra moviesheet. Basically now the program can generate (up to) two independent moviesheets (sharing same data) using two different templates.
When processing a path the missing folders are created automatically
In some special cases the template was analyzed wrong (by capitalizing the quotes instead of title)
When the "Autoselect cover from disk if available" option is set in Option then in the Results page the "My Own Thumbnail from Disk" collector is selected automatically
The user entered media info for .iso file was ignored during generating .nfo/metadata

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen v0.11.12 released!

2010-03-22T21:55:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.12
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Fixed the case of collectors having no info for a movie despite IMDB finding it: there is a new button added to the input box allowing to jump to Results page even if no collector returned results
Extended "Autoselect folder.jpg/fanart.jpg" with customizable filenames
Implemented multi language support for external subtitles by using %EXTERNALSUBTITLESx% (x=1..5) (exactly the same as embedded subtitles)
Added in Moviesheet Properties a new information: the default language used when processing external subtitles; do not confuse this with the setting used by OpenSubtitles; they are different. The value set for Moviesheet will be used for the external subtitles that have no language in their names (eg. movie.srt); if the subtitle has a two letter language in its name then that one will be used (eg. movie.en.srt)
Fixed: Critical bug in collecting movies (introduced in 0.11.9)
Added CSFD.cz as collector for Movie Info (partial information, allow IMDb to fill up missing data; the collector does not return the fields that are the same in all languages)
Small tweaks and fixes

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen v0.11.11 released!

2010-03-21T20:59:00.002+01:00

Version 0.11.11
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Added two switches in Options: "Autoselect existing folder.jpg as cover" and "Autoselect existing fanart.jpg as background" (by default switched off both)
Added %SUBTITLESx% (with x = 1..5) for the embedded subtitles having the individual languages (English names)
Implemented an update moviesheet mechanism (by storing moviesheet metadata); it allows rebuilding (manually or automatically) all moviesheets by reusing all or some parts from the metadata
Fixed: "Skip current folder" button in the "Query keywords" page does not skip the folder but only the file
Fixed: Crash when disabling search and using only "Own Video Snapshots"
Fixed: AspectRatio from MediaInfo is saved sometimes using the wrong decimal separator
Updated documentation: Click to download

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen v0.11.10 released!

2010-03-20T15:44:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.10
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Fixed bug in processing the naming of the extra moviesheet
Fixed bug in displaying the Aspect Ratio for the moviesheet

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen v0.11.9 released!

2010-03-20T10:06:00.001+01:00

Version 0.11.9
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Improved the subtitles support for moviesheets (see updated documentation)
Added possibility to generate an extra copy for the moviesheet (see Advanced Settings)
Added possibility to retrieve all Banners from TheTVDB.com; for the moment they are collected together with the Backdrops; later they will be maybe organized in an own category (see Options)
Added option to "Do not auto populate moviesheet with backdrop by default" (see Options)
Added custom extensions to be processed as "movies" (see Advanced Settings)
Added "skip folders containing this strings" feature (see Advanced Settings)
Optimized the collecting movie files mechanism and avoid crash on system-protected folders/files
Added on-the-fly import-and-convert .nfo files from xbmc (Warning: if you generate .nfo files with ThumbGen the old .nfo will be replaced by TG's format)
Improved IMDb movie matching (by capitalizing the keywords sent to IMDb)
Added filter to Select Files/Folder dialog
Every movie displayed in the Select Files/Folder page has indication if it has subtitles/moviesheet/movieinfo (can be disabled in Options if you feel it slow)
Fixed editing media info for the .iso files
Optimized the Results page display by removing one redundant template rendering
Fixed preserving the AspectRatio for the small moviesheet display
GUI fixes and tweaks
Updated documentation for templates Click to download

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen v0.11.8 released!

2010-03-17T15:01:00.002+01:00

Version 0.11.8
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Added search box inside the IMDb Preselect page to allow fine querying
Added tokens %SUBTITLES% and %EXTERNALSUBTITLES% for the embedded/external subtitles
Fixed: Properly formatted bitrates to Kbps/Mbps/Gbps
Added container to the text media info (%CONTAINERTEXT%)
Added possibility to select an entire disk drive to be processed
Added correct video/audio codec description
Added possibility to load own backdrops from disk (added an "Add from disk" button to the backdrops list)
Fixed: Sometimes (Win7) accesing My Documents caused an exception
Fixed: SplashScreen was causing crashes preventing ThumbGen's startup
Fixed: Removed the default values for .iso files
Fixed: Querying media info about .iso files was hanging
Updated documentation for templates support: Click to download

NOTE: This release is not properly tested; switch to a previous version if you find it buggy (and of course report the bugs here)

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11.7 released!

2010-03-13T23:31:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.7
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Implemented correct DVD and BluRay folder structure support (detect keywords and place results in the right place)
Implemented basic MediaInfo editor so the user can adjust the data before generating moviesheet
Added MediaInfo to the .nfo file; it will be loaded automatically from .nfo when the Results page is displayed
Added tokens for video codec, video bitrate, audio codec, audio channels, duration and filesize
Added option to limit filesize for moviesheets (if you use a limit it will slow down a bit the speed of rendering)
Populate the default rendered moviesheet with info from .nfo if present and select "My Own Data" as movie info provider if .nfo file found
Remember the selected template between sessions
Automatically render a default moviesheet using first cover and current movie info when displaying Results page
Fixed bug in selecting .m2ts/.m2t and .wmv9/.wmv files (duplicates were generated for each of these extensions)

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11.6 released!

2010-03-11T21:48:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.6
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Added support for VIDEO_TS folder structures
Added IMDb search and prompting user to choose the right movie
Added logging module
Fixed bug in processing .nfo files
Fixed bug in displaying moviesheets (in the Select files dialog) if the default naming scheme is different than default
Fixed the wrong trailing characters inside the Plot returned by IMDb
Fixed the OFDb.de encoding problems and incorrect title retrieval
Fixed moviemeter.nl crash when no title found
Fixed the splash screen remaining in the background

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11.5 released!

2010-03-08T17:07:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.5
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Added "Reset to default settings" button in Options window
Fixed splash screen issue
Fixed aspect ratio value for the %ASPECTRATIO% token
Fixed encoding issue for the MoviePosterDB results
Added flag "Use always the IMDb rating" (default true) inside Options
Several bugfixes and improvements

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11.4 released!

2010-03-07T16:11:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.4
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Fixed buttons layout inside the "Select files" dialog
Added support for Fanart (%FANART1%, %FANART2%, %FANART3% tokens supported)
Added reset moviesheet data button

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11.3 released!

2010-03-07T10:16:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.3
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Added cine-passion (French) and moviemeter.nl (Dutch) as collectors
Added %VIDEORESOLUTION% and %VIDEORESOLUTIONTEXT% tokens containing the video resolution (eg. 1920x1080)
Added possibility to build up a random thumbnail from snapshots in both automatic and manual mode (nice for own movies); Go to Options then download and set the path to the Movie Thumbnailer in order to activate this function
Added full support for IMDb Movie Info
Added possibility to fill up missing items in the Movie Info returned by a collector with data from IMDb (check Options-IMDb Settings for details)
Added possibility to search by IMDb Id instead of keywords (when prompted to enter keywords you can enter either keywords or some IMDB Id)
Fixed several bugs inside collectors

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11.2 released!

2010-02-27T23:04:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.2
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Improved support for adding custom text for seasons/episodes/CDs; the $S (for season number) and $E (for episode or CD number) tokens can be used when defining a thumbnail for all files in a folder (batch processing)
Added filter by season number when retrieving posters for a TV Show (just for TheTVDB.com collector)
Store/Restore state/position for ThumbGen's windows
Added %SEASON% and %EPISODE% as supported tokens for Moviesheets
Added %FRAMERATETEXT%, %FRAMERATE%, %ASPECTRATIOTEXT% and %ASPECTRATIO% as supported tokens; the only difference is that the tokens without TEXT have "_" instead of "." and "-" instead of ":" (to allow mapping them to filenames inside templates)
User can customize the folder.jpg output name and the moviesheet output name (experimental, use with caution)
The existing thumbnail can be also used as cover inside the moviesheet
During double-thumbnail patch not all all jpgs are renamed (only the folder.jpg and moviename.jpg)
Added OFDb.de and cinema.ptgate.pt as collectors

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11.1 released!

2010-02-20T00:16:00.000+01:00

Version 0.11.1
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Fixed season/episode filtering
Fixed processing MovieInfo when the corresponding nodes were missing in Moviesheet's Settings node
Fixed the incorrect behaviour of "Disable search" and "Custom Text Properties" (introduced in 0.11)
Fixed Rating decimal point conversion
Fixed minor IMDb Plot retrieval bug ("full summary | add synopsis" removed)
Fixed Resolution detection for MediaInfo
Added support for VideoFormat mapping via /Template/VideoFormats/VideoFormat node and %VIDEOFORMATTEXT% and %VIDEOFORMAT% tokens (similar behaviour with MediaFormat)

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.11 released!

2010-02-13T21:34:00.003+01:00

Version 0.11
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Improved the Results page concept; it is now possible to generate thumbnail, folder.jpg, .nfo file and moviesheet with one button click (user can disable via switches what he does not want to be generated)
Adjusted the supported .nfo file format to be compatible with XBMC
Added MovieInfo even if the collector returns just the IMDb Id
Extended MovieInfo support with Countries and Companies
Added switches to turn off MediaInfo discovery and Moviesheet display in the File Browser
Added MoviePlayer.it cover/info provider (Italian)
Return MovieInfo from Alpacine.com (Spanish)
Return MovieInfo for Cinemagia.ro (Romanian)
Extended season/episode detection to support also formats like 1x02, 2x03
Options are grouped together with the current "Advanced options" and offered in a lot of places along the GUI; makes life easier to adjust some options after starting processing movies
Improved IMDb info support
Improved ThumbGen integration of TViXiE templates
Added a new collector "My Gallery" that shows all images from the "Gallery" subfolder (just place your images there and they will be available inside ThumbGen)
Several bug fixes and GUI improvements

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.10 released!

2010-02-07T15:33:00.004+01:00

Version 0.10.1
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Improved the .nfo files management: the generated .nfo file can be used later as MovieInfo source and has now XML format (very similar with the XMBC one); you can put your own data there and you can use it inside ThumbGen
Centralized MovieInfo display
Extended media flags detection (flac, vorbis, SD resolutions, embedded subtitles)
Implemented proxy support (inside Advanced Options)
Implemented full support for TViXiE templates: BUT the feature is disabled, as I am not allowed to distribute the required library file (no licence). You must eventually take it from TViXiE or ask for it directly from its authors (Neodynamic ImageDraw). If you place the DLL near the ThumbGen's exe file you'll get MovieSheets support (Trial watermark will appear on each generated MovieSheet). To build up the MovieSheet you can drag'n'drop cover/backdrop/MovieInfo over the MovieSheet or you can use the "Green check" buttons. The generated sheet (wd_tv.jpg) will be placed near the movie file. Supported are original TViXiE templates and also some of the MSG-modified ones (including media flags and rating stars) and they must be placed in a Templates subfolder.
The updates support was moved to a new domain/host
Bug fixed: Improved images memory management
Bug fixed: Filtering season-episode number was wrong sometimes, affecting normal movies (eg. ocean's eleven)
Bug fixed: Skipping current folder was not working in some circumstances
Bug fixed: Cinemagia.ro collector had a bug in retrieving Movies

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.9.10 released!

2010-01-31T20:17:00.000+01:00

Version 0.9.10
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Implemented a fully automatic (optional) mode (beta, use with caution)
External assemblies are now embedded inside the main exe for easier deployment (they will be expanded inside ThumbGen's folder during first startup)
Added option to switch off retrieval of episode screenshots for TheTVDB.com
Added backdrop/fanart support for blu-ray.com
Added search by IMDb Id support for thetvdb.com
Added format/resolution/video/audio icons inside the MediaInfo panel
Bug fixed: TheMovieDb.org was returning search results by keywords if the specified IMDb Id was not found; this was "by design" but leads to errors in automatic mode

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.9.9 released!

2010-01-28T21:17:00.002+01:00

Version 0.9.9
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

Added Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Blu-ray.com and MoviePosterDB.com as collectors
Implemented gallery view for backdrops/fanart (where the collector supports it) with possibility to view/save the original images
Cinemagia.ro collector was optimized (but the site is still slower than the rest)
Added "Skip current folder" button to the Adjust keywords dialog
The moviehash-based search was optimized
Movie info was extended with more fields (where available)
GUI was adjusted to fit on lower resolutions; there is a Collapse/Expand button in the Results page that toggle the visibility of the main Tabcontrol
Various GUI improvements and tweaks

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.9 released!

2010-01-13T17:12:00.025+01:00

Version 0.9.8
---------------------------
Link: Click to download or click "Check for updates" (v0.6+)
Release Notes:

At startup of the application (only first time) it can take a bit longer as it attempts to download several dlls needed by the new functionalities (temporary solution until I push them via autoupdate)
Added basic media info support for movies (show codecs, etc) in both the Select Folders dialog (when selecting a movie file) and the Results page (v0.9.8)
Implemented "kheda's fix"® for the "double thumbnails" via network shares (details here); basically a workaround for the WDTV bug of showing both thumbnail and movie through network shares (v0.9.8)
Added preview of the "wd_tv.jpg" (if present) in the Select Folders dialog (v0.9.8)
Improved support for labelling TV Shows (if the "Ask user .." option is unchecked the app is parsing file name, extracts episode or CD number and places it over the thumbnail automatically) (v0.9.8)
Bug fixed: Movie Player was leaving some of the screenshots in the temp folder (v0.9.8)
Bug fixed: Support for autoupdating multiple files was still buggy (v0.9.8)
Bug fixed: Retrieving subtitles was not done asynchronous (v0.9.8)

Implemented smarter IMDbID detection even without .nfo file and provide basic IMDb info (v0.9.7)
Last selected folder is now remembered (v0.9.7)
Added a switch to generate thumbnail only based on the "Use Movie Snapshots" without having to search first (v0.9.7)
Added possibility to specify own image for thumbnail (select from disk) (v0.9.7)
Improved filtering the movie names for episodes (v0.9.7)
Improved subtitles detection and new dialog to choose the correct subtitles version (v0.9.7)
Retrieve also the episode thumbnails from TheTVDb.com (v0.9.7)
Bug fixed: Sometimes the "Analyzing ..." information remained on the screen after processing was done (v0.9.7)
Bug fixed: A screenshot made without the cropper (sniper) cannot be stretched (was ignoring aspect ratio)(v0.9.7)

Added a basic video player that allows making video snapshots from own movies (cropped area or full size) and use them as thumbnails. Take some screenshots and then click OK. You'll get back to the results page where a new collector ("My Own Thumbnails") will have your screenshots listed. This feature requires proper codecs installed and also Windows Media Player v10+. Recommended codecs are Haali Media Splitter, ffdshow and 3ivx Codec (for .mov files).
Any .nfo or .txt file containing a valid IMDb ID (link or id or whatever) will be scanned and parsed and the ID found will be used by the collectors that support IMDb ID search (currently cinemagia.ro and themoviedb.org). If you select an image (in the Results window) that has some IMDd ID associated you can also generate a basic .nfo file that will store that IMDb ID (next time search will use it) by clicking the "Generate .nfo" button.
Some GUI tweaks and improvements (eg. Results are grouped where possible by movie name, folder.jpg for the current folder can be generated, exception handling improved, etc)
Added more sizes for thumbnails: 120x160, 120x180, 150x200, 163x245, 180x240, 200x300, 225x300, 240x360
Fixed bug in watermark text and improved dragging text over the image
Added "Save original image as"
Option to create Folder.jpg in the movie folder automatically together with the thumbnail
Subtitles support: inform if the movie has (or not) subtitle, rename subtitles with same name as the movie, automatic download of the correct subtitles
Fixed autoupdate mechanism to allow updating multiple files

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.8.1 released!

2010-01-10T10:09:00.002+01:00

Version 0.8.1
---------------------------
Link: Obsolete
Release Notes:

Added cinemagia.ro as collector for Romanian movies (Warning: this website is sometimes very slow)
Added info about search time for each collector to easily identify the slow ones
Added 'Cancel search' button during searching. After cancelling the list of already retrieved results will be displayed
Added timeouts for search operation: max 10 seconds for an image retrieval, max 2 minutes for a movie search

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.8 released!

2010-01-08T21:06:00.002+01:00

Version 0.8
---------------------------
Link: Obsolete.
Release Notes:

Added the option to preserve aspect ratio and several output sizes for thumbnails
Added list of user-defined words to skip, apart of the built-in skipping mechanism (user defined blacklist)
Added possibility to choose movies independently inside a folder if it contains multiple movie files
Improved results display
Added two more covers providers: alpacine.com and filmposter-archiv.de
Save/restore collectors selection
Added possibility to add episode numbers over the selected thumbnail; user decides text, font, color and position (this feature is in a beta stage as it is not properly tested yet)
Detect if collectors are offline and switch them off
Image download speed is improved
Several minor bugs fixed

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

Pending tasks and requests for future releases

2010-01-05T15:33:00.283+01:00

This post will inform you about the current pending tasks and their status. Please post your comments/feedback/suggestions here (the bugs or the issues strictly related to some version can be posted in the version's own post). The items that are strikethrough are fixed and will be available in the version displayed in brackets.

I started to organize my issues/tasks a bit better

Report bugs and ideas here

Pending:

Add user-defined profiles (ie. Movies-profile, TVShows-profile, Xtreamer-profile, etc)
Redesign mainpage and implement a Startup wizard
Offer a simple default template in Templates subfolder
Multilanguage support for ThumbGen GUI (really needed?) (later)
Refactoring and code optimization (v1.0)
Create documentation/help for ThumbGen (later)

Known bugs:

Encoding issues for MoviePosterDB.com

Music files support will NOT be implemented (there are tools to embed artwork inside mp3 and I am not using the WDTV to listen to music anyway).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.7 released!

2009-12-16T21:52:00.006+01:00

Version 0.7
---------------------------
Link: Obsolete.
Release Notes:

Extended initial folder selection - multiple folders can be selected via checkboxes (beta)
Added Amazon.de and Amazon.fr as collectors
Several bugs fixed (related to search keywords and autoupdate mechanism)
Minor improvements

This is the last update for this year, I wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Important: ThumbGen requires a PC with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/2008/7 and Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5SP1 installed (can be downloaded for free here).

WDTV ThumbGen 0.6 released!

2009-12-16T14:46:00.007+01:00

Version 0.6
---------------------------
Link: Obsolete.
Release Notes:

Check for updates is now possible from inside the application (this feature is in a beta phase, please report if any issues)
No more installation required (you can uninstall old version) simply download the archive, unzip it somewhere and, from time to time, press the "Check for updates" button to be sure you are up-to-date.

Coming soon:

Extended initial folder selection (multiple folders possible via checkboxes)
Two (maybe three) more covers providers (hopefully with a lof of covers for German movies)

WDTV ThumbGen 0.5b released!

2009-12-12T13:18:00.003+01:00

Version 0.5b
---------------------------
Link: Obsolete.
Release Notes:

Automatic movie detection is much better (improved default keywords)
Movie detection can be based either on the folder name or the movie filename
Bug fixed when some images could not be loaded (invalid metadata)
A bit faster search (when more than one collector is selected)
Save/restore user options
Added option to skip entire folder during processing
Updated main window log with details about the processing status
Added possibility to select a thumbnail for a folder that has no movies inside (folder.jpg); quite useful for series root folder

Note: Until I am ready with the autoupdate mechanism please uninstall (Add/Remove Programs) previous version before installing a new one. I hope that soon I am able to host the ClickOnce app somewhere and then it will do autoupdate on startup.

WDTV ThumbGen 0.4b released!

2009-12-10T21:03:00.004+01:00

Version 0.4b
---------------------------
Link: Obsolete.
Release Notes:

It is possible now to reuse same thumbnail for all movies inside a folder (quite useful for series)
Switch on/off folders recursive folders processing
Switch on/off prompt to adjust keywords before each search
Improved generation of keywords used for the automatic search attempt (if the prompting before each search is turned off)
GUI changes/improvements (splash, tooltips)
The TVDB.com results include season number (if available)
For each result it is possible to jump to IMDb.com and/or the provider website to get infos about the movie

WDTV ThumbGen 0.3b released!

2009-12-08T23:44:00.015+01:00

Version 0.3b
---------------------------
Link: Obsolete.
Release Notes:

Critical bug fixed when no thumbnail was present near the movie file (app crashed)
Minor GUI improvements and better exception handling
Several minor bugs fixed

Note: Until I am ready with the autoupdate mechanism please uninstall (Add/Remove Programs) previous version before installing a new one.

WDTV ThumbGen 0.2b released!

2009-12-06T14:40:00.016+01:00

I wrote a simple app to collect/generate thumbnails for WDTV and I was thinking maybe it can help others too.

The app is not touching existing video/subtitle files, only places the selected poster/cover near the movie, as .jpg, having same name as the movie file.

Generated thumbnails are 200x300 (max. 70KB) and can be chosen from amazon.com, themoviedb.org and/or thetvdb.com.
It basically scans files in all selected folders and based on the movie filename tries to perform a search.
If the default search is not retrieving optimal results the user can refine/adjust the keywords and resubmit the search.

I wrote it for me, so I do not guarantee 100% satisfaction for everybody (it is a beta version, a draft)

If there is interest (from your side) and time (from mine) we can think about adding providers/extensions.

PS: The app is a classical ClickOnce distribution (no extra registry/files) and can be uninstalled easily from Add/Remove Programs.

Version 0.2b
----------------------
Link: Obsolete.
Release Notes:

First release
Supported movie extensions: *.avi, *.mkv, *.mpg, *.mpeg, *.wmv9, *.divx, *.m2t, *.m2ts, *.m2v, *.mov, *.movie, *.mp4, *.mts, *.ts, *.tp, *.vob, *.wm, *.wmv
Supported providers: amazon.com, themoviedb.org, thetvdb.com