Thumbnails disappearing with Video Files Help

[johnwoofan]

Hey!

Just want to say, this is a great board, full of helpful people and it's a great place to share our love of editing!

I've been looking for a solution casually for about a year to this, maybe I'm just stupid! When I import all my videos
from my camera and put them into appropriate folders they make thumbnails for the files. Unfortunetely when I close down
my computer and come back, they have disppeared. This is a pain because, it makes a large amount of files easy to work
with as you have some idea what's contained from a thumbnail!
Now initially I just thought it was my computers age (not that old) but I have a Dell XPS i7 Laptop also and it's the same
story!
I shoot high quality 1080i .mts files so I'm sure they are a resource suck! Is it because the computer doesn't have the
power in the RAM to remember all these files? I would of thought, once a thumbnail is made it's just like a JPEG and not
changing ever in real time? Is there something I've turned off on my computer, telling it not to remember thumbnails?

If anyone has a solution that would be awesome, I do work with hundreds of clips and projects and it would make my
life a LOT easier!

[lata]

Hi John

First you should not be having a problem and the thumbnails should re-main in the library

I am not sure where you are inserting the files to.

You say you are importing your video from the camera, are you transferring the video files to your computer, then inserting to Video Studio.
Or are you trying to insert directly from the camera to Video Studio.

To insert a video file to the library either drag and drop from windows explorer or use the Import Media Files folder top left of library.
Make sure the three icons to the right of this folder are selected and showing yellowish in colour.

The thumbnail you see represents the file on your hard drive, to find the file, right click this thumbnail and select Locate on Computer
The selected thumbnail will have a yellow border, you should be able to play this video to show on the preview screen, the thumbnail does show any movement.

Ok once the thumbnails disappear do you see any error messages or Re-Link requests.?

[BrianCee]

OK - you say you import them into appropriate folders - do you mean that ? - actual folders on your hard drive ? - then do you open up Videostudio and import them into a library pane.

I ask because it sounds a bit as though you are importing direct from your camera to a library pane - which means the thumbnails in a library will be linked to your camera which you presumably unplug regularly..

could you be a little more specific about how your videos get from your camera into VideoStudio - and then what do you do.

[johnwoofan]

Hey Trever,

Thanks for the response! It's not actually any problem really with Video Studio, just related to my projects as that's my editor of choice.
More a PC thing, if anyone can help!
I import all my videos into my Editing HDD and always label a folder by date. Sometimes I'm putting up to 400-500 clips in (freelance work)
and the computer takes sometime to render a thumbnail for all of them. Which I wouldn't mind it doing once but why doesn't it remember
these the next time I start up? All I get is this (attachment)

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[johnwoofan]

I don't import all my videos into Videostudio but when I'm just wanting to browse my folders and preview footage with my media player, shouldn't the
Thumbnails remain once rendered once on the HDD? Must be possible!

[BrianCee]

So your question is nothing at all to do with VideoStudio - but is a Windows question.

doesn't just changing the view for the folder return the thumbnails ?

[lata]

Hi
As you say its more a Windows Explorer issue.
If you wish to view in Thumbnail View then it does take time to create the thumbnail image, this will of course be cached somewhere, whether you can tell Windows explorer to save the details I don’t know, but clearly the details are being lost when you re-boot the pc, don’t turn off the PC, just joking.

Do you need to view in thumbnail view, the image you show looks like Icon view.
And what view are you using as default, maybe changing the default view to thumbnail will save the images being displayed. I just don’t know?

[lata]

Hi

Ok

I have just set my folder view as default to “Thumbnail View” and once they are created can be viewed instantly even after re-booting the PC, so the cache is retained in tact.
Using Windows XP but should be the same for all operating systems.

[johnwoofan]

Hi,

I do use Thumbnail view (large) always! I just think it can only be that I've clicked accidentally
not cache or something to save system resourse? Normally I'm pretty good at resolving any issues
I have with my PC but this one has left me scratching my head!

[johnwoofan]

Also where is there something that says specifically "Thumbnail View"? I don't see that, I
thought making them "Large Icons" and then it loads the Thumbnails? (1st time round, it keeps my choice in future)
Maybe I'm missing an option that has "Thumbnail view"?

[lata]

Hi

Well I am running XP, I open any folder and set the “View” you wish to use as default , I see Thumbnails, Titles, Icons, List, and Detail

Under Tools menu -- Folder Options- View Tab, you can set the default for all folders or the individual folder.

Windows 7 uses a similar setup, but Thumbnails are Large Icons etc set that then find the Tools- folder Options menu -- once you find the menu bar that is…………..

[johnwoofan]

Right, I appreciate all the advice and help but I'm running Windows 7 and I have always set all
my folders to "Large Icons" which show thumbnails but they still disppear...
I don't understand as it happens with both my Laptop and PC? Anything to do with the
files being so data intensive!? I'm at a loss...

[johnwoofan]

Oh and just to make it clear, I can get thumbnails but it has to re-render them every single time and it takes forever if you have 300+ HD files and it's quite taxing on the CPU,
even i7 (Laptop)

[Ken Berry]

OK... my preferred editing computer these days is also an i7 laptop running Win 7 (see details under my avatar). Most of my video I store on an external USB hard drive in various folders. Many of my projects have more than 200 clips. Yet even on the external drive, when I open any folder, the thumbnails are all instantly there. I too have my right click > View set to Large Icons. So I too am unable to work out why it is taking so much time for you...

[johnwoofan]

Yes....It seems so weird!

Oh well, thanks for trying to help!