3 replies to this topic

[markcpeters1]

i would like to change the thumbnail associated with an item in a DVD menu. Does anybody know how to do this? The thumbnail that I want to change came from an EyeTV file. Thank you.

[tsantee]

Click on the thumbnail and a scroll bar will appear below that lets you select another frame. Some types of video files can also have the thumbnail frame selected in the Video tab of the Edit window. That tab is not present for some kinds of video files such as MPEGs.

[markcpeters1]

markcpeters1, on Jan 28 2006, 05:02 PM, said:

i would like to change the thumbnail associated with an item in a DVD menu. Does anybody know how to do this? The thumbnail that I want to change came from an EyeTV file. Thank you.

It worked great. Thank you.

[Corvus]

tsantee, on Jan 28 2006, 07:24 PM, said:

Click on the thumbnail and a scroll bar will appear below that lets you select another frame. Some types of video files can also have the thumbnail frame selected in the Video tab of the Edit window. That tab is not present for some kinds of video files such as MPEGs.

Just wanted to pass on a tip that I've just discovered. The choice of thumbnail is limited for MPEG video, as you only have a very short slider with which to select it, so there's a large jump between each position on the slider. However, it is only the slider that's restricting the choice of thumbnail, not anything inherent to the way Toast works.

What I've found is that if you save the Toast document to a .disc file, you can manually edit the entry that specifies the location of the thumbnail, and set it to any desired point in the file. Here's how:

1) Set up the DVD in the video tab of Toast in the usual way. Click on the preview thumbnail and drag the arrow slider below to the set the thumbnail to a point close to the frame you really want. Choose "Save" from the file menu and save the disc setup in a .disc file.

2) This is an XML file, so you can open it to edit the contents with a text editor such as BareBones Software's excellent free TextWrangler (this won't change the file type or creator when you save it, so the file will still open Toast when you double-click it in the Finder).

3) Find the section that relates to the video item to want to change. These are all located in an area that starts at line 10 with a line that reads "<array>", then two lines that reads "<dict>" and "<key>asset type</key>". Each video item starts with these two lines.

4) 50 lines into the item you'll find two lines that look like this:

  <key>preview time</key>
  <integer>13097132</integer>

The number between the <integer> tags sets the position of the thumbnail in the video file. I'm not sure exactly what it's counting, but from my brief experience, adding about 85,000 to the number moves the thumbnail about 1 second further on (this may change depending on the bit rate of the file).

5) Simply change the number to create a thumbnail at a different point in the file. You'll need to use a bit of trial and error to find the place you want. Save the file and reopen it in Toast to see the result. Repeat as necessary until you've got the thumbnail you want.

Note that if you try dragging the slider in Toast again, it will snap back to its usual positions.

Hope this may help someone.