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Topic:
DVD Jacket Displayed
This thread has 284 replies. Displaying posts 91 through 105.
Post 91 made on Friday November 19, 2004 at 10:24
jsdb
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I have jumped on the bandwagon and am creating a list of all my DVD's on my pronto. I don't have a changer, but would like a list to sort through before I go stand at my DVD cabinet for a 1/2 hour deciding what I want to watch. I also use DVD Profiler, but am new to the software.
Could someone tell me how to export a DVD cover image from DVD profiler so that I can then import it as a bitmap to my .pcf?
I have already stolen most of my DVD images from Lowpro (thanks a bunch, your configuration is awesome). Believe it or not he didn't have every DVD ever produced. So I still need to be able to retrieve a few DVD cover images.
Thanks in advance.
Post 92 made on Friday November 19, 2004 at 14:42
Lowpro
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You can just right click on any given DVD cover image in DVD Profiler, choose copy, create a new file in Photoshop or other graphics program, paste that image into the new file, save it so you have a master copy, then resize the image accordingly doing a "save as" to another directory as a bmp or png for later import into PPENG. This is what I do. If the DVD cover image DVD Profiler uses is not clean enough for my liking I usually grab one from www.dvdplanet.com as the images there are usually of very high quality.

There is a folder DVD Profiler uses to store all its DVD cover images. Unfortunately, the cover images are named by upc code, not by their collection ID. When I first started my pcf file I had 885 front DVD cover images to get from DVD Profiler to PPENG. I simply grabbed a copy of all my front DVD cover images from the folder DVD Profiler stores them in, renamed each DVD cover image by collection ID (this was a slow process), copied them again to a thumbnails folder where I then did a batch resize and save as bmp's with Photoshop for later import into PPENG.

It was a huge pain, but it only took an evening over the weekend, and is forever a done deal now. From that point forward I have simply been doing a copy / paste from DVD Profiler to Photoshop, saving that file with no size reduction by collection ID, then resizing it down for import into PPENG, and saving it again in a thumbnails folder.

-Lowpro
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Post 93 made on Friday November 19, 2004 at 14:50
jsdb
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That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the info. I appreciate the tremendous amount of work you have put into your configuration. Thank you for making your DVD list (and template) available.
Thanks again.
Post 94 made on Friday November 19, 2004 at 15:51
Lowpro
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On 11/19/04 14:50 ET, jsdb said...
That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks
for the info. I appreciate the tremendous amount
of work you have put into your configuration.
Thank you for making your DVD list (and template)
available.
Thanks again.

You are welcome. :-)

I created an alternate version of my .pcf file this weekend by the way, which uses larger DVD cover images, 9 per page (72x100), versus 16 (52x74) per page. I must admit, 9 per page is pretty sweet, but I still prefer my 16 per page version. I am going to keep both versions updated as I go from now on. I will make my 9 per page .pcf file available for download later in the week for anyone interested.

-Lowpro

Last edited by Lowpro on November 21, 2011 20:15.
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View my profile to access various
links to key posts and downloads.
Post 95 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 01:03
DanKurts
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Lowpro
Great thread. Learned a lot, but haven't been able to download any of the info from you site. Is there an alternate site or what am I doing wrong? Download other stuff from here fine.
Thanks
Dan
Post 96 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 02:07
Lowpro
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The site is evidently down right now. I went ahead and moved everything over to some other web space and redirected all my links accordingly. I've been meaning to do this anyway. All links should work again now. Sorry about that. Enjoy!

-Lowpro

This message was edited by Lowpro on 11/23/04 03:48 ET.
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Post 97 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 21:13
DanKurts
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Lowpro
Thanks.
Works great, lots of good ideas.
Another question. I'm programming a Sony CX777ES and can't seem to get it to stop auto play. I tried the stop before power-off, even stop twice, still starts playing on bootup. I double checked the settings in the Custom menu, it's set to Off.....
What's wierd is I'm also doing a CX985, which DID respond to the Off trick.
I can see why people find this frustrating. Tried to time it with delays, etc for another Stop command, too unreliable.
Any thoughts?
Thanks again
Dan
Post 98 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 21:14
wyzard
Long Time Member
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160
Hey Lowpro...

How did you grab the covers from DVD Profiler? I use it too, but not sure how to get the covers. Can you provide a little tutorial on how to go about it, the size needed for the Pronto (I'm using a TSU3000) and any other important information....

It's greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Post 99 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 21:34
Lowpro
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On 11/23/04 21:13 ET, DanKurts said...
Lowpro
Thanks.

Works great, lots of good ideas.
Another question. I'm programming a Sony CX777ES
and can't seem to get it to stop auto play. I
tried the stop before power-off, even stop twice,
still starts playing on bootup. I double checked
the settings in the Custom menu, it's set to Off.....
What's wierd is I'm also doing a CX985, which
DID respond to the Off trick.
I can see why people find this frustrating. Tried
to time it with delays, etc for another Stop command,
too unreliable.
Any thoughts?
Thanks again
Dan

The auto-play "off" setting for both the Sony DVP-CX985V and CX777ES only works for music discs. DVD's will ignore this setting unfortunately. Sony refuses to admit this is a flawed design. I have the best solution for this in my opinion, which I have been using since day one. Any attempts to automate a work around for this problem are overkill if you ask me. An automated work around is simply not required, and only puts more wear and tear on the changer in the process.

As long as you stop a DVD where it can resume playback from that given point the DVD will not start playing automatically if you power down the unit and power it back up. It is as easy as hitting stop once before the credits end, prior to a given DVD taking you back to the main menu. If I let a movie roll back to the main menu simply start to play the movie again for a brief second, immediately hitting stop once, so it can resume playback from that point. Done deal. :-) All 3 of my changers are always stopped on the last disc I was watching in each, where they can always resume playback. This makes the whole auto-play "off" not working for DVD's issue a mute point.

-Lowpro

This message was edited by Lowpro on 11/23/04 22:39 ET.
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links to key posts and downloads.
Post 100 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 21:58
DanKurts
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Lowpro
Ahhh, that's the part I missed, stopping it before it ended, and with only one stop command. It works that way.
Excellent!
Thanks
Dan
Post 101 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 22:02
DanKurts
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Forgot to mention, I tried using Amazon.com for cover art, worked pretty good. Had far more covers for the older movies. Just click on the Enlarge To View under the picture, then save it. I reduced mine down in Photo Shop, works great.
Dan
Post 102 made on Tuesday November 23, 2004 at 22:38
Lowpro
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On 11/23/04 21:14 ET, wyzard said...
Hey Lowpro...

How did you grab the covers from DVD Profiler?
I use it too, but not sure how to get the covers.
Can you provide a little tutorial on how to go
about it, the size needed for the Pronto (I'm
using a TSU3000) and any other important information....

It's greatly appreciated.

Thanks

The default location DVD Profiler installs to is, "C:\Program Files\DVD Profiler". In the "DVD Profiler" directory there is a subfolder called, "Images". This is where you will find all the image files you see in DVD Profiler, both full size and thumbnail pics of the front and back DVD covers.

I copied all the front DVD cover pics from this folder to a working folder, opened up Photoshop, created an action which resizes each pic to the size I wanted, and saves them as 256 color bitmaps. For use with your TSU3000 you would want to record an action which resizes the pic accordingly, converts the image to greyscale, then saves the image as a bitmap. Once I created my action, I then performed this action on all the pics in that folder in one shot, via the "File->Automate->Batch" option. After that, I manually renamed each pic by the collection ID shown in DVD Profiler, versus upc code as DVD Profiler had named them. If you look a few replies up I give the size I use for the DVD covers in my pcf files.

Also, prior to loading the DVD's in your changers it is important to make sure your DVD Profile is completely updated and set to go. Two additional notes on this are detailed below.

1) Each and every disc in your DVD collection you plan to load in the changers must be entered in your DVD Profiler as you will be loading your changers by collection ID.

Depending on the size of your collection this can take quite some time, but it is worth the effort. For the collection ID's in your DVD Profile which include multiple discs, you will have to create redundant entries to account for each of those additional discs. As you add these entires to your DVD Profile you will need to reassign all collection ID's by title. Once this process is complete, you are ready to load the DVD's in your changers and work up your pcf file.

2) Once your current DVD collection is loaded in your changers it is important from that point forward to not reorder the collection ID's in your DVD Profiler application as you add new DVD discs.

As you are adding new DVD discs to your DVD Profiler and DVD changer, both the collection ID's and DVD changer slot's are going to correspond. This is why it is important to not reorder your collection ID's in DVD Profiler after initially loading your changers. Your actual PCF file is the only place you will need to maintain the a-z order, and this will only entail jogging a letters worth of DVD cover images down to make room for the new DVD cover image.

-Lowpro

This message was edited by Lowpro on 11/23/04 23:22 ET.
LP Related Links:
View my profile to access various
links to key posts and downloads.
Post 103 made on Sunday November 28, 2004 at 02:48
DanKurts
Founding Member
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Lowpro
Thought I would take a look at your file, but it only loads part way into editor and hangs.
Is there a trick to loading it? It loks like it might be too large, yet you obviously get it to work, so, the process is....?
Thanks again
Dan
Post 104 made on Sunday November 28, 2004 at 07:22
Ted Gatlin
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321
Dan -

Try it again and be VERY patient - I thought the same thing, it will take several minutes depending on your computer. It is worth the wait - it is quite an impressive setup!

Ted
Post 105 made on Sunday November 28, 2004 at 11:39
Lowpro
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On 11/28/04 07:22 ET, Ted Gatlin said...
Dan -

Try it again and be VERY patient - I thought the
same thing, it will take several minutes depending
on your computer. It is worth the wait - it is
quite an impressive setup!

Ted

That is correct. With the current editor that file takes upwards of 5 minutes to open. The same .pcf file converted for use in PENG takes a minute or less to open however. Big performance difference there. Philips is aware of this. Hopefully the next editor release of PPENG will open files more effeciently as PENG does now.

-Lowpro
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