I am trying to build a program for a client to put all of his dvd movies on his remote. He has a 400 disc dvd player and I am wanting to build pages to show the covers of them and by selecting the cover it will load the dvd. The problem is I don't know what program will work best to convert the images to a jpeg and shrink the covers down and still be viewable. Any suggestions? Thanks.

I probably would not use the remote as a DVD cover display menu because you're going to wind up with a huge CIF file that may bog down the iPronto. If you are going to do it (anyway) I would snag images of the DVD covers off of the Internet, bring them into Adobe Photoshop and create thumbnails of the images. You'll be able to set the aspect ratio (display size) for the iPronto page and then place the thumb nails on it in some organized manner.

There are cheaper and less expensive image editors around but I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for all graphical work. Try ZDnet.com, do a search in the Download section for image editors, convert. You’ll find free or cheap shareware solutions there.

Sounds like your project might get a little big. A more efficient (less frustrating) method may be to set up and use Windows Media Center or something similar.

If I've missed the mark and all you need is an image editor to convert the images then you should find a quick and easy solution at ZDnet.

dap

Hello

Actually, the best solution could be to create an html page with the thumbnails of the DVD covers, organized in index mode
The index-table would have the size of the following example on my link-test page here, to fit with the LCD screen size of the Ipronto :
[Link: montaleigne.free.fr]

The html page(s) must be on a web server, on the Internet or on an local networked PC
The first Index web page is easyly called by its IP, like this :


Each thumbnail can be linked (on click) to an specific order :
examples :

-> See the movie characteristics :
on a secondary html page which is transferrered from the web server to the Ipronto's LCD

-> Ask to the local PC to search and play the movie from the HD or from the DVD jukebox

-> and so on ...

Best regards from France

This message was edited by Jean-Max on 11/12/04 12:33 ET.

I have three 400 dvd megachangers chained together with direct access to each disc by thumbnail image. I used Adobe Photoshop to resize the images... It can be done... I also have direct access to a 400 CD changer. I still have 2 MB of free ICF memory even with all my other crap on my remote :)

Ahhhh, you are a life saver! I didn't want to start a program that wouldn't work. I have found a cool web site to get all the thumbnails, it's http://www.cdcovers.cc/. They have everything! What size did you have to convert the images to? 119x119 or smaller? Thanks for the help!

105x150 keeps them porpotionate when you reduce to the size... With this size I can place 3 rows of 5 for a total of 15 images on each page.

Photoshop has a feature called a droplet. It is a drag n drop icon that contains full scripts. You can record in Photoshop as you resize, color convert, and save as file format and it all contained in a sequence. You can set your own custom size determined by your layout of the page.

I use netflix.com for getting 99% of my movie posters. The first time setup was easy once i figured out the droplet. Capture all of the movie posters in one folder, be sure to rename the files you grab into the movie title. I created another folder to store all converted posters (the droplet will even retain where you want new files saves too) Drag all of your posters onto the droplet and Photoshop will convert all of them and put them in your converted files folder.

I've used this a few times for Pronto programming and adding a few posters has become a very quick process

Brett
Impossible to send you an email (refused)
Best regards

Just a small suggestion: Have a quick look at ABC (Automatic Batch Converter) if Photoshop is a bridge too far. It`s a lot easier and cheap f not free.
Regards, T

You can always goto dvdprofiler.com and download the free shareware version of DVDProfiler. This is a great program that catalogs all of your media and then allows you to upload your collection to the company's website for free. You can then copy the url link for your collection into your iPronto and view it in the iPronto browser. The only downfall to this is that you can't add any type of macros in the browser to enable you to start a specific DVD from your browser. It works great for me sinve I don't have a DVD jukebox.

IMHO the best free photo viewer and manipulater is ifranview. It is excellent for cropping and resizing images and processing whole files as a batch. Also is n excellent viewer, file converter and image librarian. it even runs slide shows.

Try www.ifranview.com

Excellent Link, thanks a lot !

I used DVD Profiler to catalogue all my DVDs for years that are stored in my 200 disk Sony DVD Jukebox. I used to print out a sort of contacts sheet of all the front covers of my movies with the disk number superimposed on the cover in a white box (for clarity).

When I got my Ipronto (recently), I used DVD Profiler to create a report, same as I used to for printing, then re arranged it (via paper size and report designer) to give me the best set up for the size of the ipronto screen. I viewed the report in print preview, making sure a full page filled the screen, then pressed "PrtScn" to copy the screen into the PC buffer. Then paste into a paint package (I use photoshop) to make a page for each page of movies. I made it with a blank area down the right hand side, so that on each page I could include the number and select buttons for my DVD player.

As my collection chages quite a lot, (I replace DVDs in the 200 machine changer, since I cant find another one to buy) it means that I dont have to reprogramme anything. I find the film I want on the picture pages, then type the number.

Works well for me :)