XP Explorer thumbnails of mpg files

[ygumby]

Anyone have the definitive link to explain the inability of WIn XP Explorer to generate a thumbnail of mpg files.

I have been through all the register/deregister of shimgvw.dll and shmedia.dll, and confirmed all the registry setting settings of c5a40261..., and deleted all the codecs that I can find with plenty of reboots, ...

The jpg's and avi's all work fine, and WMP plays all the mpg's just fine, but the Explorer cannot generate the thumbnail. You can see that it is trying -- when you click on a mpg, or a folder of mpgs with the "thumbnails" being displayed, the Explorer goes to 100% cpu and loads of page-faulting, and then gives up and goes quiet with no thumbnail created.

I'm using a Win XP SP2, 1.4 Centrino laptop, with a happauge USB2 tuner, and various codecs installed and removed over the years. I have also tried restoring the entire thing (on a separate hardrive) back to the original SP1 that the computer came with, and testing a 2100 CBR recording from the other harddrive and it still doesn't work.

I have also tried fiddling with the GSpot "merit" settings without success. Originally the GSpot "1" setting produced no successes, but the MS "1" setting always worked. After some merit fiddling, the GSpot "1,2,3" works, but it didn't help the Explorer thumbnail problem, and WMP continues to play everything just fine.

So perhaps the recored mpg file is the problem, so this is what GSpot describes the file:
(This was on the squeaky clean SP1 re-install system)

FILE_NAME superstrings Nova_20060711_20002100.mpg
FILE_NAME_WITH_PATH F:\record\superstrings Nova_20060711_20002100.mpg
FILE_SIZE 1,166,344,192
CONT_BASETYPE MPEG (.MPG/.MPEG/.VOB)
CONT_SUBTYPE
CONT_INTERLEAVE_TIME
CONT_INTERLEAVE_PRELOAD
CONT_INTERLEAVE_ALIGN
CONT_TOTAL_BITRATE 3487
CONT_BYTES_MISSING
CONT_AUDIO_STREAM_COUNT 1
VIDEO_CODEC_TYPE MPEG2_Video
VIDEO_CODEC_NAME MPEG-2
VIDEO_CODEC_STATUS Codec(s) are NOT Installed
VIDEO_DURATION 00:59:50
VIDEO_FRAME_COUNT 107587
VIDEO_QF 0.203
VIDEO_SIZE_X 720
VIDEO_SIZE_Y 480
VIDEO_DISPLAY_SIZE_X
VIDEO_DISPLAY_SIZE_Y
VIDEO_ASPECT_DECIMAL
VIDEO_ASPECT_FRAC
VIDEO_PICS_PER_SEC 29.970
VIDEO_FRAMES_PER_SEC 29.970
VIDEO_FIELDS_PER_SEC 59.939
VIDEO_BITRATE 2100

So any good ideas?

Thanks,

[Krispy Kritter]

Are the mpg files associated with WMP or a different player? I believe WMP has to be the default player for the thumbnail function to work.

[Krispy Kritter]

Some info that I found:

See if this helps>>>

Thumbnails will not display

In order for Windows to display Thumbnails, Windows creates a Desktop.ini file and adds it to the folder you want to have a thumbnail view. The value of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Installer\
Products\9040B11900063D11C8EF00054038389C\ProductN onBootFiles
is changed to "Usage"=dword:2c4c025a

Files such as BMP that you wish to display as thumbnails should have a shellex value pointing to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC} and the file
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\BROWSEUI.DLL must be present and not corrupted. This entry should look like "{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC}"

Then on each folder for which you want Thumbnail view capabilities, you must right click the folder, select Properties and check the box Enable Thumbnail view

[Krispy Kritter]

Also, from what I've read, the most likely culprit is a codec conflict.

[ygumby]

Thanks for the info.

I think the second response was for some other OS (2000 or 98 ??) as nothing was similar to my system, and everything is xxx32 on WinXP.

I tried the codec strategy of removing software and codecs until it worked. I dumped the apps and individual codecs from the roxio, sonic, ligos, cyberlink families until all I had left was the Ulead family and the original Windows stuff. It still didn't work, so I went back to GSpot and started fiddling with the codec "merit" scores. I moved Ulead MPEG Splitter above Windows splitter (quartz) and then it finally worked.

It is not the profound answer that I was hoping for, but I may learn some more as I start re-installing the other stuff and see when it breaks.

~~~ 20 minutes ~~~

While it didn't last long, before I re-installed (or even rebooted I think), it stoppped working.

....

[Krispy Kritter]

All of the other info I could dig up, also indicated it is codec related. The fact that others and yourself can get it to function again by removing codecs seems to prove it is codec related.

Most programs can all use the same codec(s). So after getting all of your apps installed, you could always remove all of the dupe codecs and get your apps to use a single codec (single for each file type). In your case, it is just a matter of finding a mpeg codec all of your apps can use.