Any Video Thumbnail Sheet Makers for Macs?

[Sirius_ABC]

i got a question
is there an easy way to change the backround color?

It depends on your definition of 'easy'. Since it's a shell script, then the commands that put all the small frames together can take a '-background' argument which will set the background of the thumbnail. It wasn't something I wanted, so I didn't look into making it an option and I don't have the expertise in Mac programming to make it a drop down menu. However, you can set background colours for the different parts if you edit the script contained within the bundle. Here's how you can do it:

1. First, you need the rrggbb (Red Green Blue) 6 digit version of the colour you want. You can find this out at http://www.pajbk.com/clr.htm Whenever I mention 'rrggbb' below, change it to this 6 digit number
2. Find the 'icontact' appliction in the finder, right click and then select 'Show Package Contents'
3. Navigate to Contents -> MacOS
4. Right click on 'icontact' and select 'Open with' and then 'TextEdit'. If 'TextEdit' doesn't appear, select 'Other...' and you should be presented with a menu for your normal applications, navigate down to 'TextEdit' and select it.
5. Scroll down until you see lots of lines starting "convert -pointsize' This is the section that deals with the text at the top of the thumbnails. You need to change each line from convert -pointsize 18 -font to convert -pointsize 18 -background '#rrggbb' -font The single quotes around the '#rrggbb" number are needed. Make sure you use the same at the start and end as well. Also, the '#' key is entered by Option[ALT] 3 on my (UK) keyboard. It may be different for you. Do this for each line.
6. Now change the line about 4 lines later that starts montage -tile ${cols}x -geometry to montage -tile ${cols}x -background '#rrggbb' -geometry
7. Finally change the line 10 or so lines later from convert -size ${width}x$height 'xc:#FFFFFF' canvas_white.gif to convert -size ${width}x$height 'xc:#rrggbb' canvas_white.gif

Sorry that it's not easier, but my Native Mac programming is non existent, so the shell scripting has to make do. Hopefully it's not too daunting for you.

BTW, I'd save a copy of the program before you start, just in case things go a bit awry.

lol not my definition of easy but i've wanted to give this programing stuff a try so i this may come in handy

hi all
Right selecting background colour.....
I have had a go!
WORK ON A COPY OF iConatct.app (or have access to it so you can get it again if you don't like this newfangled version!)

in the bgcolor.zip file below here are 2 files
one called "icontact.pash"
and one called "icontact"

If you right click on the iContact.app file from jimmy and select "show package contents", then open the Contents folder, then open the MacOS folder
you will see the "icontact" file that needs to be replaced by the one from my zip file.
Then open the "bin" folder and replace the "icontact.pash" file with the one from the zip.
this basically gives you a drop down box (called a combobox in pashua jim) that you can select preset colours from
in the icontact script these then place the relevant values in the code
at the moment i am too stupid to get a "user definable colour" working I'm gonna leave thet one to jim. But if you know what colour you want just replace the value for red in the "icontact" file
with one of those values from that website. red is #FF0000- so just replace that with your own special colour!

jimmy's code is cool and i had it for a while but never posted it cos i got totally lost in another project (alexicc) but I'm so glad he carried on with it.
saying he based it on my stuff is like saying the mona lisa is based on a scribble. which while true in one sense is also not true in ANY sense!
j

wow dude, u 2 just came thru again
i hope one of them presets colors is black but i couldnt be more grateful

i was wonderin if theres a lynda vid or a specific audio/ebook i need to checkout so i can learn how to do this stuff too
theres a couple more tweeks i'd like to make to the program like changing the txt color and fixin whatever makes some of the preview pics come out all grey like in the example
http://www.stooorage.com/show/902/3049896_money_bankers_and_the_federal_reserve-caps.jpg

either way thanks guys on all the help

[Sirius_ABC]

i just tried both solutions out and i was surprised at how easy jimmys way was
i think i'm gonna go with a red background for now since the txt is impossible to read with a black background

gonna have to do some diggin around so i can figure out how to change the color of the txt too
thanks again u guys for all the help

[vhjimmy]

Just an FYI for Lion users. This does't work due to library changes.

When I have some time I'll create new versions of the imagemagick tools that don't use the snow leopard libraries.

Until then, it won't work on Lion.

As a workaround, if you have a copy of Snow Leopard still around, copy the file

/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenCL.framework/Versions/A/Libraries/libclparser.dylib from a Snow Leopard image to

icontact.app/Contents/MacOS/lib/libclparser.dylib in the package.

Everything will carry on working now.

Jimmy

[dontodd]

In case anybody else is still searching for a solution, I found skreenics: http://code.google.com/p/skreenics/. It works great on my MBP 10.6.8.

[KhyrosFinalCut]

Is there any program that in addition to making a contact sheet that will give me individual files of the thumbnails that it pulls for the contact sheet? I cant find any that will do this.

[jamiep]

i guess jimmy or i could modify one of ours to do it...
I take it from your handle that you'd like full size jpg (up to 1920x1080?) files for including in an edit and not just 320x180 thumbnails?
the code is ready to output the appropriate .jpg file before making the contact sheet on my original thing, but it's a while since i did it...
hopefully by the time you read this jimmy will have put a fully fledged version out for you!
but if not I'll have it ready by friday

jamie

[KhyrosFinalCut]

That's extremely generous and thank you. Ideally I would have the small thumbnail files (270x150 in my case) actually, and then I could pick from them.

The workaround I have now is to do an export from the sequence FCP using quicktime conversion into an image sequence with a decimal framerate (.33 fps gives about 2 frames per minute) then I just browse the output in finder, rename the ones I want to use, then drag them onto ThumbsUp to batch resize-rename them.

The ideal workflow would be input finished movie, then choose from the 40ish pre-resized thumbnails -- so there was only 1 rename step and 1 program involved. -- That said while the streamlining would be great, not so much urgency and frustration as there was. when I was trying to find an elegant solution on friday.

[jamiep]

ok i've done that
GUI allows you to choose a movie or folder of movies
you put in how many pics you want and at what size,what you want the thumbnails renamed to and press go.
Those thumbnail jpg files appear in your output folder (at the moment its defaults are set to 40, 250x170 jpgs named FCP_sequence001.jpg- etc etc)
1 small problem...can't do prores yet as the newer ffmpeg builds don't seem to have the same syntax for skipping time then outputting a jpg
anyone know what the new syntax is?
anyhoo for everything else the older ffmpeg build I use works!
i'll package it up and post a link here so you can have it.
j

[jamiep]

never mind
i figured out the new syntax for the new ffmpeg
so this app does prores as well as all the other stuff

http://homepage.mac.com/lindsayellis/Sites/StillZ.zip

try it and let me know if it does what's required (it DOESN'T make a contact sheet)
so maybe we should put it under another thread? i dunno how this interweb stuff works realyy.....
j

[KhyrosFinalCut]

This is amazing. Works perfectly.

Thank you!

[jrey]

never mind
i figured out the new syntax for the new ffmpeg
so this app does prores as well as all the other stuff

http://homepage.mac.com/lindsayellis/Sites/StillZ.zip

try it and let me know if it does what's required (it DOESN'T make a contact sheet)
so maybe we should put it under another thread? i dunno how this interweb stuff works realyy.....
j

jamiep, could you make something similar to contaX for linux/debian?

[veranyon]

never mind
i figured out the new syntax for the new ffmpeg
so this app does prores as well as all the other stuff

http://homepage.mac.com/lindsayellis/Sites/StillZ.zip

try it and let me know if it does what's required (it DOESN'T make a contact sheet)
so maybe we should put it under another thread? i dunno how this interweb stuff works realyy.....
j

http://homepage.mac.com/lindsayellis/Sites/StillZ.zip > "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable"

[jamiep]

oh yeah
apple shut that thing down didn't they...
:-0
i'll try and find it and then put it somewhere else.
j
also for linux should be OK since all this is bash/ffmpeg which is pretty unix friendly!
i've got CentOS at work so i'll try it on that and post it if i can get it working
j

[jamiep]

here is the fcp stills thing i hope....
j

[isidoro]

Hi there, sorry for reactivate this old thread but seems that all the web searches for "thumbnail sheet maker for mac" redirects here.
I've searching and testting several options and I list all the apps I know until today.

Video Thumbnail Sheet generators

Movie Collage Creator.
4,49€ in App Store
http://www.edysoft.com/?page_id=135
support: AVI, WMV, RM, MPG, TS, VOB, MKV, MOV, FLV, RMVB
output: BMP, PNG, TIFF, JPEG
the free trial dmg can't be opened in OS X 10.8.4

Movie Thumbnailer.
4,49€ in App Store
http://www.hummersoftware.com/category/products/auto-saves-thumbnails-screenshots-of-m...bmp-tiff-files
support: AVI, WMV, RM, MPG, TS, MKV, MOV, FLV, MP4, RMVB
output: BMP, PNG, TIFF, JPEG
no demo, not tested

Movie Thumbnails.
3,59€ in App Store
http://www.moviethumbnails.com
support:
output: JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
automated tasks support using AppleScript. not tested this full version

Movie Thumbnails Free.
free in App Store
http://www.moviethumbnails.com
support:
output:
free version restrictions:
you can create images with a maximum of 24 tiles.
the maximum width of a tile is limited to 200 pixels.
the maximum height is 150 pixels.
in the generated images some tiles are replaced by sedna-apps logo.
setting a custom logo for the thumbnails overview images is not possible.
no AppleScript support.

Screen Grabber.
2,69 in App Store
http://www.peylow.se/screengrabber.html
not tested. seems outdated

Skreenics.
free
http://code.google.com/p/skreenics/
support: MP4, MOV,
you need to install Perian and Flip4Mac to support formats:Xvid, AVI, DIVX, MKV, FLV, VFW… AND wait to the finder make the preview image so then you can add to skreenics (installing VLC can help too). ASF and WMV only generate thumbnails for the first 10% of the movie (¿?)

Thumbs.
http://thumbsapp.com
7,73€ in his website
support: AVI, WMV, RM, MPG, TS, MKV, MOV, FLV, MP4, RMVB
output: JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
demo available. can make one single thumb.

If you know more options please add to the list to keep it updated. Hope this can help somebody to decide between one or another, the best options are the more expensive and just for that single task

[Herve]

If you know more options please add to the list to keep it updated.

(Advertising, my app…) MovieIndex, handle both Quicktime and exotic codecs, handle anamorphous, etc
A demo is available onto the site (…to try it by yourself ), the Mac App Store version is here ($3,99)

bye

[ARTO65]

In search of the best thumbnailer for my own needs and to add to this thread, here are some short reviews.
For comparison's sake, I used a set of 100 mp4 videos (about 6000kbps each, a few minutes each) and created 3x3 contact sheets for all of them.
I also created thumbs for the trailer of the movie Moonrise Kingdom to give you an idea of the result in each program.
They are all trial version.

Thumbs (http://thumbsapp.com, $9.99)
Impressive performance: the fastest standard setting (multithreaded 3 files x 3 frames concurrently) puts every other program to shame with only 75 seconds to process 100 videos and you can push it harder. Just drop a big folder and click start, it'll be done in no time.
Pro: very fast and reliable, easy to use, good looking result, customizable layout
Cons: limited settings, no queue appending, non customizable title position (below frames), most expensive


MovieIndex (http://www.movieindex.movieconverter-studio.com/, $4.99):
The one cool trick with this program is the layout with one big image and multiple small thumbnails. But since you can't choose this image from the stills or provide a custom cover, I found it useless.
Not the best performance: 164 seconds for 100 videos (between 6 and 9 frames per video), and it takes a lot of time to analyze the videos. So just loading the videos into the program will take some substantial time.
I thought the options are confusing: small drop zone, no columns * rows option (custom layouts only), empty "expert options"...
The interface looked clumsy to me, but maybe it's a moms and pops program. For example, you can't choose the image resolution based on frame pixel size or quality slider, but you have two resolution choices based on purpose ("to be viewed on a computer" and "to print")...
Pro: some unique features
Cons: clumsy interface & settings


Movie Collage Creator (2.1.0, http://www.edysoft.com/?page_id=135, $4.99)
132 seconds for 100 videos.
This is what you would expect a thumbnailer to be. Media info, title on top, simple and straightforward options, queue appending...
Pro: Simple and comprehensive program, good results, you can choose to process only part of a video.
cons: crashed on me a few times while I was playing around with it.


Movie Thumbnails (1.2.0, http://www.moviethumbnails.com/, $3.99)
144 seconds for 100 videos.
The demo version is quite limited, but it's otherwise a straightforward program, similar to Movie Collage Creator.