Overview

Select or change the quality and manage thumbnail images (thumbs) in MediaPortal.

Thumbnail Settings

You may also configure these settings using the MediaPortal Configuration Tool, see GUI Configuration > Thumbnail

For an overview of the various graphics and thumbs in MediaPortal, and the location of the various files, see Reference > Graphics

Thumb Quality

  Tip
Many Skins now  use larger images, and HD resolutions.  You may wish to increase your thumbnail resolution to the highest quality to get best results with these skins.

Default: 4 (120 + 500)
Select the quality of thumbnails that are generated by MediaPortal. The parameters below - Resolution, Compositing, Interpolation and Smoothing, give some general information about the quality of the thumbnails created. The Screen Type label gives a general idea what the setting can be used for: LCD televisions ("flat screens") generally need higher quality thumbnails than CRT (classic) televisions because they generally produce a sharper image. 

Note: When you change the Quality settings you must clear the cache or delete the thumbs to re-create them. 

Music

Usually the image shown when listening to a music album is shown using a

folder.jpg

file. This image is put in the folder of the music album. The size of this image can be very large and can slow MediaPortal down a lot when browsing through your music collection.

Delete all music thumbs

You can delete all music thumbs by pressing this button.

Create folder cache on demand

If this option is selected, MediaPortal will create small thumbnails of every cover art (

folder.jpg

or images embedded in ID3 tags, depending on your settings in Music > Database). This is done while you are browsing through your music collection (On Demand). This option will speed-up browsing through your music collection a lot because the files that are created are very small.

Videos

Clear Videos thumbs

You can delete all video thumbs by pressing this button - required if you change the preview appearance.

Auto-create thumbs

When browsing through your video files, you can see small preview images. If this option is enabled, MediaPortal creates small images of your videos to speed up browsing. Because the files that are created are very small this option will speed-up browsing.

Leave a thumb in a rec folder

Select this option to save the thumb (

.jpg

) to the folders you chose in Configuration>Videos>Video Folders.
You can edit your Video folders to disable creating thumbs per share or folder. The files will be named after the video file, i.e.

Lie To Me.jpg

.

Note: If you chose this option, thumbs will not be deleted when you Clear Videos thumbs. You must remove the existing ones manually, then new thumbs will regenerate based on the settings you select here.

Pictures

Clear picture cache

You can delete all picture thumbs by pressing this button.

Auto-create only small thumbs

When browsing through your pictures, you can see small preview images. If this option is enabled, MediaPortal creates small images of your pictures to speed up browsing. This option will speed-up browsing through your picture collection a lot, because the files that are created are very small.

Preview Appearance

• Number of columns - Default = 1
• Number of rows - Default = 1

The preview image (thumb) may consist of multiple subsequent screenshots taken from the video. These are then arranged in tiles with the given number of rows and columns. The time between the thumbs will be calculated automatically from the video duration.

1 column and 1 row will create a single thumbnail:

2 columns and 2 rows will create a grid of four thumbnails:

Note: Changed quality settings only have an effect on newly generated thumbs. You must clear the existing thumbs to re-create them with the new quality settings.

Related

• GUI Settings