Seeing MOV (quicktime) thumbnails in Windows Explorer (Vista)

[davidp1234]

Hi.

My camera takes .MOV movie files. However on the PC there is no thumbnail representation of what the file contains. Just a plain quicktime icon.

In looking on Google, it looks like people have been trying to figure out how to display thumbnails of .MOV files in Explorer. None of the few answers given seem to work tho. I have yet to have an answer either, outside of IV's (my abbrev for Irfanview) Thumbnail display which does work. However I KNOW it is possible to see an MOV thumbnail (with the IV spot in the corner) in a folder.... because my laptop does it! However, my new desktop does not do it.

I thought all I needed to do was install IV on my new desktop (which I hadn't done yet) and my MOV thumbnail problem would be solved. however, my desktop still has an icon, but no thumbnail. On my laptop however, I can see a film-like thumbnail with the IV spot in the right bottom corner!

Laptop:
Vista32 SP2
Irfanview 4.00
K-Lite Codecs Full (not sure of version, but older than on new desktop I'm sure)

Desktop:
Vista32 SP2
Irfanview 4.25
K-Lite Codecs Full (latest version)

Now, IV version is older on laptop than on new desktop. Also, it was installed before SP2 for sure. The K-Lite codecs on laptop are no doubt older and were also installed before SP2. I don't know about being before SP1 on either pgm tho.

On my desktop I first installed the K-Lite full codec pkg and selected at the end the MOV thumbnail choice.

Then I installed IV 4.25 and checked MOV as one of the selections (along with all other image types). I also d/l the full IV plugins .exe file and installed it. I also restarted my machine to be sure.

At this point I figured it was all set and that I had found the answer to so many people's problem (solved by IV, of course!). But alas, it did not work. MOV files still show an icon as opposed to a thumbnail (albeit it is changed from the normal Quicktime icon, to just a camera icon).

I'm going to try to post an image of the laptop folder proving the IV thumbnails on my laptop, proving I have a MOV thumbnail with IV 'splotch' on it.

My question is, why is IV showing up MOV thumbnails in Explorer on my laptop but not on my desktop? Perhaps something else may have gotten installed on my laptop over the last 2-3 years that may be causing this to happen, but I wouldn't have any idea as to what that would be.

Any thoughts are appreciated.
Dave

[matera]

IrfanView does not show thumbnails in Windows Explorer -- only Windows Explorer is responsible for that. The difference is in your Windows settings. Check out some of the other threads concerning thumbnail view.

[Mij]

All my .mov files show in Windows Explorer as Thumbnails. They were originally associated with Apple Quicktime but remain as thumbnails when I change the association to IrfanView.
If you have Quicktime on your computer I suggest you try changing the association to that program. It has 30MB of bloatware to use to sort out the right Explorer settings for Vista. If you now see thumbnails I am pretty sure they will stay that way when you switch back to Irfanview.

[Skippybox]

Matera is correct that IrfanView is not rendering the thumbnails in Explorer just because it is associated with MOVs. Explorer uses codecs on the system, along with registry settings to accomplish it. Whatever you see in IrfanView Thumbnails is IrfanView's rendering.

Still, MOVs are tricky things. They are not a format really, but a container for some format. So, unless you have a codec for that format or set an embedded poster frame, you won't see thumbnails in Explorer even with the registry set to show thumbnails. For instance, I have Quicktime installed but I get no thumbnails in Explorer because I have no codecs installed. While you would think the framework would be capable of building thumbnails, it seems it won't, which I fail to understand.

As soon as I install some codecs, like the K-Lite codec pack, then some of the MOVs begin to show a thumbnail. But, notice that some still don't show.



I believe this is due to the dependency on Quicktime for that file. I have MOVs from two different cameras. The ones that show thumbnails are in H.264 format from my Canon, which I have a codec for, but the Panasonic one is encoded in Apple Photo JPEG format, which I require Quicktime for. Media Player Classic will show both MOVs, but Quicktime is actaully used for the decoding of the Panasonic's.

Cameras are very difficult in this regard, because many use an obscure proprietary implementation for their MOVs. In fact, that's one reason why you have separate thumbnail files that are usually created by the camera. So, while some people will easily see thumbnails, other people won't. That is why it is good to use a media explorer, like IrfanView or XnView if you have difficulty. There has been some improvement in Windows Media Player 12 in Win7 for native MOV support, BTW.