-->> Shark's website <<--

Shark's Help Forum

Search
  Create an account  
How do I use Icaros to change video thumbnails?

#1
It's extremely simple what I want to do, and yet despite scouring the entire internet for an hour or two (even watching a useless YouTube tutorial), I can't find a simple answer.

What I want to be able to do is to set the thumbnail for each of the videos on my PC individually from a certain frame or timestamp (whatever's most appropriate in the context of that particular video). I don't want all videos in a folder to be set to the same timestamp or percentage or anything. Right now, all the thumbnails are super random, some have the movie reel on the sides, while others don't (making them look like photos). It's an arbitrary, lawless wasteland in that folder on my PC. 

I'm told that Icaros is a godsend for setting thumbnails since you basically can't do it with any Microsoft program anymore. (I have Windows 11.) I downloaded Icaros today, and I've had absolutely zero luck figuring anything out. Everything on the app is in "Activated" mode. (Cache is set to "Enabled (Dynamic)".) All the correct filetypes are there (they're pretty much all MP4s). I change the slider to different places, and it doesn't affect anything in my video folder. I have "Display movie reel on video thumbnails" checked, but most still don't have the reels. I refresh the folder, and still no results. Everything's just as random and chaotic as before.

Also, this folder is on an external hard drive. Is that the problem? I feel like it shouldn't be.

Can anyone help???
Reply

#2
(05-30-2022, 11:14 AM)Rew Wrote: It's extremely simple what I want to do, and yet despite scouring the entire internet for an hour or two (even watching a useless YouTube tutorial), I can't find a simple answer.

What I want to be able to do is to set the thumbnail for each of the videos on my PC individually from a certain frame or timestamp (whatever's most appropriate in the context of that particular video). I don't want all videos in a folder to be set to the same timestamp or percentage or anything. Right now, all the thumbnails are super random, some have the movie reel on the sides, while others don't (making them look like photos). It's an arbitrary, lawless wasteland in that folder on my PC. 

I'm told that Icaros is a godsend for setting thumbnails since you basically can't do it with any Microsoft program anymore. (I have Windows 11.) I downloaded Icaros today, and I've had absolutely zero luck figuring anything out. Everything on the app is in "Activated" mode. (Cache is set to "Enabled (Dynamic)".) All the correct filetypes are there (they're pretty much all MP4s). I change the slider to different places, and it doesn't affect anything in my video folder. I have "Display movie reel on video thumbnails" checked, but most still don't have the reels. I refresh the folder, and still no results. Everything's just as random and chaotic as before.

Also, this folder is on an external hard drive. Is that the problem? I feel like it shouldn't be.

Can anyone help???

Hi,
this sounds strange, but let me try:
1.) Close all running intances of windows explorer, if there is anything open.
2.) Set up Icaros like you want, close it and start again, just to be sure.
3.) Click on Icon "three books" on the left of Cache then click on "clear cache" (I hope it called that, since I use german translation of IcarosSmile)
4.) Search for "disk cleanup" in windows and start the app, then select your drive (if you have more than one, do step 4 again but with the other(s), scroll down to thumbnails (again I use german Windows, I hope it is called that way, but it is the last entry) and be sure that it is checked and then click on OK.
5. I advise to restart pc and open a folder witzh Video files in it and Icaros will produce beautiful new thumbnails according to new settings of Icaros, like percentage of duration when the frame should be.

BUT, since you have special needs and want independent generated thumbnails, you can create "screenshots" of the Videos at that timestamp you want and mux them into a mkv using mkvtoolnix, just simple remux but with added cover.

This should do. I forgot, you have to activate this feature of Icaros:
click on icon "picture" on the top and enable the last option on this page.

I would try it out on one file:
create a folder with a single video file, create an jpg/png remux it with mkvtoolnix to another folder with just one file, the new mkv with embedded jpg/png and open this folder with the new mkv only after you set up Icaros for cover support and also delete all possible generated thumbnails of older settings. Icaros creates it one time and saves it, just have to delete the old like I described to have other ones.
Please correct me if I am wrong in any step/point, ...

You see, Xanashi has put a lot of work into Icaros, which I really appreciate Smile
Reply

#3
I did absolutely everything you said to do, followed all five steps to the letter, and... it literally did nothing. I have the exact same problem. All my video files just have random thumbnails. I even tried moving them from my external hard drive (E drive) to the internal (C drive). And same thing... nothing.

After all this, I think I have to conclude that Icaros just doesn't work, at least not for me. I don't understand it, but at this point I have to accept it.
Reply

#4
(06-01-2022, 07:52 PM)Rew Wrote: I think I have to conclude that Icaros just doesn't work, at least not for me. I don't understand it, but at this point I have to accept it.

Where Video is involved, choosing to disable UAC can cause weird things to happen.
If you do have UAC disabled, set it to the Default setting and reboot your system.
Re-install Icaros and test again.
Reply

#5
(06-01-2022, 07:52 PM)Rew Wrote: I did absolutely everything you said to do, followed all five steps to the letter, and... it literally did nothing. I have the exact same problem. All my video files just have random thumbnails. I even tried moving them from my external hard drive (E drive) to the internal (C drive). And same thing... nothing.

After all this, I think I have to conclude that Icaros just doesn't work, at least not for me. I don't understand it, but at this point I have to accept it.

Klaus1189 basically hit the nail on the head, in what needs to be done to accomplish your needs. 
Here are the steps again with a bit more info added. 


Step 1: Set your desired thumbnails for each file

This step is a bit tedious as most popular containers (mkv/mp4 etc.) doesn't have an embedded property that tells
thumbnailers, which frame to use as the thumbnail. So they end up using a frame from a static position in the file instead,
which is what ends up giving you seemingly "random" thumbnails. They will however be the same thumbnails again for each specific file,
if the thumbnail cache is cleared and the files need to be thumbnailed again.

So to accomplish this step and set a specific thumbnail for each file, you have to extract a frame from video file
and embed it into the file as cover art. This way your file will always show this frame as your thumbnail. 

It requires a bit of FFmpeg knowledge to do. Here goes:

1. Download FFmpeg.exe
2. Extract the bin folder in that zip file into something like C:\FFmpeg\ (this folder should now contain the ffmpeg.exe binary)
3. Open your video file in your preferred video player and find a good frame
4. Note the timestamp e.g. 01:15:06 (even better if you also get milliseconds e.g. 01:15:06.342)
5. Open a command prompt in  C:\FFmpeg\
6. Use the following command to extract the frame from an mp4 file:

> ffmpeg.exe -ss 01:23:45 -i input.mp4 -frames:v 1 -q:v 2 cover.jpg

7. The bold timestamp should be the timestamp you noted above and the input.mp4 should be a full path to your file. 
8. This will output a cover.jpg file in your FFmpeg folder.
9. Finally you need to embed this cover.jpg into your mp4 file. You can do this with this command:

> ffmpeg.exe -i input.mp4 -i cover.jpg -map 0 -map 1 -c copy -c:v:1 jpg -disposition:v:1 attached_pic output.mp4

10. Once again input.mp4 is the full path to your input file and output.mp4 is the full path to your final file. 
11. Do step 3. - 10. for all your files

The above steps are specific to MP4 files, if you try them on other filetypes they may not work.
Overall having a script or small software to do all this would be preferable, and if I can find the time at some point,
I wouldn't mind creating something like that. I just don't have the time right now unfortunately.


Step 2: Clean the thumbnail cache

1. Make sure Icaros is activated
2. Make sure "Use embedded cover art" and "Use any embedded image as cover art" is selected on the Thumbnailing page
3. Go to the Icaros Cache page and click "Clear Cache"
4. Go to the Icaros Tools page and click "Clear" under Windows thumbnail cache
5. Now click the "Restart" button on the same page under Windows Explorer
6. You should now see the proper thumbnails for all the files you set in step 1.


Step 3: Fix the thumbnail borders

1. If you at this point have mp4 files without the video reel border, please note their file extensions. 
2. Are they called some_file.mp4 or do they have a different extension?
3. Try changing the extension to .mp4 instead, do they have borders now?

The borders in Windows are specific to the filetypes, so if you want borders of a certain kind for a specific filetype,
you will need to edit the Windows Registry. I can give you more info on this if required, but this post is already long enough for now.
Reply

#6
There is also another possible option for step 1, for users that don't feel comfortable with FFmpeg.

1. Download MPC-HC (or VLC) and Mp3tag
2. Open the video file in MPC-HC
3. Skip to the frame you wish to use as your thumbnail, and press Alt-i to extract that frame. 
4. Open Mp3tag, and browse to the original video file
5. Select it in the UI and finally drag n drop the extracted frame to cover art field in the lower left of the window.
6. Click Save.
Reply





Users browsing this thread:
1 Guest(s)