Known Issues
- Windows XP only: the live testing function cannot process files for which a thumbnail hasn't been cached by the system before, it's a limitation imposed by the system upon third-party programs
- Jpeg auto-rotation / orientation support varies following the OS used:
- Windows XP doesn't allow to replace the default thumbnailer for any image file formats...
- Windows Vista gives complete control to third-party thumbnailers, so jpeg gets full support on this platform
- Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 often reverts back to the default thumbnailer with some rotated jpeg. So if a jpeg is badly oriented, it's because Windows called its default thumbnailer, which did a lousy job... but the good orientation can still be seen within Explorer's preview pane!
Version History
Media Preview v1.4.3.429 ()
Mini-me release:
- Core
- Better handling of camcorder recorded video files by getting actual thumbnails instead of grey images
- Installer
- Do not reset settings upon upgrading anymore (it won't work if you upgrade from 1.4.2 to 1.4.3 as uninstall is still handle by 1.4.2, but it will work when upgrading from 1.4.3)
- Overall size reduced by nearly 10% (16.1MB to 14.7MB)
Media Preview v1.4.2.417 ()
Minor release:
- Core
- Fixed the bug where Media Preview was crashing when selecting Luma Bicubic / Chroma Bilinear as the scaling method
Media Preview v1.4.1.415 ()
Mending release:
- Core
- WinXP only: fixed a memory leak that didn't let users move or delete media files
- Fixed debug output generation to avoid issues unrelated to Media Preview processing
- Configuration tool
- Added command line options to easily register Media Preview with any kinds of supported file formats
Media Preview v1.4.0.404 ()
Multimedia release:
- Core
- Upgraded LAVF FFmpeg to repository state as of 03/09/2014
- Improved support of video file formats:
- Fixed a memory leak while processing cover arts
- Added support for cover art embedded in mkv files
- Added official support for several video file formats (bink, smk, wtv and dvr-ms)
- Added support for H.265/HEVC and VP9 codecs
- Added support for iPhone mp4 auto-rotation / orientation
- Improved decoding of interlaced VC-1 and Lagarith encoded files particularly, but also of H.264/AVC encoded files
- Optimized thumbnail generation to achieve a good speed boost when disabling Entropy
- Windows 8 and 8.1 only: thumbnail generation was really too slow on these platforms, but got a huge speed boost after optimization
- Added support for cover art embedded in audio files
- Added support of common image file formats:
- Correct transparency display
- Faster thumbnail generation
- Support of jpeg auto-rotation / orientation when Windows allows it
- Fixed a potential memory leak while processing swf files
- Installer
- Unified everything into a single installer
- Can now be displayed with all the languages already supported by the configuration tool
- Fixed a bug where the installer could re-install an old version instead of the expected version when upgrading
- Configuration tool
- Added new tabs to easily select audio and image file formats
- Added "live testing" support for audio and image files
- Added the ability to change thumbnail adornment in the advanced options
- Improved the file association engine to replace other third-party thumbnailers
- Enabled filling up thumbnail cache for network drives
- Added a convenient "Remove All" button for user defined extension listings
- Improved user defined extension browsing feature: automatic scanning can now be stopped mid-way
- Added Italian translation, thanks Luca!
- Improved handling of grammatical number rules, particularly useful for languages having more complex name declension systems than the dual singular/plural rule
Media Preview v1.3.1.343 ()
Patch release:
- Core
- Fixed regressions due to the missing C runtime. It should henceforth really be unneeded now...
- Installer
- x64 OS only: fixed the desktop shortcut link
Media Preview v1.3.0.341 ()
Windows 8 release:
- Core
- Full support of Windows 8
- Support of *.swf and *.xvid file formats
- Added an option to display embedded cover art instead of a random video frame for *.wmv, *.mp4 and their derivatives (the only area where the vanilla MS thumbnailer was still better at!)
- Fixed 2 bugs in luminance computation
- In a special case, colors could be misinterpreted
- The blue color component was never taken into account (no improvement for cartoons, better mostly for live video sequences)
- Upgraded LAVF FFmpeg to repository state as of 02/04/2013
- Removed dependency to the C runtime
- WinXP only: thumbnails are now generated even for non-ASCII filenames (this bug was triggered for all non-English characters)
- Installer
- Support silent install, i.e. without having the configuration tool being launched during installation
- Localized installer into English, French and Simplified Chinese, so there are 3 different installers now
- x64 OS only: now install the x86/Win32 version of MP along the x64 version to fix thumbnail generation for x86 processes within x64 systems
- Configuration tool
- Added command line options to register / unregister Media Preview for every supported file formats (simply append /Register or /Unregister)
- Activated the 3rd mode in Test & Cache tab, thumbnails can now be extracted into *.png files
- Chosen display language is now memorized, quite useful for those working on an English OS but having a different native tongue
- Added translations to Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese and Traditional Chinese. Thanks to Muhammad, Igor and HJL!
- Added a button in the Advanced tab to force Windows Explorer to take into account the thumbnail adornment parameters for every MP configured file formats
- The size editbox in Test & Cache is now a more user-friendly editable combobox
Media Preview v1.2.5.264 ()
Rock-solid release:
- Improved the robustness of the core to handle more edge cases without reporting any error to the shell
- Modified the advanced options of the config tool as followed:
- Improved thumbnail adornment overlay management in order to avoid any side-effects on Media Center-like applications
- Added the option to disable file type overlay on thumbnails
Media Preview v1.2.4.253 ()
User request release:
- Improved badly encoded file processing to further avoid black frames
- The version of LAVF FFmpeg used until now was actually still the version as of 04/10/2012...so updated it as of 06/13/2012:
- This fixes a bug where some DVD VOB files could be recognized as a VC-1 encoded file instead of MPEG-2, leading to an unrecoverable error
- Patched it to let FFmpeg extract images from interlaced VC-1 encoded video file even if we get some grey clouds instead of a complete image
- Added some functions to the config tool:
- Windows XP only: users can change thumbnail size using Tweak UI. The Testing and Cache tab now has an option to handle this Tweak UI parameter
- Windows Vista+ only: The Testing and Cache tab has a new button that forces Media Preview to search for every media files on local drives, generate thumbnails, and cache them. Handy for users having a lot of often updated partitions filled with video files!
- Added some common sound file formats to the user-defined format blacklist
- Now forbid to add already supported formats through the user-defined format manual input
- Fixed several minor live testing related bugs
- Fixed a bug that could result in not launching any clearing cache operation while searching for still opened folders
- Included German translation. Thanks Kai!
- Included Russian translation. Thanks Долматов!
Media Preview v1.2.3.217 ()
Ergonomics release:
- Fixed an edge case where a very short clip could not get any thumbnail
- Now fully compatible with other Explorer-like applications, e.g. Total Commander
- Added full support of *.mpe files
Upgraded LAVF FFmpeg to repository state as of 05/28/2012- Revamp the config tool a bit for better ergonomics:
- Added tooltips whenever useful information was needed
- Scaling methods are now put along a speed-quality slider
- Enabled the "restore default system settings" button
- Changed live testing as follows:
- Fixed a performance slowdown, accumulating with each display language switch
- Fixed a memory leak
- Can show various side-by-side comparisons
- Processes files faster on Win7+
- Works the same way on XP and Vista+: only updates requested thumbnails instead of deleting the entire Thumbs.db cache file
- Added an Advanced tab with features for power users and developers
- Fully complied to Libavcodec LGPL licence and changed Media Preview licencing terms
- Remains free for non-commercial use
- Redistribution is forbidden without permission (it's mainly a way for me to trace where the app get uploaded)
- Repackaging is forbidden without permission (I saw a portable version floating around, which is a nonsense for an app that must be integrated to the system...)
Again, special thanks to the administrator of Codec Guide for his numerous feedbacks. I also want to acknowledge JEEB, one of the administrators at CCCP for reminding me that proper software licencing does matter.
Media Preview v1.2.2.169 ()
Hotfix release: A user reported that the live testing feature made the configuration tool to crash on 32-bit editions of Windows Vista+. Well, not anymore :)
Media Preview v1.2.1.167 ()
Completed release:
- Thumbnail generation is now based on display aspect ratio instead of storage aspect ratio
- Added full support for most of the existing media file formats on the market (notably 3G mobile phones, DVD-Video and Blu-ray dedicated formats)
- Media Preview no longer reports error to the shell when processing corrupt, damaged or incomplete files, e.g. files still being downloaded through peer to peer means, but try its best to extract something out of them
- Completed the implementation of all the functionalities of the configuration tool, apart from a minor one:
- Added scaling method to the setting items
- Easily change file association
- Run live testing of configuration changes
Upgraded LAVF FFmpeg to repository state as of 04/30/2012
Media Preview v1.2.0.115 ()
Enhanced release:
- Disabled DirectX acceleration (no big processing improvement but problems with low-end graphics card drivers)
- Better support of Windows XP by enabling thumbnail cache for local drives
- Improved metrics calculation resulting in faster processing (notably for virtual machines under Windows 8 CP)
- Media Preview is now entirely configurable
Media Preview now comes with a configuration tool, to allow you to speed up thumbnail generation if you still find it slow. Some functionalities of the tool are currently disabled and should be implemented in the next version.
Media Preview v1.1.1.86 ()
eXPerience release:
- Switched from Libav to FFmpeg (latest version of the LAV Filters branch):
- Better performance thanks to a memory management patch
- Better decoding for most of the video formats
- Added full support of *.mpg and *.mpeg files
- Support of Windows XP
Media Preview v1.1.0.74 ()
Optimization release:
- Trimmed Libav from unnecessary encoders, multiplexers and filters, resulting in a nice library downsize of 6 to 1
- Activated DirectX hardware acceleration for video stream processing
- Upgraded Libav to repository state as of 04/08/2012
Special thanks to the administrator of Codec Guide for giving useful hints on how to recompile FFmpeg.
Media Preview v1.0.1.29 ()
Bugfix release:
- Check dependency with Microsoft C runtime library
- Upgraded to Libav 0.8.1, fixing some rendering issues
- Support of Windows 8
- Added full support for *.rmvb files
Media Preview v1.0.0.1 ()
Initial release: Support of Windows Vista and 7. Thumbnail generation with image entropy and average luminance as validation metrics.