Find Similar... not working

[splashy]

Hello,
the "Find Similar..."-function in my ThumbsPlus 9 Built 3935 is not working.

To test it I put a bunch of pictures in a directory plus add the same with different names to the same. When I try to find similar files I get the th message:

"ThumbsPlus Pro could not find any dublicate or similar images matching Your criteriy  < 5032 >.

I also tried all possible settings (different Metrics, Current tree, all file types, and so on): Always no result but there are definetely similar (100% or less) files within the folders.

Any idea??

Thanks in advance

[splashy]

no idea... ?

[Daan van Rooijen]

Was the database created using TP9 itself (not imported from an older version) and are the files involved smaller than your setting for Options | Prefs | Thumbnails | Max file size for MD5 computation?

[splashy]

> Was the database created using TP9 itself (not imported from an older version) and are the files involved smaller than your setting for Options | Prefs | Thumbnails | Max file size for MD5 computation?

First many Thanks!
Yes it was created using Version 9. I just set the max file size to 2147483647kB.
No result... any other idead?

[Daan van Rooijen]

> > Was the database created using TP9 itself (not imported from an older version) and are the files involved smaller than your setting for Options | Prefs | Thumbnails | Max file size for MD5 computation?
>
> First many Thanks!
> Yes it was created using Version 9. I just set the max file size to 2147483647kB.
> No result... any other idead?

What that MD5 setting does: When a file is larger than the specified size, and you create a thumbnail for it, ThumbsPlus won't calculate and save an .MD5 checksum for it (because that would take too much time and slow down the thumbnailing). This .MD5 checksum is used to see if files are identical.

When you change this setting, as you have, it will only affect future thumbnails. Your current thumbnails of large files still won't have an MD5 value until you re-generate them. Once you have done that, I'd expect the program to find identical files without problems. So, if you still have that test folder with identical images, just select them all and make new thumbnails (Ctrl-A, F3) and see if it works any better.

[splashy]

Hi,
thanks for the hint. Just checked it and now itīs working fine with pictures :o)

BUT: Itīs not working with videos. And thatīs my main wish. The older Version 2002 was able to compare the Thumbs in the database created from videos. So You could find similar videos with it. The only thing is that Version 2002 is not able to create thumbs from flv, mkv and so on (has something to do with the Direct Show filters I guess).

So maybe (hopefully) anyone has also a solution for this?

[Daan van Rooijen]

> The only thing is that Version 2002 is not able to create thumbs from flv, mkv and so on (has something to do with the Direct Show filters I guess).
>
> So maybe (hopefully) anyone has also a solution for this?

You can thumbnail those video formats if you install the K-Lite Codec Pack or [link=http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/]FFDShow Tryouts[/link]. You'll also have to add some of those filetypes to the filetype definitions of ThumbsPlus, for instance FLV, MKV and WEBM (and set them as equivalent to MPG, which in turn should have a "load using" setting of "Internal" in its filetype definition).

The find similar function uses thumbnail data to compare the images, so with videos, it is important that you always make thumbnails of the same frame in the video. That way, your thumbnails of similar files will look similar too (I use a setting of 70% myself. You can set this in Options | File Loading | Movie/Sound | Percentage of File Length).

[splashy]

Thanks for Your answer, i use ThumbsPlus since the 90th. For sure I add all filetypes and connect them to the right application. I also uses Klite, alwyas with the latest updates. I use 22% to make Thumbs from the videos. Thumbs 2002 cant handle movies using other filters than DirectShow. That has nothing to do with the installed codecs.

So I am wondering why TP9 cannot compare the Thumbs of videos. I also copied several equal files into a test-directory, create the thumbs, but V9 cannot find any silimarities. Comparing pictures is still working fine.



Btw: THANKS TO YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT !

[Daan van Rooijen]

> Thumbs 2002 cant handle movies using other filters than DirectShow. That has nothing to do with the installed codecs.

Directshow is the part of Windows that requires and uses codecs to play movies. So, to view and thumbnail videos in ThumbsPlus you must either have the right codecs, or you must use something like FFDShow, which you can think of as a 'universal codec'.

> So I am wondering why TP9 cannot compare the Thumbs of videos.

Well, it seems to work perfectly for me using FFDShow Tryouts. It thumbnails nearly all videos correctly, it finds similar files and sorts by similarity just fine.