JPEG Slide Show

[VicParticipant @vic]

I’m putting some JPEG files from my holiday on a data stick to view them on my TV.

I have so far separated the photos by *day into their own folder. I’ll be renumbering them so they view in the correct order, 001, 002 etc. Eventually all the pictures will be in one folder for convenience. I would though like to keep some obvious difference in the file name for each day.
If I name day one files A001 to say A101 and day two files B001 upwards etc will they play in the correct order?

*I should add that the original files came from two different cameras, two different iPhones and some had to be converted from HEIC.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

It should do, but I would experiment with a just a few files first to see how your system behaves. It may differ between OS.

The instrument used to take the photos should not matter but I have found even with consistent file-types (e.g. all .bmp or all .jpg), the OS may not play. Certainly anything starting ‘MS WIN-‘ and especially W11, sometimes randomly refuses to recognise some files as “unsupported type”, hence my advice to test your system with a few before embarking on archiving the lot.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Umm,  the TV is a computer, and under the bonnet it will support several sort options.   Such as alphabetic filename, by creation date, by last modified date, by file size, or by owner.  These can be grouped (size within owner etc), and reversed (oldest first vs newest first).

On a TV, it’s likely that an application will decide the play order, perhaps using image metadata rather than operating system file information.   If so, the application will probably allow the user to choose.

My telly is long in the tooth and not terrifically clever!  Just tried on a USB stick without reading the manual, and by default it appears to display jpegs in last modified date-time order, oldest first.   Bit surprised, I expected it to sort on filename A-Z because that’s less surprising.

Try yours with a memory stick containing 5 or 6 photos and see what it does!

Dave

 

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Don’t know about telly logic, but I’ve archived some photo’s in my time.. I’d run a consecutive series of numbers for each day, eg. Day One all begin with ‘1’, so make that series say 100-199, Day 2; 200-299, Day 3; 300-399, and so-on.

Simplest (& least likely to result in snafu) method of keeping a unique identifier for each picture that still references the day.

[David AmbroseParticipant @davidambrose86182]

My twelve-year old Panasonic won’t display my images in file number sequence.  Nor will it show images over about 1Mb, which is not much use.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Update: I decided to give it a try. Adding a B in front of the file number did indeed keep them in the correct order. I’ll therefore add C, D and E etc to subsequent files for the respective days.

As an aside. I’m beginning to wonder if carrying a camera round with me on holiday is actually worth it anymore. The pictures from my iPhone 12 are very good and you can’t tell on my TV which pictures were taken on which device.

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

If you are renaming lots of files, and want to sequentially number or letter them, there is a very useful program, free for personal/domestic use, called Bulk Rename Utility It takes a bit of getting to grips with, but it will rename files either in place or move them elsewhere, and gives a huge range of possibilities to manipulate names, extensions, dates, times etc.

[Vic]

On Vic Said:

As an aside. I’m beginning to wonder if carrying a camera round with me on holiday is actually worth it anymore. The pictures from my iPhone 12 are very good and you can’t tell on my TV which pictures were taken on which device.

The camera app on the iPhone is worth exploring too rather than just using it in “point and shoot” mode… lot’s of stuff in there aside from regular pics – panoramas etc. Reading the camera section in one of the iPhone books helps.

A few good, free apps too using the camera. Such as my particular favourite: i3DSteroid for taking stereo pairs.

Oh, and +1 for the Bulk Rename Utility.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Thanks for the comments Peter and Peter. I’ll take a look.

Actually, renumbering the files on the Mac is pretty quick and easy. I can see the advantage though of software if you’re dealing with hundreds of files.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

… Certainly anything starting ‘MS WIN-‘ and especially W11, sometimes randomly refuses to recognise some files as “unsupported type”, hence my advice to test your system with a few before embarking on archiving the lot.

Though Nigel’s diagnosis of the cause is dubious, his advice to test first is very sound!

Digital cameras name photos with a code and incrementing serial number.  Something like “DSC06643.JPG” or “IMG_3896.JPG”.   Note that both examples are compliant with the MS-DOS naming standard, which is old fashioned but widely supported. Certain characters are forbidden, and the filename must be in 8.3 format.   “DSC06643.JPEG” is illegal!   Or might be.   Modern cameras and computers support filenames beyond the 8.3 limitations with no problem but it depends on the implementation.   Thus it’s possible for a well-meaning human to create filenames that don’t work.   Perhaps by using spaces or special characters in the name.

A Windows feature I find troublesome is autocomplete.   Whilst renaming the software detects the file is a JPG and silently appends a .JPG suffix.  Because that’s helpful.  Fine and dandy, unless the human, not told he’s been helped, adds one too, creating an illegal combination like “DSC06643.JPG.JPG”.

My guess is Nigel fell foul of one or more of these non-obvious rules.   It’s easily done!

Ideally, the camera should date-time stamp the images as well.   Some cameras do, many don’t.   And what the importing computer does with time-stamps is anyone’s guess.  Like as not, the computer creates new files, date-time stamped now, and ignores the camera.   Images also contain metadata, which might well be used by photo display software rather than the file info provided by the operating system.

Left alone the system mostly works.  But being imperfect means owners will want to fiddle with it.   May not be straightforward.  Unless knowing where to get answers, humans should avoid messing with the system unless necessary.   Better to find software that does what’s needed – if it exists!   Testing first is a good start.   Nothing worse than bulk converting a few thousand images only to find later that 10% got mangled, and you have no idea why.

Dave

 

[VicParticipant @vic]

I looked at the utility and its windows only. I then found out it can be done in the Mac OS.

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