Hi Guys,
I am trying to use Directory Opus to rate doco's and movies so that I can recommend them easily to friends.
I have set it up so that there is a rating column and I use the metadata panel to add the 1-5 star rating.
However I have noticed that in the movies folder the ratings don't respond or show up next to the files/folders instantly or sometimes at all.
After a while a few more ratings show up but not always all of them.
T?he ratings on my TV series on another hard drive all responds instantly but there is only 67 folders in that folder. The movies has 361 folders by the way and this struggles every time.
Any idea how to fix this.
I have windows 8 on a toshiba qosmio x870 i7 2.3ghz quad with 32gb ram 64bit.
Thanks
Do they show up faster in Explorer, or about the same speed?
They do not show up at all in explorer. Its not often they show up in Directory Opus in this case. (TV series works)
Sometimes I get a few folders or files show up with ratings, sometimes I get none.
I know the metadata information is there because when I click on a file or folder and choose to set ratings in the metadata pane, I can see the rating has already been set.
Sometimes up the top right of the screen, at the end of the path address bar, i can see a blue circular loading symbol spinning, that seems to go forever.
Bit confusing to find a solution to this.
See if disabling the Movie plugin under Preferences / Viewer / Viewer Plugins has an effect on the speed. (If it does, there may be some other things to try, that's just a first step to see if it's worth going down that path.)
The problem is likely to be caused by codecs/splitters for the file formats involved that aren't working well, which happens with some versions of some video components. Have you installed any codec packs or similar? Are they up to date? (Codecs/splitters can also be installed by other software without you knowing it's happening, which complicates things further.)
Shell extensions that extract file properties can also get involved here, but let's stick to the above two for now before it gets too confusing to follow.
Hi Leo, this definitely helped a lot. Thanks.
The ratings now load every time. This first time takes about 10-15 seconds to populate, then every revisit to the same folder after that is a bit faster than the initial. (more like 5-8 seconds) Which I am very happy with. This makes it useable and I think will purchase a license now I've reached this stage.
I am also interested in any other suggestions you might have that may further improve these results.
I do have a few installed codec packs and some video editing software on this machine. Mostly up to date.
Codec Packs: Avid Codecs LE, ffdshow x64 v1.3.4500 (06-01-2013), GoPro Cineform decoders 1.2.0, K-Lite Mega Pack 9.9.5,
Video Editing Software: Sony Vegas 13 64 bit, Adobe After Effects.
By the way Directory Opus is such a good program, your team does a great job. Probably the most I've ever appreciated a software development. I find so many frustrating caveats to lots of high end software that I think come from a lack of user mentality from the developers themselves. Not so with Directory Opus which is rare to say.
Are thumbnails being extracted at the same time? (i.e. Are you using Thumbnails or Tiles modes, or Details mode with the Thumbnail column added?)
If you're in Details or Tiles modes, which columns / information is being displayed for each file?
I am always using the details mode. The thumbnail column is not enabled.
My columns are Name--Type--Size--Rating--Description--Date Created--Date Modified
In Preferences, I had disabled Load all thumbnails in a folder automatically in an attempt to speed this ratings loading thing up.
The 4 boxes above are enabled (cache, display for folders, 3d thumbnails, and display for images inside folders)
I have since experimented with a few combinations here, the results have so far been insignificant.
Another peculiar thing I noticed was that the size column is similar to the ratings column in that it slowly loads the data in for each folder but only for some not all. (actually only about 10%) I can make it fill in more of the data by hovering the cursor over the unloaded folders to force the size calculation which instantly gets added to the size column.
Another thing I was curious about was when you mentioned ratings metadata showing up in windows explorer. Currently I see no ratings in explorer from what has been set in Directory Opus. Is there a way to force this?
Apologies for the questions. Its all bonus from here.
Try turning off the Description column. That may help avoid the problem, since Description triggers various metadata to be read, e.g. width x height.
But then underlying issue is that some component involved when Opus asks Windows for properties of the video files is hanging or taking a long time when asked to inspect some of the files.
Yep that is all good. Happy!
I was also wondering if there was a way to speed up thumbnail loading time the first time a folder is visited.
I do a lot of time-lapse photography, and when I insert a memory card, I can usually scroll through the thumbnails in explorer as quick as I want and it will keep up loading the thumbnails at the extra large size.
The settings I currently have on Directory Opus are lagging behind in loading the thumbnails quite significantly in this same scenario.
Any tips for this? Seems to be similar for all sizes (32px, 64px, 128px, and 256px)
Thanks
If the movie plugin is disabled, or its thumbnail option is turned off, then Opus will ask Windows for the thumbnail and it should be the same speed as Explorer.