For the umpteenth time when we recently looked at some pictures I decided the 'media centre' way of looking at them is truly awful!
I have my digitised photographs arranged the way I want them in a hierarchy of years/months/days with descriptions in (most of) the folder names. So when I view them I want to be able to use the hierarchy to navigate easily.
We have a WD TV Live media player which is quite well thought of in reviews but it makes viewing pictures a real chore for a number of reasons:-
It's slow by design because of the way it fades from one image to the next, thus you're never quite sure if you really have clicked on the '>' button or not.
It hides the hierarchy above the current directory so you have to navigate by memory basically, or go too far up and then down again.
No image manipulation at all, you can't zoom in for example.
There's no way to jump to the next folder/directory in sequence, i.e. if I have just looked at 1973/04/07 I want an easy way to go to 1973/04/08 but I can't.
The other 'media' software have seen (we have another make of media player where my wife stays during the week, also built-in TV apps) is no better as far as I can see.
So, what I suspect I want is an easy way to use the program(s) I use on my Linux desktop (or laptop) directly on the TV screen.
I could dedicate a system to the TV but this entails either leaving it on permanently or waiting for it to boot every time one uses it. A Raspberry Pi is a possibility, leaving it on is then not an issue but there are downsides like will it be fast enough and it needs a keyboard and mouse. Another fundamental problem is that whoever is managing showing the pictures needs to be close enough to the TV screen to read text and that's likely to be too close for comfortable viewing and/or sociability.
So on to my final idea, use a laptop with the TV as a remote display. The viewing software runs on the laptop and the person running it can use the laptop keyboard and touchpad/mouse to control things. The only issue is handling the dual display, has anyone got any advice on this front, e.g. ways to have different views on two different displays, etc.
On Sun, 8 Feb 2015, Chris Green wrote:
For the umpteenth time when we recently looked at some pictures I decided the 'media centre' way of looking at them is truly awful!
I have my digitised photographs arranged the way I want them in a hierarchy of years/months/days with descriptions in (most of) the folder names. So when I view them I want to be able to use the hierarchy to navigate easily.
We have a WD TV Live media player which is quite well thought of in reviews but it makes viewing pictures a real chore for a number of reasons:-
It's slow by design because of the way it fades from one image to the next, thus you're never quite sure if you really have clicked on the '>' button or not.
It hides the hierarchy above the current directory so you have to navigate by memory basically, or go too far up and then down again.
No image manipulation at all, you can't zoom in for example.
There's no way to jump to the next folder/directory in sequence, i.e. if I have just looked at 1973/04/07 I want an easy way to go to 1973/04/08 but I can't.
The other 'media' software have seen (we have another make of media player where my wife stays during the week, also built-in TV apps) is no better as far as I can see.
So, what I suspect I want is an easy way to use the program(s) I use on my Linux desktop (or laptop) directly on the TV screen.
I could dedicate a system to the TV but this entails either leaving it on permanently or waiting for it to boot every time one uses it. A Raspberry Pi is a possibility, leaving it on is then not an issue but there are downsides like will it be fast enough and it needs a keyboard and mouse. Another fundamental problem is that whoever is managing showing the pictures needs to be close enough to the TV screen to read text and that's likely to be too close for comfortable viewing and/or sociability.
Hi Chris
So on to my final idea, use a laptop with the TV as a remote display. The viewing software runs on the laptop and the person running it can use the laptop keyboard and touchpad/mouse to control things. The only issue is handling the dual display, has anyone got any advice on this front, e.g. ways to have different views on two different displays, etc.
Maybe I have misunderstood you.
For viewing photos I much prefer the simple eog (eye of gnome... and the excellent plugin which allows resizing and batch rename) - shotwell and others create their own album which I don't like. As you mentioned one can just view pics in monthly order - or copy a compilation to a directory for a slide show.
On dual display I am not so sure what you are asking - as a teacher I had a laptop with two video ports so did exactly what you're after just plugging in the electronic whiteboard. I thought all laptops had the two - what I want to do is to have dual display from a desktop. I've got a pci video card with a vga, DVI-HDMI and HDTV port. If you haven't a HDTV port then is that not the problem. Not so sure on hardware but I am interested in what the solution is.
james
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 12:45:27PM +0000, James Freer wrote:
Hi Chris
So on to my final idea, use a laptop with the TV as a remote display. The viewing software runs on the laptop and the person running it can use the laptop keyboard and touchpad/mouse to control things. The only issue is handling the dual display, has anyone got any advice on this front, e.g. ways to have different views on two different displays, etc.
Maybe I have misunderstood you.
No, I think you've understood about right.
For viewing photos I much prefer the simple eog (eye of gnome... and the excellent plugin which allows resizing and batch rename) - shotwell and others create their own album which I don't like. As you mentioned one can just view pics in monthly order - or copy a compilation to a directory for a slide show.
It's almost what I need, a simple "show me the pictures and don't do anything else" app. It isn't installed by default on xubuntu, it may well become my default image view though as it's very straightforward.
However it has one fundamental (for me) disadvantage, once you've navigated to a directory with pictures in you can only see those pictures. There's no way to go 'up and along' to the next day in a month, or to the next month or year.
I want some way of navigating the hierarchy of folders.
On dual display I am not so sure what you are asking - as a teacher I had a laptop with two video ports so did exactly what you're after just plugging in the electronic whiteboard. I thought all laptops had the two - what I want to do is to have dual display from a desktop. I've got a pci video card with a vga, DVI-HDMI and HDTV port. If you haven't a HDTV port then is that not the problem. Not so sure on hardware but I am interested in what the solution is.
My laptop has a VGA port and that drives the TV OK and I get a small 'window' on the laptop display when I leave that on as well. This actually works quite well in practice.
On Sun, 8 Feb 2015, Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 12:45:27PM +0000, James Freer wrote:
Hi Chris
So on to my final idea, use a laptop with the TV as a remote display. The viewing software runs on the laptop and the person running it can use the laptop keyboard and touchpad/mouse to control things. The only issue is handling the dual display, has anyone got any advice on this front, e.g. ways to have different views on two different displays, etc.
Maybe I have misunderstood you.
No, I think you've understood about right.
For viewing photos I much prefer the simple eog (eye of gnome... and the excellent plugin which allows resizing and batch rename) - shotwell and others create their own album which I don't like. As you mentioned one can just view pics in monthly order - or copy a compilation to a directory for a slide show.
It's almost what I need, a simple "show me the pictures and don't do anything else" app. It isn't installed by default on xubuntu, it may well become my default image view though as it's very straightforward.
However it has one fundamental (for me) disadvantage, once you've navigated to a directory with pictures in you can only see those pictures. There's no way to go 'up and along' to the next day in a month, or to the next month or year.
I want some way of navigating the hierarchy of folders.
What I do is rename all pics from the DCNF**** format to a date-numerical order i.e. pic taken on 8 feb 2015 is 08feb15-1, 08feb15-2 etc. I leave the original in a dir (my camera does 1600 x 800) and the reduced size in a dir below with 08feb14-1a (a representing 700 x 525 which I use on forums), larger for ones I use on desktop wallpaper and the screensaver. I use imagemagick for resizing and watermarking, and xubuntu's Bulk rename for renaming.
My photo directory on a remote drive is simply photos/year/08feb15/pics labelled individually as mentioned above. So any pic is always identifiable by name rather than opening and looking at the metadata. The hierachy you seek could be a dir named by month instead of my 08feb15 and then days under that. I wouldn't say this is a best method but it's what I started doing in 2007 - now with so many pics I'm not going to change.
Hope I've given some ideas anyway.
james
On Sun, 8 Feb 2015 10:55:57 +0000 Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
For the umpteenth time when we recently looked at some pictures I decided the 'media centre' way of looking at them is truly awful!
[snip]
I could dedicate a system to the TV but this entails either leaving it on permanently or waiting for it to boot every time one uses it. A Raspberry Pi is a possibility, leaving it on is then not an issue but there are downsides like will it be fast enough and it needs a keyboard and mouse. Another fundamental problem is that whoever is managing showing the pictures needs to be close enough to the TV screen to read text and that's likely to be too close for comfortable viewing and/or sociability.
Why do you need a keyboard and mouse on a Pi? Use OpenElec or one of other XBMC clones and use a remote control with it. The remote I use with my tv will also control the Pi so I consign the extra remote to a cupboard. It's more like 'media' viewing that way than using a PC.
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 01:02:07PM +0000, Chris Walker wrote:
On Sun, 8 Feb 2015 10:55:57 +0000 Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
For the umpteenth time when we recently looked at some pictures I decided the 'media centre' way of looking at them is truly awful!
[snip]
I could dedicate a system to the TV but this entails either leaving it on permanently or waiting for it to boot every time one uses it. A Raspberry Pi is a possibility, leaving it on is then not an issue but there are downsides like will it be fast enough and it needs a keyboard and mouse. Another fundamental problem is that whoever is managing showing the pictures needs to be close enough to the TV screen to read text and that's likely to be too close for comfortable viewing and/or sociability.
Why do you need a keyboard and mouse on a Pi? Use OpenElec or one of other XBMC clones and use a remote control with it. The remote I use with my tv will also control the Pi so I consign the extra remote to a cupboard. It's more like 'media' viewing that way than using a PC.
Er, but I suspect that XBMC etc. will just be like the WD TV Live media player and have a (for me) unusable interface. How easy is it to navigate a hierarchy of directories with one of these 'media centre' apps?
How does the remote talk to the Pi by the way? The Pi doesn't have an infra-red interface does it?
A permanently connected Pi is very attractive but I'm not sure about the details.
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 03:00:29PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
How does the remote talk to the Pi by the way? The Pi doesn't have an infra-red interface does it?
Aha, a bit of Googling shows me that maybe 'CEC' is how to do it, I can see some Pi experimentation on the way.
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 03:16:27PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 03:00:29PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
How does the remote talk to the Pi by the way? The Pi doesn't have an infra-red interface does it?
Aha, a bit of Googling shows me that maybe 'CEC' is how to do it, I can see some Pi experimentation on the way.
Hmm, well a Raspberry Pi is a non-starter. It's just stupidly slow displaying JPEGs. My photo JPEGs vary from about 2Mb to maybe 8Mb in size. I've tried gthumb (a fairly lightweight program) and it takes around 20 to 30 seconds to load and display a picture.
I also tried the default image viewer on the PI (gpicview) and, if anything, it was slower than gthumb.
It seems to me that to get a remotely usable interface for viewing JPEGs one just has to have a fairly fast machine, without being able to process the images quickly *any* interface is going to be horrible to use.
... oh, by the way I did get a little way with CEC on the Pi. I got cec-client installed and working (had to compile it, the Raspian distribution one is broken) so I think that's possible, just the Pi isn't powerful enough for pictures.
The new Pi 2 would be quicker but not enough quicker, even two or three seconds wait makes a user interface rather uncomfortable.
Finally I would point out that browsing photographs imposes very different requirements on the user interface/experience. If you're viewing a DVD/Film then a wait for it to start doesn't really matter, nor does a wait really matter when listening to music. However when browsing still photos there really needs to be virtually no delay when the user says 'next picture please'. Quite often one wants to flick through several pictures quickly or select odd ones at random from the thumbnails, speed is essential. So, what works for *most* types of media in a Media Player app isn't necessarily right for pictures.
As a lightweight viewer gthumb is pretty close to what I want, with digikam on my desktop machine for serious manipulation.
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 03:00:29PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 01:02:07PM +0000, Chris Walker wrote:
On Sun, 8 Feb 2015 10:55:57 +0000
I could dedicate a system to the TV but this entails either leaving it on permanently or waiting for it to boot every time one uses it. A Raspberry Pi is a possibility, leaving it on is then not an issue but there are downsides like will it be fast enough and it needs a keyboard and mouse. Another fundamental problem is that whoever is managing showing the pictures needs to be close enough to the TV screen to read text and that's likely to be too close for comfortable viewing and/or sociability.
Why do you need a keyboard and mouse on a Pi? Use OpenElec or one of other XBMC clones and use a remote control with it. The remote I use with my tv will also control the Pi so I consign the extra remote to a cupboard. It's more like 'media' viewing that way than using a PC.
Er, but I suspect that XBMC etc. will just be like the WD TV Live media player and have a (for me) unusable interface. How easy is it to navigate a hierarchy of directories with one of these 'media centre' apps?
Well I just tried it (XBMC) and while it does some tick some boxes it rather exemplifies what's wrong with 'media players' from my point of view:-
There's no way to navigate a hierarchy of directories, once in the slideshow it just goes round and round. If you exit it just takes you back to the current folder and no easy way to go 'up'.
Why does it completely take over the user interface? I like and know the existing well designed user interface on my computer, it's easy to navigate, I know how to do things.
It seems to want to take over the whole computer and stop me doing anything else, even trying (and failing) to shut it down when I exit.
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Chris Green -
Chris Walker -
James Freer