I've done some research and it turns out that "ffmpegthumbs" is not associated with KDE (which explains why no plugin is found..).

The software "ffmpegthumbnailer" I mentioned is available in KDE 4.9 and later only i'm afraid, so you will need to upgrade in order to use it (although it might compile and be functional under 4.8 - hard to tell).

bcooksley wrote:I've done some research and it turns out that "ffmpegthumbs" is not associated with KDE (which explains why no plugin is found..).

The software "ffmpegthumbnailer" I mentioned is available in KDE 4.9 and later only i'm afraid, so you will need to upgrade in order to use it (although it might compile and be functional under 4.8 - hard to tell).

I understand. I can live without them for some months until KDE 4.9 will be out in that case. Will it be included with KDE on all distributions however? Since ffmpeg has those issues with the restricted formats and all, and IIRC it was only available on the Packman repository.

Anyway, I'll probably update this thread and let people know how it goes once KDE 4.9 will either be in the openSUSE update repository, or when openSUSE 12.3 will be out (which will surely have KDE 4.9).

It is probable you will have to use an openSUSE Build Service repository to upgrade within the 12.2 cycle.
As for ffmpegthumbnailer - yes, it does link to ffmpeg so probably will only be available in Packman.

bcooksley wrote:It is probable you will have to use an openSUSE Build Service repository to upgrade within the 12.2 cycle.
As for ffmpegthumbnailer - yes, it does link to ffmpeg so probably will only be available in Packman.

When I have KDE 4.9 installed, I'll check if the ffmpegthumbnailer from Packman works with it. Since from what I understand 4.8 simply doesn't know to connect with it yet, while 4.9 will be aware of this plugin. Strange that there's no setting in 4.8 too to make it work if it's just that...

That understanding is essentially correct, yes. It isn't a case of configuration, but rather actual code being necessary to connect the KDE Thumbnail generation system with a video decoder such as ffmpeg.

I updated to KDE 4.9.5 some weeks ago. I still don't see the new entries in Dolphin for generating thumbnails for these file types. I'll wait for the next openSUSE release which will have KDE 4.10 to see what happens there.

Note that due to patent restrictions, most distributions will not ship ffmpeg as part of their repositories, and therefore cannot ship the ffmpegthumbnailer either. You may be able to obtain both from 3rd party repositories however.

bcooksley wrote:Note that due to patent restrictions, most distributions will not ship ffmpeg as part of their repositories, and therefore cannot ship the ffmpegthumbnailer either. You may be able to obtain both from 3rd party repositories however.

I know. I have ffmpegthumbnailer installed from the Packman repository. The package is on my system, just that it doesn't work for whatever reason (still in KDE 4.9.5).

If you are running KDE 4.9.5 it should show up. Can you verify that /usr/share/kde4/services/ffmpegthumbs.desktop exists?

bcooksley wrote:If you are running KDE 4.9.5 it should show up. Can you verify that /usr/share/kde4/services/ffmpegthumbs.desktop exists?

It doesn't seem to exist.

This explains why it is missing then. You are missing the "ffmpegthumbs" component from KDE Multimedia. You might want to check the repositories to see if it is available there (it does contain parts called "ffmpegthumbnailer" but the only binary it produces is a KDE plugin called "ffmpegthumbs"). Otherwise you will need to ask the repository maintainers.

I have the package "ffmpegthumbnailer" installed. All I can assume is that this means it's not the right one and it means something else. Thankfully, YaST lets me see the file list of each package... here it is:

Code: Select all

ffmpegthumbnailer - Lightweight video thumbnailer that can be used by file managers

/usr/bin/ffmpegthumbnailer
/usr/share/doc/packages/ffmpegthumbnailer
/usr/share/doc/packages/ffmpegthumbnailer/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/packages/ffmpegthumbnailer/COPYING
/usr/share/doc/packages/ffmpegthumbnailer/ChangeLog
/usr/share/doc/packages/ffmpegthumbnailer/README
/usr/share/man/man1/ffmpegthumbnailer.1.gz

7 files total

That is indeed the incorrect package - it appears to be a separate command line tool used to generate thumbnails using ffmpeg. The KDE plugin does something similar, it is just integrated more closely into KDE.

bcooksley wrote:That is indeed the incorrect package - it appears to be a separate command line tool used to generate thumbnails using ffmpeg. The KDE plugin does something similar, it is just integrated more closely into KDE.

Ahh... that explains why it never worked for me in that case. I was expecting the Packman repository to have this package since it has everything about ffmpeg and the restricted formats. Any info as to where I can get it from for openSUSE?

Unfortunately no. I would recommend contacting the appropriate repository maintainers to see if they are aware of this component and are interested in adding it.