Do you consider playing videos a necessary function of a photo manager?

[geoken]

I'm constantly searching for and trying new photo managers for gnome and one typical deficiancy is the complete lack of support for playing videos.

With the price of flash memory dropping, and point and click cameras being able to shoot 640x480 video at 30fps with a quality level rivaling my 2yr old camcorder, I'm finding that short 15-30 second clips are increasingly taking up a larger portion of my photo library. It's at the point know where these short clips and my pics are becoming completely interchangable. Naturally I would like to be able to view/manage these two media types through one app. When I'm viewing the pics/vids I took at a certain event I don't want to use a photo manager to look at 30 pics, then have to use a totally different app to view the 15 or 20 videos.

Just wondering if I'm alone in this. Are you guys still maintaining your pics and short video clips in totally seperate libraries?

[chucky chuckaluck]

while not a photo manager, gwenview (with the kmplayer plugin) will play videos. so, i guess you could use it as a viewer in conjunction with a photo manager.

[Rhubarb]

I've got a very organised folder structure here.
But, basically, I've got a pictures folder, and a videos folder.
I don't have problems managing them both, and use programs best suited to my needs, not 1 program for them all.

[geoken]

Don't you find it disjointed when your trying to view media from a given event?

For me it's at the point where I can't even remember if something was a picture or a video. For example, I was at the zoo with my son and we took a shot of a peackock walking around us. I was trying to show it to my wife and i honestly couldn't remember whether it was a picture or a video I took.

My point is that the 2 have become so interchangable for me that differentiating them, and by extension using different apps to view/organize them seems as arcane as using different apps to view/organize jpegs and pngs.

[notwen]

Do you consider playing videos a necessary function of a photo manager?

You answer is in your question. =] Photos tend to stay still, or else they would be.. will videos. Unless you're one of those types who like to save lots of animated gifs for placement in a photo management application. lol

[ajgreeny]

Digikam (yes, I know it's a kde app, but it's good) will show all pics and videos in the album listings and then just plays them with totem or mplayer for you, whatever the default for videos is on your system. Is that what you're looking for?

[conehead77]

Playing videos slows a photo manager down too much i think.

But playing .gifs is necessary (although i use GQview and it doesnt do it).

[mridkash]

+1 for digikam. Me and my parents use it.

It makes thumbnails of videos too.
You have to change a minor setting which tells it to open the file for editing rather than viewing. This way it opens videos when you click on the thumbnail. Otherwise it opens the view screen saying "Could not find video player". Maybe because I run it on Ubuntu, rather than Kubuntu, for what it's made.

And you are right, a photo manager nowadays should have integrated video playing option too.

[geoken]

You answer is in your question. =] Photos tend to stay still, or else they would be.. will videos.

I realize there is a difference. My point is that sometimes apps need to be designed for a purpose and not for a filetype. If people treat pictures and short video clips interchangably then isn't it logical for an app to at least support both of them?

It's kind of how rythmbox will let me playback a video podcast. Obviously a video podcast is not a sound file, but people use them interchangably with regular audio podcasts so it makes sense to support them.

[geoken]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give digiKam a shot.

[billgoldberg]

A photo manager that plays videos?

It's a photo manager.

I manage my music, videos and photos right in nautilus.

It all comes down to making good folder trees.

[geoken]

Say I wan't to sequentially view every pic of my son from the time he was born 3.5 years ago until now, how can I do that with a folder tree while still retaining my ability to view all pics by date.

Good folder structures are fine for small amounts of data, or data that you never need to filter/sort by any criteria other than the original folder creation criteria.

Here is a list of all the things I would no longer be able to do if I managed my music through Nautilus rather than using a music management app. (these assume that my default view, and by extension folder structure are based around artist/album/song)

-I can no longer listen to all music in a given genre
-I can no longer sort by length to listen to all my DJ sets
-I can no longer sort by rating
-I can no longer hear my newest tracks
-I can no longer listen to tracks I haven't heard in a while
etc.

[billgoldberg]

Say I wan't to sequentially view every pic of my son from the time he was born 3.5 years ago until now, how can I do that with a folder tree while still retaining my ability to view all pics by date.

Good folder structures are fine for small amounts of data, or data that you never need to filter/sort by any criteria other than the original folder creation criteria.

I don't agree with that, but still. I have over 5000 pictures and I find everything in less then 30 secs.




Here is a list of all the things I would no longer be able to do if I managed my music through Nautilus rather than using a music management app. (these assume that my default view, and by extension folder structure are based around artist/album/song)

-I can no longer listen to all music in a given genre
-I can no longer sort by length to listen to all my DJ sets
-I can no longer sort by rating
-I can no longer hear my newest tracks
-I can no longer listen to tracks I haven't heard in a while
etc.

I have folders for each music genre, with sub genres and one for dj sets. Artists get displayed by alphabetical order, if you want to hear lets say "eminem" press "em" and you got the songs.

Sort by rating, who uses that?

No longer listen to track you haven't heard a while, why wouldn't you be able to do that?

And if you really can't find a song -> "places -> search for files", finds every song in 2 seconds.

------------

But if you want a photomanager: fspot, picasa, ...

Video manager: gcstar (more oriented toward movies, but usable for home made vids)

Music: exaile, amarok, ...

[geoken]

Listening to songs by rating is the most common way for me to listen to music.

Anyway, if I made folders by genre then I could no longer listen to songs by one artist, for example, if I felt like listening to eek a mouse I'd have to go into the reggae, dub and jungle genres. It would also force me to split single albums into multiple directories.

The reason I wouldn't be able to listen to tracks I haven't heard in a while is because Nautilus isn't giving me a method to sort my files according to the last time I accessed them.

In the end, arranging items into folders is by it's very nature a compromise. Your forcing yourself to design and use a static layout rather than a dynamic one.


For the record, I don't think that the things I want to do are not possible with a file manager. I just don't think nautilus in it's current state is up to the task. If nautilus was able to incorporate some of the native metadata handling abilities that explorer has in Vista (ie. sorting files by about 200 metadata types and displaying them in collapsable groups) it would probably be in a position where helper apps like fspot and rhythmbox weren't needed.

[scrooch]

Well to answer the main question: it depends a little how you look at it. A picture viewer should be a picture viewer (GThumb!) of course. Movieplayer should be movieplayer.

I think FSpot should just be a ´indexer´ or ´media-tagger´. I want FSpot to let me import as much as different media files as possible. Then I want to tag them. Then if I click on one of these imported and tagged files I want them to open all in an external program. Think GThumb for pictures, Totem for the movies and maybe even PDF´s (Evince) and Gnash for Flash imports.

So yes my photos and videos are totally seperate. But lets use F-Spot as the common Tag-program.

[geoken]

Well to answer the main question: it depends a little how you look at it. A picture viewer should be a picture viewer (GThumb!) of course. Movieplayer should be movieplayer.

I think FSpot should just be a ´indexer´ or ´media-tagger´. I want FSpot to let me import as much as different media files as possible. Then I want to tag them. Then if I click on one of these imported and tagged files I want them to open all in an external program. Think GThumb for pictures, Totem for the movies and maybe even PDF´s (Evince) and Gnash for Flash imports.

So yes my photos and videos are totally seperate. But lets use F-Spot as the common Tag-program.

I think I may have not been clear initially. I totally agree with everything you just said. I wasn't suggesting that the photo manager should have an embeded video player, I just meant (as you mentioned above) that it should be able to sort/filter your videos along side your photos. I too think that said media should open in an external app (preferably of the users choosing).

[ajgreeny]

I just meant (as you mentioned above) that it should be able to sort/filter your videos along side your photos. I too think that said media should open in an external app (preferably of the users choosing).We're back to digikam again, aren't we?

[Depressed Man]

Picasa from Google can do both pictures and movies (well not sure if the Linux version of Picasa can do it..maybe the latest beta they're offering can).

I keep recorded video and pictures in the same place (since my camera does both and when it imports, it imports them into the same folder done by date). I don't think it's a necessary function but it's nice (and one of the reasons why I use Picasa over the other photo management programs).

[original_jamingrit]

When I read this thread title, I thought that instead of 'videos' it said 'video games'.