TV Picture Viewing Issue

[MrAl]

Hi,

I finally got around to getting a new TV set after thinking and talking about it for several months. I found that it works pretty well even though it is a brand i never dealt with before: Insignia.

The only issue is with viewing pictures on the TV that are located on a USB thumb drive plugged into the side of the TV set. What happens is that the order of the pictures displayed are in the order in which they are stored on the disk itself, according to the FAT file format where the names are stored in the FAT record. In that record, files that are named for example:
file1.jpg
file2.jpg
file3.jpg
file4.jpg

will show up on the computer in just that order so you would scroll through the pictures from 1 to 4 in that order.
In the FAT record however, the files may actually appear in this order for example:
file3.jpg
file2.jpg
file1.jpg
file4.jpg

and the TV set will display these files in THAT actual order, 3,2,1,4, instead of in order 1,2,3,4 as on the PC computer.

I know that probably the only way to fix this is to do some programming to modify the USB disk contents using low level API function calls, but then that would be required every time i store something to the disk from the computer. I thought i would ask around anyway to see what other people are doing too.

Thanks.

.

 

[Les Jones]

Hi MrAl,
In Windows explorer you have the option of having the files sorted by alphabetical order or date modified. If you have the display option set to details then clicking on the heading name sorts them in alphabetical order. Clicking on date modified sorts the by date. (Clicking on the heading a second time reverses the order.) The same sort of thing happens if you click the type or size heading.
Edit I have just realized that I have not answered the question asked.

Les.

 

[Tony Stewart]

I have many utilities to change the exif file contents which includes the file creation date but I never use them since my PC is connected to TV , all my TV video comes from the PC

These are Windows EXtended InFormation or EXIF attributes reserved and included for every file.. I'll look for the app.

Be sure which date attribute is the one it recognizes.

https://www.techgyd.com/software-view-edit-remove-exif-data-from-photos/7762/

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

There's a free program you can download called 'drivesort.exe', this sorts the contents of the thumb drive for you, I use it to order files on an SD card for my MP3 adaptor for my car radio (which pretends to be a six disc DC player).

 

[MrAl]

Hi Guys,

Hi MrAl,
In Windows explorer you have the option of having the files sorted by alphabetical order or date modified. If you have the display option set to details then clicking on the heading name sorts them in alphabetical order. Clicking on date modified sorts the by date. (Clicking on the heading a second time reverses the order.) The same sort of thing happens if you click the type or size heading.
Edit I have just realized that I have not answered the question asked.

Les.

Well thanks for explaining the way it works in Windows anyway, that is how i would like it to work on the TV set also. Unfortunately the TV set 'explorer' is way too simplified so it does not give all the options. The only one is "sort by order on the disk" which means that it only displays in the order the files appear in the FAT record. In fact, there is no 'sort', it just reads them one by one from the disk going by the FAT record i presume. It's better than nothing but leaves much to be desired.

Tony:
Thanks, but the TV set is what i am talking about here. This is when displaying on the TV itself, not the PC.
See the USB disk plugs into the TV set itself, and the TV does all the file management. The cheaper file manager does not sorting however, so it is as if it is stuck in sort mode "order on disk" not by name, reverse name, date, size, etc.

But by any chance are you talking about running files on the PC (using the PC) to display on the TV set? If so, how could i do this? Unfortunately the TV set does not have a PC input jack like VGA, but it does have HDMI. I guess an option would be to run an HDMI cable from the computer box to he TV, but that would be a long wire and that's not really the way i wanted to do it. If you have another idea though that would be good to hear.

It's been a long time since i had to mess with FAT records (maybe last time was in the 1990's) and any mods have to be perfectly done so i didnt want to have to get into that again, and it makes it harder to store files anyway.

 

[MrAl]

There's a free program you can download called 'drivesort.exe', this sorts the contents of the thumb drive for you, I use it to order files on an SD card for my MP3 adaptor for my car radio (which pretends to be a six disc DC player).

Hi Nigel,

Oh really? That sounds interesting. I'll have to check into that. Thanks.

LATER: I see that will do the job. Only drawback is files have to be resorted every time a few files are added. Maybe that's ok though if it doesnt take too long.