Answer to smallschoolie
Your DVD player cannot open photo files by date taken. Impossible. It will
open files by numerical/alphabetical order and nothing else.
You have a mess. Not your fault. XP has decided to list (sort or open)
files
in a new way and told nobody about it.
If the file names are alphabetical only, the XP way is the same as the
old
way. However, if the file name starts or end with numbers the XP way is
not
compatible with anything else. Look at the following example:
image 1.jpg
image 2.jpg
image 10.jpg
image 20.jpg
If you have these files in a folder, XP will list them in this order.
If you
load these files to a server or you have a DVD player read these files,
this
will be the order in which the files will be displayed
image 1.jpg
image 10.jpg
image 2.jpg
image 20.jpg
Quite different. You can also place the number in front of "image"
instead
of at the end and the result will be the same.
There is a way to get what you want, on both XP and your DVD player and
anything else by using the old way of numbering files:
001 image.jpg
002 image.jpg
010 image.jpg
020 image.jpg
When numbering this way, XP, servers, DVD players etc. will all read or
list
these files in this order.
You can do this renaming easily with batch renaming your files with the
free
software here:
www.irfanview.com
Download the software, install it and then open it.
Click on File on the top bar and click on Batch conversion/Rename on
the
opening menu.
Select all the files in the folder you want and click on the Add button
so
the files are under "Input files" list.
Click on sort files, date, ascending.
Look at the files by clicking on each with the preview on. Use the move
up,
down, buttons as needed to change the order.
Then click the "Set rename option" and change the default (image or new
name) to a name you want and leave ### the same and then click start.
New files will be added in your folder, your original file names will
still
be there also. The new files will be
image001.jpg
image002.jpg
etc.
You can now copy these files to a CD or DVD disk and they will play in
this
order.
If your head is not spinning by now, here is a bag of tricks to rename
files
using XP. Just remember that if you use this, everything will work if
you
are using XP to list, open, sort etc. but it will not work on anything
else.
If you need to batch rename and number, you can do this easily with
XP.
Copy the photos to a new folder.
Open the new folder. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter A.
This
will select (highlight in blue) all the files in the folder.
Right click on the first file (important to right click on the first
file
because renaming will start from there).
Click on Rename on the opening menu.
Type in the name you want, to replace the current name. Any system will
work, such as year, month, event. For example type in:
2003_09_Virginia Beach Vacation (1).jpg
and press Enter.
XP will automatically rename all the files (1), (2), (3), etc. and they
will
open in the order (1), (2), (3), etc. If you copy them to a CD, this
order
will be maintained.
Two important things when renaming using the above method.
1. Look at the name of the above file, you must include a space between
the
last character of the file name and (1)
2. When you rename, don't forget to add .jpg after (1). If you forget,
XP
will warn you, so enter .jpg after this warning. If you don't, you will
not
be able to open the file. If you still do not enter .jpg after the
warning,
don't worry. Rename again and enter .jpg
You can rename any time and as many times as you want. You are not
dependent
on the camera wizard to rename.
You can rename portions of files in a folder, just select the group you
want
and right click on the first one and rename from there.
You can do even better than this. Suppose you want a slide show and you
want
the last three pictures taken to be the first three or in between some
other
photos. Easy to do. Open the folder in thumbnail view, use your mouse
to
place them in the order you want. Select all the photos and rename. The
(1),
(2), (3), etc will be added in the order you placed the thumbnails.
They
will stay in this order if you copy to a CD.
Convenient if you want to make a slide show of pictures from different
folders. Just make a new folder, copy the photos you want in the new
folder,
place the thumbnails in the order you want and rename.
You are not restricted to only one name and you can control the order
in
which each group will open, by placing a number up front of the file
name
for each group. You may have photos of Christmas, Easter, New Year etc.
and
of different years. Once you have the thumbnails in the order you want,
select the first group, right click on the first thumbnail in the group
and
rename:
1_2002 Easter (1).jpg
Then select the second group and rename
2_2002 Christmas (1).jpg
Placing 1_, 2_, etc in front will control the order of each group and
(1)
controls the order within each group.
If you want to add another group later and you want these photos to be,
say
between 1_ and 2_, use 1a_ in front of the file name.
You may also want to add some more photos in a particular group, say
your
Christmas group. No problem. Copy the files in the folder, move the
thumbnails in the group you want to add them to. Select all the
thumbnails
in the group, right click on the first one and rename. When you rename,
you
must change the name in order for rename to take place. Add something
like
XYZ after Christmas. Once renaming is done, select the same files again
and
rename again. Remove the XYZ and you will be back to the original name.
Note: There is a disadvantage to changing the original name of files.
This
is why I recommend at the start to make a new folder and copy your
original
files in the new folder before renaming. The disadvantage is this. Many
have
the option of video out from the camera to display the pictures from
the
memory card to a TV for a slide show. If you change the file names and
copy
the files back to your memory card to display on your TV (or even to
just
look at them on the LCD of the camera) your camera will not be able to
read
the files. You can always rename, using the same format (8 characters)
that
your camera uses, but now you have to rename each file. So, be careful
what
you do with your original files.
Note: Although I recommend making a new folder and copying your files
there
before renaming, there is also another way to do this and you may
prefer
this once you are comfortable with renaming. Here is how to do it.
Open the folder to see your files. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the
letter A to select (highlight in blue) all the files. Hold the Ctrl key
down
and press the letter C. This makes a copy of all the files to your
clipboard. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter V. This copies
(pastes) all the files back in your folder. The file names will be the
same,
but the words "Copy of" will be in front of the file names. You then
rename
Copy of files.
This way your original files and renamed files are in the same folder.
This is also very useful when you want to edit a photo with software.
You
always edit "Copy of", never edit your original file.
