Sometimes the name of a video file is not enough to identify its content in a reliable way, and playing the video file to see what’s in it may not always be the most convenient option. Video Thumbnails Maker offers you an alternative – create stylish thumbnail sheets out of your videos, so you can see snapshots of their content at a glance all packed in a convenient MP4 file.
It is like having a visual table of contents of your videos. The program creates a set of thumbnails taking a screenshot of a frame each X number of seconds and displays them to you in the layout of your choice. Not only you can customize the number of thumbnails that may appear on each sheet, but also select one of the tiles to be animated – this tile will play back a fragment of your video for 4 seconds. Each thumbnail works actually as a link to that particular place in the video stream, so you can go directly to that frame and play back the rest of the video from there using your favorite player. Besides, Video Thumbnails Maker can also produce GIF slideshows with customizable transitions from your video files.
The program supports nearly all kind of video file formats and can produce “video contact sheets” from any number of video files in one single operation. Everything is customizable – from the sheet itself (in terms of size, appearance, number of tiles, tile sizes, etc.) to the resulting video file (in terms of image and video effects). In order to create “the perfect thumbnail sheet”, the program offers an overwhelming set of features and options – overwhelming not only because of the variety of settings, but also because of the way they are displayed to the user. Both the “Options” and the “Environment” windows may seem a bit chaotic at first sight, and it will take you a few minutes to find your way through the different options due to its somehow peculiar layout.
Regardless of the time required to master its many capabilities, Video Thumbnails Maker is an incredible tool. It produces high-quality thumbnail sheets and slideshows that will certainly enhance your video collection. Adding such a dynamic table of contents to your catalog or metadata will surely make finding the right video much easier and faster. This is not a free tool (though very affordable), but you can test its abilities using the trial version provided – note that it will watermark your sheets by including its logo in one of the tiles.