pictures browsing is very slow

[dbbd]

I have a very large pictures library.
Entering the pictures library takes a very long time.
Browsing and viewing options are few, and slow.

My libraries are all on the home network - not on the HTPC.
The connection is a 802.11n @300Mbps. Steaming video and audio are smooth with no problems.

Why is the picture browsing so slow?

Also, is it possible to use an external app to do the task?
i.e. could I launch picasa when I click on "Pictures"?

Thanks,
Dan

[sub]

The bulk of the time is just the time that is required for .net to open the .jpg files and resize them for display. For the typical user with modern digital camera this might mean opening a dozen huge 8 megapixel photos, which is unfortunately going to consume some time. Viewing a single picture you wouldnt notice the half second or so to load it, but when it has to do it for 12 pictures on the screen at one time it becomes quite noticable.

There is some settings in config.xml (disabled by default) that can be used to cache the resized pictures to disk, which means if you every subsequent attempt to view those same photos will pretty much instant. I'm not home so cant check that setting name at the moment.

[dbbd]

I'll try to find those settings in config.xml, since caching make a lot of sense for my setup.

How about launching Picasa? Is that possible?

[McBainUK]

Could launch it from a custom task. Although navigation with the remote might be difficult

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Config/Plugins#toc4

[sub]

I'll try to find those settings in config.xml, since caching make a lot of sense for my setup.

How about launching Picasa? Is that possible?

If you set <PictureLibraryUseThumbnailCache>true</PictureLibraryUseThumbnailCache> in config.xml, and create a 'thumbnails' subdirectory in the GB-PVR directory, then it'll cache the thumbnail versions of files to disk for quick access next time you view these same photos.

[Pob]

The <PictureLibraryUseThumbnailCache>true</PictureLibraryUseThumbnailCache> works really well, but I always forget this setting after a fresh install of GBPVR. Any chance it could be made default in future releases?

[sub]

Yeah, I might try turning it on by default in the next release.