I have a lot of video on my computer, mostly tv shows and managing it all through windows explorer views is really dull. I had the idea of using ObjectDock to launch shortcuts and make nice pretty icons of the various videos I had. Wasn't sure it would work but with a bit of thought I think I came up with a really nifty way of choosing what I want to watch.
In case anyone would like to try the same, here is how I did it.
If i have a single video file that doesn't have any other parts to it, I simply drop that in a tabbed dock and change the image in the dock to something that matches the video in question. For instance, if the video was the movie Alien, I'd trot off into google images and find a movie cover for that film, drag that into paint shop pro and crop and resize it to fit into a 128x128 pixel space. I have templates setup to quicken this process and as the video files are almost permanent on my machine, the effort is worthwhile. I'm sure skinners reading this will know that the idea of making icons and building a set can be a pleasure in itself and I really enjoy making each new icon. Anyway, clicking the new icon launches that piece of video and the possibilities for organising are pretty decent when you consider you can have lots of tabs.
Things get a little more complicated when it comes to something like a whole TV series. Now we have a tonne of files that all need to be launched as a playlist. The solution to this turned out to be pretty simple. Play the videos in media player (or your preferred choice of player) and then simply export your playlist of that series. It only takes a few seconds. Now drop the icon for that playlist into a tabbed dock and clicking this will launch and play the whole series of videos. ObjectDock handles files over a network beautifully too so no matter where the videos are, they can all be easily managed from your dock.
Again the possibilities for organising groups of videos in this way are pretty great. I currently have roughly 40 tv series in a few tabs, seeing all the show logos/images pop up in a row is real eye candy compared to the horribly restrictive windows file views.
I'd happily post the icons I've made if anyone was interested in doing this and would like a base of icons to start with but I'm not sure that I'd be allowed to post logo's and such of tv shows and movies on wincustomize.
Anyway, for my own personal use it's been a great move for me and I now find myself enjoying the once dull process of choosing what to watch. It's really simplified watching multi-file videos over my network too. Media center it isn't but if your already an ObjectDock user and into video then it might be, like it has been for me, a new way to enjoy your media.
