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I downloaded a couple of videos from off the Internet. The videos are short clipping and there are about 20-30 of them. The issue is that when I downloaded them the order was not maintained and I have the 21st video coming first and the 4th second and so on- You get the general idea.

Now I did a simple sort by name in Windows 7 and everything seems to have been rearranged. But as I plugged my hard disk into my TV - voila the order was screwed up again. It had reverted to the old order. I have tried a group by - but still the problem persists- And the reason I need the videos on my TV in order is I would like to view them one after another when my play next feature is on. Any ideas on how to achieve this?

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2 Answers

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When you plug the HDD to your TV, three ordering types may occur:

  • The files are ordered by their timestamp.
  • The files are ordered by their name.
  • The files are ordered by their order on the FAT (File Allocation Table).

What you need is to know what's used by your TV to sort the files and act accordingly to that:

  • If by name, you can rename the files to have them on the sequence you desire:

    file_01.avi
file_02.avi
...

  • If by timestamp, you can download and use this utility to change the timestamp of each file:

    How to Change TimeStamp of a File in Windows (File Created, Modified and Accessed)

  • By their order on the FAT, shouldn't be the case since by what you say, You've downloaded them on the desired order, so the files are allocated properly on your HDD on and since the TV doesn't respect that, this is not the way they are being presented...

EDITED

Links for methods / tools to change the timestamp on multiple files at once.

A simple utility to change a file - or multiple files - "Modified" time.

Change File Date TimeStamp From File Properties In Windows

Update timestamp on multiple files in multiple folders at once

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It doesnt look like the tv sorts it by the name- SO it has to be by time. But the issue is there are more than 20-30 files and i cant go ahead and change the timestamp of each file induvidually using the above tool. Any other ways to address this issue – Sab Jun 7 '12 at 14:32
@Sab, just edited the answer and added some links that might help you out changing all in one go. – Zuul Jun 7 '12 at 14:44
Thanks a lot for the help – Sab Jun 7 '12 at 15:16
up vote 3 down vote

The issue is that when you're "reordering" them on your computer, you're just telling Windows explorer to sort them differently when displayed to you. You're not changing anything about your hard drive.

Your computer and your TV both have file system access that allows them to read and display files, but the order of the files as they appear to you doesn't have anything to do with how they are stored on the hard drive. Your TV most likely sorts them by name, so I would recommend renaming them in a way that they appear sorted when your TV displays them.

Edit: If you post what make/model of TV you have, more information about sorting files could probably be found.

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I dont think its by name since the files are name file1.mp4,file2.mp4... and so on already. – Sab Jun 7 '12 at 14:26
note that name sorting is alpha-numeric, this means that 11 will be first before 2 (1,11,111,2,3,333,4) to cope with this you prepend 0 (as many as is needed for the number of items): (001,002,003,004,011,111,333) – horatio Jun 7 '12 at 14:33
great comment (although i dont have the required rep to vote it up).It works. – Sab Jun 7 '12 at 15:16

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