I would like to use the SD card slot on our Panasonic 37" wide TV to view a batch of images and have tried a few but find on screen they come up in the slide viewer with a copy of every image blacked out and a note saying, "Cannot view file". I sized the image in Photoshop Elements. The images that do show are quite acceptable quality but I want to exclude those blacked out. Any thoughts or a link that may help?
I assume that you rescaled the images on your Mac and then wrote them as JPEGs to the SD card to plug into the TV. If you didn't, you could try doing this (rescale to fit into 1920x1080 for HD) since some TVs don't like the very big images from SLRs.
TVs seem to vary but what you're probably seeing is the (usually hidden, and tiny) macOS auxiliary data. On TVs I have seen, these show as a separate "batch" (even directory) and on others as a whole set of unreadable files before the ones that you really want. It sounds like you're seeing them interleaved? I'm sure there are other variations too but the thing to do is scroll around expecting to find a second version of (almost) the same file name, then try using different view order options to get rid of the ones you don't want. The last resort is to delete them (I've never had to resort to that) but it isn't easy on a Mac (as far as I know), nor is it simple to avoid writing them in the first place.
Thanks Tony. Yes I rescaled as you say. Also yes, the unreadable files are interleaved. Am unsure where to try your suggestion to use a different order. I only see them on the TV, not the Mac, so is there a way of moving them whilst they are on the TV? If this fails, then would viewing them from an iPad via Apple TV be possible, (even better), using the original version of Apple TV which I have?
Roy - I'm really glad you asked about this because it's made me learn something. It turns out that there's actually a tool in macOS to get rid of them, apparently been there for years but I've never seen it before.
You need to open Terminal and use a command called dot_clean. You should create the command in Terminal carefully as follows:
* At the prompt, type dot_clean -mn and a following space, don't press return (and note that it's an underscore character, not a dash).
* Find your SD card (or memory stick or whatever) icon on the desktop and drag it to the end of the line you've typed. This will append its name to the command (you could just type the name but doing it this way deals with UNIXy things like handling spaces in the name etc).
* Check that the line looks something like:
* Type return and hear a choir of angels sing (well, I did, but I don't know what's in this tea I'm drinking).
I have tried this except that I haven't verified that it worked for my TV. Would you report back after you've tried it please.
[UPDATE: I can confirm that my pictures still work with my TV after doing this. However... my TV did not exhibit the problem in the first place so I can only say that no harm was done.]
As always with Terminal, double-check what you've typed before you press return.
Roy Rainford 