x10 camera image filename numbering

[#1]

Hi, a couple months ago i finally decided i needed to get a new phone becase it seemed the camera on my old w810i was starting to crap out - it wouldnt focus very well and the camera button wouldn't snap a picture too reliably anymore.  I figured it was probably because i had taken thousands and thousands of images over the time i had the phone since 2006 - i think the last image i took with the 810i was named something like 'dsc06912'.

I'm in the US and att is my provider, so i 'upgraded' to an iphone4 but returned it after a couple of weeks primarily because i learned i really like a dedicated camera button.  So I switched to the SE Vivaz with no iphone restock fee - nice.  I really liked the vivaz hardware size and camera but that symbian os just didn't cut it, especially after using the iphone and the wifi internet experience was pathetic...so after i couple more weeks turned the vivaz in for this xperia x10 - with a restock fee tho.

so anyway, i'm really not that impressed with the camera on this phone yet, and hope the upgrade to 2.1 when/if it becomes available to us here improves things.

but in the meantime, one of the things thats bugging me about this x10 is that the image filenames keep getting reset each time i download and erase the image files from the phone microsd memory card.  in the w810i, even when i did this the filenames still incremented correctly when i took more pictures, thus I new that 'dsc06912' was the 6,912 picture i had taken.  with this x10, it starts over at 'dsc_0001' everytime i start taking pictures after downloading the previous batch of images to my computer.  (Even the Vivaz continued to increment correctly after i downloaded the images - i guess thats one good thing the nokia folks got right since i believe the w810i used symbian like the vivaz.)

i have looked and looked through all the places i can in the x10 android 1.6 os and can find no where to make the filenumbering not re-set.  does anyone understand what i'm talking about and can tell me if i'm doing something wrong or how to fix this in the x10?

thx

[an2ny79]

Here's how xperia x10 numbering works:

this phone doesn't have internal counter just like other digicam.. instead it searches the last file number in DCIM\100ANDRO folder.  So, simply leave a copy of your last photo shot.  Yeah I know that sucks... But that's how it works.

[an2ny79]

Another thing.. file naming for xperia is DSC_####  so if you want to resume your last numbering tag, simple change #### and put it in DCIM\ANDRO folder.

e.g. your last file DSC06912.jpg

then copy it to your x10 and rename it to DSC_6912.jpg

The next time you shoot a photo, you should see DSC_6913.jpg in your DCIM folder.

[suze]

Nice advice!  I had read the original post on my email alerts and was sitting here fiddling and trying to find the settings and obviously failing.  I knew however that mine was counting up and I think that is because I haven't deleted all images.

[#5]

Too confusing for my taste.

I had the same thing happening in 1.6 that whenever I cut and paste photos it restarts the numbering to 0,

but after the update to 2.1 - magically - the issue is resolved. The number magically adds 1 to itself and the numbering continues where it left of.

I think this has to do with me Cutting and pasting the pictures. The thing is the thumbnails remain, so I guess it uses the thumbnails to deduce the numbering, somehow.

Then it refreshes (removes thummbnails for non-existing photos).

[an2ny79 · Accepted solution]

Im not sure about the thumbnail thing but I don't think i has to do with filenaming convention.  System uses thumbnail file to represent (to make loading easy) the larger size of that picture.  You don't need to be confused... The point is, if DCIM\100ANDRO folder is empty, it will create filenumber back to 0.  Im using v2.1 and I move photos to my computer. I dont' care about any thumbnail files created by the system but still, if I emptied the 100ANDRO folder, filename number returned to 0.

System searches the 100ANDRO folder for any file then it increment the filenumber based on the existing file in that folder.

You can safely delete thumbnail folder, but you will notice that if you try to preview a picture (using MediaScape), it would take longer time.. But don't worry, xperia will create thumbnail for that, so next time you open it up, it will display faster.  That's what thumbnail file is all about.

[#7]

thanks man

i think this confirms that google messed this numbering thing up...its such a fundamental digital camera thing, but hey, google isn't a camera company is it...altho i would have thought sony is ... and it sounds like its not ifxed in android 2.1 either ... soooo this really sucks i think ...

ahh well guess i'm stuck trying to leave the last files (i'm assuming its the same with the video files) in the memory to get the numbers to increment ... bummer but doable...