An electronic equipment and method for creating a composite image or video pattern thumbnail from frame data extracted from a media file. The electronic equipment includes a control circuit operable to access a media file comprised of frame data representing a plurality of image frames. The electronic equipment also may have a processor for extracting a portion of the frame data from each of the plurality of frames and for forming the composite image from the extracted data. The composite image, or video pattern thumbnail, is representative of the content of the media file.