Sorry for so many updates, i can't see where to edit my original question, but here's another updated. I managed to get the video thumbnail to work using this:
<img src="[wpv-post-field name="_video_thumbnail"]"/>
there were two things wrong originally, 1) I didn't realize the code retreived the URL and not the actual image, which was easily resolved by the corrected html, but also the code snipped that populated from the fields options placed 'video_thumbnail' in the loop, rather than _video_thumbnail , which was something i discovered and corrected after a bit of searching through the plugin developers support pages. Is this a glitch on the Video Thumbnails plugin developers end, or in Views?
Regardless, i'm thrilled to get one step closer my goal. Now is there any way to edit this following View loop so that it shows only one or the other of the Video Thumbnail or featured image? or is that something that can only be done writing a custom PHP archive page?
<wpv-loop>
<div class="box">
<img src="[wpv-post-field name="_video_thumbnail"]"/>
[wpv-post-featured-image]
<a href="[wpv-post-url]"><h2>[wpv-post-title]</h2></a>
[wpv-post-excerpt]
</div>
</wpv-loop>
Thanks again in advance, and for your patience in reading this thread…