I’m looking to put some videos / graphics on a tv and I was trying to think of a simple way to do it if the tv is high above a door way / hard to reach.
My thought is this, I get a mini computer like a mac mini auto-access the room’s wifi, hook it up to a tv, set the tv input to the mac mini, and make the screensaver display video files in a special folder and using dropbox I could drop video files into it without having to climb a ladder. I would just need to figure out how to display the screensaver and bypass that initial log-in to the computer screen if a power outtage occurs and it reboots on it’s own.
Has anyone done something like this before and is it as easy as I am imagining above?
Also, I personally am a Windows OS user, I don’t know of a similar hardware option via Windows. If you know of that, I would be interested.
Why would it need to be the screensaver? Any number of slideshow programs exist for this. Look up EMS or Electronic Message Board technology. We have something similar to what you are talking about in our lobby waiting room. I’m fairly certain though that it is wired via ethernet. I could check in the morning what it’s running for software.
What we’ve done in educational museums is get those automatic changing picture frames. Just get power to it, plug in a flash card and push the button. Trouble would probably be finding one big enough.
I’m unable to edit the original post but here’s what I went tomake it say:
I’m looking to put some videos / graphics on a tv and I was trying to think of a simple way to do it if the tv is high above a door way / hard to reach.
My thought is this, I get a mini computer like a mac mini auto-access the room’s wifi, hook it up to a tv, set the tv input to the mac mini, and display a graphic or video file using some software, perhaps a screensaver in a special folder and using Dropbox I could drop the video file or a graphic into it without having to climb a ladder. I would just need to figure out how to display the video/graphic and bypass that initial log-in to the computer screen/TV if a power outage occurs and it reboots on it’s own.
Has anyone done something like this before and is it as easy as I am imagining above?
Also, I personally am a Windows OS user, I don’t know of a similar hardware option via Windows. If you know of that, I would be interested.
I’ll check with our exhibit interface guy. The power outage thing, I dunno. Most of the stuff we build has an off switch or timer to start when the exhibit opens and shut down when it closes. Power saving feature.
When you say TV, you mean a display screen or monitor, not a real TV with broadcast reception, right?
I did do a quick online search for digital signage software and came up with a couple services that do what you want through an online interface. For a price. I’m not going to post them cuz I don’t know them and don’t want to seem to be promoting them.
But I’m’ fairly certain after looking at our set up that you are either going to need a screen with a wifi link to an onsite router, or a hardwired ethernet link (ours is hard wired.) And a power supply has to be run to the unit. There is also the possibility of a hacking risk, so plan wisely. When the AV guy gets in I’ll ask more questions.
This was 10 years ago, and I’m really hazy on it, so this may be of dubious value.
I made a powerpoint, saved it as a video, and put it on a usb stick. It was for use at a train station. Monitor built into the wall, hooked up to a pc which was in a utility closet. In case the power went out they wanted the maintenance staff to be able to turn the computer on and have the video start up and resume looping by itself. They didn’t want the maintenance staff to fiddle around with launching files, they just wanted them to be able to push the power button and walk away.
The full screen looping was set in powerpoint at the time the show was saved as a video. The IT people said the train station monitor was connected to a dedicated pc, and they said something about ‘task manager’ or task something, which let them tell the computer to autoplay this file on every startup.
I’m wondering if the file could be placed in dropbox. Even if it wasn’t possible with dropbox, I’m guessing you could use remote access to gain control of the computer and update the video file with a new one with the same name. As long as the computer sees the same file name in the same location, it would launch and play on start up.
Please post an update if you figure out how to do this.