[GRLUG] Ideas

[Michael Mol]

On 12/14/2009 2:58 PM, Casey DuBois wrote:
> Hey GRLUG,
>
> I've been asked for the following:
>
> We are looking for a small box that has an analog video out port and a
> port for plugging in flash memory, either SD, or CF memory card.
> The memory card would hold either jpeg images which the box would play
> as a slide show with sound, or it would play video files (mpeg-1 or
> mpeg-2).
> Either of these options needs to loop and play continuously without
> any on-screen interruption or user interaction.
> This is for a retail display which will be in the field for approximately 2yrs
>
> My original thought would be a bunch of used computers loaded with
> linux, the question is how easy would it be to have it set to run the
> SD/CF card on a continuous loop showing slideshow/mpeg without any
> user interaction?
>
> I'm also thinking a live CD would be an option??

Boot off the SD card. I currently have the rather amusing scenario where 
my SD/USB hybrid card I use for photos also happens to have a bootable 
Ubuntu install on it.

Rather than a desktop environment, boot startx with a startup script (is 
it .x11rc? I forget; It's been a while.) that runs a simple slideshow 
app. Or mplayer, if you can convert your slideshow to a video stream 
beforehand.

While I don't know of such a program off-hand, you would want a 
slideshow app that takes image files as its arguments and plays them as 
an unattended slideshow.  Such a program shouldn't be difficult to 
write. (Though it'd be nicer if, e.g. mplayer had the support for 
low-framerate switching of still images.)

It's really a rather simple problem, as software goes.