[ANSWERED] small media player for projectors?

[bonemap]

Hi John,

I installed a gallery show last year that required about a dozen HD media players and we used these less expensive units:

https://www.miccatron.com/shop...

The Micca Speck G2 is 1080p playback running at 5v. This allowed the units to operate using a usb to power jack cable (not supplied with unit) straight from the back of the display, so no extra power cable to run, and HDMI signal into the monitors. The units operated for 14 weeks without any disruption or over heating. 

These are a much cheaper option than say Brightsign units for direct looping video/audio file playback.

Best Wishes

Russell

[JJHP3]

@bonemap Thanks! That's it!!  How does it do with looping a video clip? - John

[bonemap]

@jjhp3

Hi John,

From what I recall the Micca player has a near seamless loop, and better than many other domestic media players in my experience.

Best wishes

Russell 

[DanielPineiro]

Hi,

You can also use a iphone/ipad/ipod for this:

https://community.troikatronix...

[Fred]

@jjhp3 brightsign units are amazing, they work really well and can do seamless loops and sync across lots of players. they also have OSC control so you can control them remotely easily. Older HD units are easy to find second hand.

[IP_Trinity_Laban]

Just wanted to add to this that I've recently been testing 8GB Raspberry Pi Model 4B with Mp4Museum OS for just this purpose, and the results have been excellent (although I have only tested for about 24 hours, rather than the 14 days reported). Together with the Argon ONE v2 case (enabling standard HDMI connection, rather than the micro HDMI which I'm less than fond of!), it's super easy to enable seamless looping (of a single file - loop.mp4, or multiple files through an auto playlist in alphabetical order), auto power on (if power is lost). I believe that it should be possible to push the output to 2 connected screens, however, haven't played around with this yet (and this functionality isn't available out of the box at present). 

I have a few issues with consumer media players (small icons appear when looping, no auto-start if power goes off (or when it comes on at the start of the day for installations), so was looking for a sub £150/unit that enables this easily. 

(Nb. I believe it also works on the Pi 3B, but I have not tested this, partly given the difficulty with Pi supply chains at present)

[dbini]

@jjhp3
I used some supercheap media players for an installation a few years ago and they worked pretty well. there was no icon when the loop started again, and looping caused a pause of maybe one frame.
There was a problem though: I had set them all to autostart on power up and thought i could just power down the whole lot at the end of the day.
Switching off power caused some of the media to get corrupted, so some loops would pause randomly and some would get stuck after a while.
Last time i used them i kept the media players running constantly and just powered down the projectors. They ran seamlessly for a couple of months.

[bonemap]

@ianpep

Great to hear about your experience with Raspberry Pi. I have installed a three channel video in gallery that has been running for a few months without any callback. It is using a solution called Lūpa. This is a HD solution so there might be a gap in the market for a low cost 4K device with similar attributes.

Lūpa is powered by Raspberry Pi, so its incredibly power efficient. You can power the device from the USB port built into your projector or display using the microUSB power input, therefore just one cable going to the display device is enough. 

For the multi-head display one Lupa is used for each and sync is accomplished through a network cable. To use three or more devices in sync a network hub is required. There is no built in wireless syncing with the Lupa model I have used. However, the device auto detects other Lupa devices on the network and syncs all the video without additional fiddling.

Best wishes

Russell

[LPmode]

I can vouch for the Micca players and similar. I have used Micca and AGPtek players in year long installations with no issues. They have autoplay, seamless loop, no menus. They can play movies, stills slideshow, choices for HDMI and analog out for video and audio.

[CitizenJoe]

@lpmode Wow, they're crazy cheap! Good to hear that you've had good experiences with them - it's the sort of thing that can be a crap-shoot!

Cheers,

Hugh

[Skulpture]

@citizenjoe

I've used BrighSign media players for this personally. https://www.brightsign.biz/dig...