Video message repeater

B

Brian Bolly

Junior
Jan 11, 2011
429
28
28
Baltimore, MD
I'm looking for a device that will cycle through still frame shots (JPEG, TIFF, etc) to announce upcoming events, etc. Client was going to use a computer and powerpoint, but there's got to be a better way to do this. Hopefully files can be uploaded/updated via either USB stick or network, but that's not a requirement.

Any/all suggestions are helpful.

EDIT: I did come across the Denon DN-V755, but other suggestions are certainly welcome.
 
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Re: Video message repeater

Whatever you do, absolutely never, ever use Powerpoint for this! It is not at all what the program is for, and it's extremely time consuming to set the slides to a black background, set up text and images, and arrange things, when a dedicated program does all this automatically. More importantly, Powerpoint cannot be edited without taking the output offline, and any edits are even more time consuming.

Powerpoint is definitely the wrong application for the job.

When I do events that need a slideshow of photos, I fire up Irfanview and make a self-running .EXE file, so when I get to the gig all I have to do is connect a netbook to the projector and run the program. Nothing else to think about. Of course, this is not editable at all. Irfanview can do the slideshow natively without making an .exe if you want.
 
Re: Video message repeater

We do a lot of digital signage. When we want network control, we use a network media player similar to what you've found in the Denon. We use media players from DLink, or any number of flatscreens that have UPNP media streaming built in.

If you just want to go to the machine with a thumbdrive full of updates, these work well: http://tinyurl.com/45yq9jz
 
Re: Video message repeater

Thanks all for the suggestions. The device will pretty much run 24/7/365, so it looks like the BrightSign is the way for them to go, both in price and features. The fact that a novice user could update it easily is also a plus.
 
Re: Video message repeater

I've actually had good luck with an older mac-mini running Apple Keynote. Much easier to whip up a quick rotating message system with good text and even video rolls than PowerPoint
Unfortunately the live-edit problem still exists but it's a trade-off on the cool transitions that the Apple software does that most hardware boxes can't
I've also used the older white AppleTV for this too -and if you have both, you can quickly switch over to it while editing the keynote slideshow. (most of my setups involve a matrix switcher)
 
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