[Frameworks] seamless media player recommendations?

Sat Feb 27 19:13:10 UTC 2016

Hi Paul, 

that was exactly the same situation I found myself in last fall!

In the past, when i was looping only one video, i used a mac mini with VLC, because that was the easiest and smoothest.

But when I had a project with 3 separate looping videos, and i couldn't get 3 mac minis... that's when i did all the media player research.

i wound up using 3 identical WDTV Live media players.
If you're editing on a mac, you gotta know that they won't take ProRes files, and they're not a fan of .mov files... they prefer h.264 mp4 files... they can run .mov files... but .mp4s run smoother.
You can use MPEG streamclip which is open source free software, to transcode your finished files into h.264 mp4.... 
then do your copy-pasting in Quicktime Pro instead of in your video editing software, because it will save a whole lot faster (no rendering).

I was able to use long files on those media players.  
I got the three WDTV  Live media players, along with three 32GB USB sticks, and made three 10 hour long video files.
Because all 3 media players were the same, when the gallery turned the show on and off in the morning, they only had to use one remote and it turned on all three (but that was a bit of a bitch if you were trying to trouble shoot one of them, because they were so close together that the remote would often affect more than the one i was working on... but once it was running, it was relatively smooth).

Hope that's helpful!

Amanda Dawn Christie
--------------------------------
506-871-2062
www.amandadawnchristie.ca
amanda at amandadawnchristie.ca
_______________________________

On 2016-02-27, at 2:54 PM, Paul Harrill wrote:

> 
> Amanda,
> 
> Thanks for the info. I’ve been thinking about creating the 10hour video in quicktime as a solution. 
> 
> How did you play your 10 hour video? On a mac? We’re going to need three players, and I’m not sure I’ve got 3 macs (minis or laptops) that I could use during the duration of the show.
> 
> Paul 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 27, 2016, at 1:27 PM, Amanda Christie <amanda at amandadawnchristie.ca> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I went through a pretty big search for something similar last year, and it's harder than you would think.  most of them to have at least a black screen if not a reloading symbol between each loop.
>> 
>> here are the results from my search:
>> 
>> 1)  the Lacie LaCinema media player can do it, but it has been discontinued and is hard to find.
>> 
>> 2)  there is a woman in france who can write a hack for a firmware update that can remove the little orange circle "reloading" symbol from the WD live media players.   
>> I forget how much she charges for the hack, but I don't think it was much... 
>> 
>> 3)  a lot of people were using media players that were specifically designed for haunted houses in the US (go figure! who knew! apparently haunted houses are a big commercial industry there, and there are media players designed just for those that don't have the looping symbol)... sorry, I can't find any of my reference notes on makes or models though... :-(
>> 
>> 4) finally, the easiest solution, that I went with... was I just put my media into Quicktime Pro... and copy paste copy pasted loop after loop to make a 10 hour long video file.  so it only had to play once in the gallery anyway.
>> 
>> 
>> hope some of that is helpful, and if you find something, do let us know!
>> 
>> adc
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 2016-02-27, at 2:18 PM, Paul Harrill wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> I’m looking for recommendations for media players capable of looping video seamlessly for several hours in an installation/gallery environment.
>>> 
>>> I’ve been trying out this Micca Speck G2 player, but it has been freezing up after 50 minutes or so:
>>> http://www.amazon.com/Micca-Full-HD-Portable-Digital-Player/dp/B008NO9RRM
>>> 
>>> I need it to be able to run as long as 10 hours, continuously. Does anyone have any ideas? I’ll need three, so something affordable would be awesome. 
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> Paul
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
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