Screensaver which shows pictures AND plays music?

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dramatic

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#208330 7-Feb-2017 11:25

We are setting up a visitor information display in the foyer of our (temporarily closed) Cathedral - using the typical assortment of donated gear - an old Dell desktop running XP (SP3) and a Sony Bravia flatscreen.

While it will have some specific content available via a kiosk menu (Windows SteadyState), we are displaying random photos as a screensaver.

At the same time, we want to have background music in the foyer - the same soundtrack we previously played in the Cathedral. To avoid buying a separate sound system AND to have the music stop when someone interacts with the display, it makes sense to play the music as part of the screen saver. Does anyone have solutions for this (either a specific screensaver that plays audio from directory A and images from directory B) or a script/Batch file which can hook a media player into the standard screensaver triggers?

Inphinity

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#1716507 7-Feb-2017 13:39

Is it actually a requirement that the music stop when someone is using the kiosk, or can the music continue? I know you mentioned it stopping, but just clarify if that is an assumption because of the idea of having it as part of the screensaver.

dramatic

41 posts

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#1716517 7-Feb-2017 14:00

Yes, the content of the kiosk will include videos, so the music needs to stop.

(And playing the video will need to disable the screensaver until it is finished, something Windows doesn't always manage well!)

richms

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#1716522 7-Feb-2017 14:05

It would probably make more sense to put the slideshow and music into whatever app you are using to show the interactive content, otherwise using an actual screensaver would have the task stop and then start again when idle so it would need to keep up with where it was up to with the music and slideshow.

Richard rich.ms

PaulBags

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#1716595 7-Feb-2017 15:16

Off the top of my head Irfanview can generate .exe slideshows which I think can have background music. Renaming from .exe to .scr should work. Drawback is I don't think you can have it pointed to folders, the files become part of the .exe.

freitasm

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#1716621 7-Feb-2017 15:50

You could create a PowerPoint presentation with the videos, background and music you want. Once you have this working you can export this as a MOV, WMV or MPEG file. If the TV has a USB and can play videos you can just copy this to a USB memory key and play from there - no need for a PC on site. If the TV doesn't have a USB port then you can use a PC as usual.

dramatic

41 posts

Geek

#1717148 8-Feb-2017 12:24

I should add that we will want the music playlist (all rights-cleared) to be at least 60-90 minutes long for the sanity of the people working nearby. This and the fact that we'd want to be adding photos regularly make me prefer a solution that will play music/images from a directory rather than one where everything has to be compiled in each time.

At present we only have one item for user activated play (a 20 minute video), but will be adding more a.s.a.p (such as galleries of specific images, a virtual tour etc.) I'm leaning towards embedding everything in html, so I guess it might be possible to embed an audio player in my home page.

(The system will be off-network except when I want to add new material)

Richard

dramatic

41 posts

Geek

#1724008 21-Feb-2017 19:25

FYI, I ended up doing the following:

Install WAMPserver,

Create a frameset index page with HTML5 Children:

1px top frame has audio element populated by php globbing the music directory.
main frame has links to content - any content with it's own audio has target=_top to remove the frameset and turn off the background music. (and a redirect to index.html after the video has finished).
Really nice databaseless gallery with photo descriptions from www.foliopages.com
Screensaver is just the standard photo album one (using a separate folder from the topic specific galleries).

So all Windows Steadystate has to do is start WAMPserver and launch firefox in fullscreen mode.