Can you help me find a small, square format digital display that can play video or animated gifs?

June 6, 2010 8:01 AM

Can you help me find a small, square format digital display that can play video or animated gifs? I found a bunch of digital photo keyframes that would be perfect but they don't seem to display animated gifs or videos. Any ideas?

I've used digital photo frames with video in the past and had good luck but for this piece I'd prefer to have a much smaller display.

Here is the animated gif.
http://www.austinlee.net/onwards.html

keychain
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882136173

digital photo frame i'll resort to if i can't find a better solution
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882597035&cm_re=viewsonic_photo_frame-_-82-597-035-_-Product

posted by austinlee to computers & internet (9 answers total)

It looks like that keychain has been hacked to allow you to dump pictures directly to it, but I think you'd need a computer to run it.
Coby 151
posted by ecurtz at 8:42 AM on June 6, 2010

It's not square, but a Juice Box Media Player is plenty hackable and should be practically free.
posted by glibhamdreck at 9:47 AM on June 6, 2010

Do you know if the juice box would play back an animated gif?
posted by austinlee at 9:57 AM on June 6, 2010

I realize that this being an animated gif is probably part of the concept, but if you just want a technical solution to showing the frames on these cheap displays, there's nothing stopping you from breaking up the gif into its respective frames and showing each of them.

Next up would be a small video display, like this one.

If this isn't good enough, you can probably build your own with one of these.
posted by beerbajay at 1:07 PM on June 6, 2010

beerbajay - i'd be fine with it slide showing through the images as long as it was fast enough. i'm assuming it would be pretty slow though.

i'm going to check out the links you provided. thanks.

right now the juicebox is looking like the best bet. i was thinking i could just make a different frame around it to make it look nicer.

does anyone know if that thing will play animated gifs or loop video nicely?
posted by austinlee at 8:55 PM on June 6, 2010

Dealextreme.com has tiny 2.4" screen mp4 players <>
posted by edman at 11:31 AM on June 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

hi edman, that mp4 player you listed seems perfect but some of the comments about video on the page make me a little hesitant. do you have an experience with it?
posted by austinlee at 5:47 PM on June 7, 2010

I was also looking at this one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855627014
any thoughts?
posted by austinlee at 5:48 PM on June 7, 2010

That last one plays video and is cheap. But from the specs its not clear if it will loop (important in your case), how fast it will start again after loop (a gap would look little funny, but you can solve this by making a few minute long video), and if you can play things while you charge it (you'll need some sort of power -> USB adapter if you want it to run continuously without needing chargings). For 30$, i'd chance it.
posted by beerbajay at 5:02 AM on June 11, 2010