Play video or Power Point with motion sensor activation.

February 10, 2011 1:20 PM

Need to find a way to activate a Power Point show via a motion activated sensor.

You know the motion activated video displays that you might pass in Home Depot or Lowes? You know, when you pass by them, the video starts or restarts? Yeah, that.

What I need is something very similar. I'd like to do one of two things with a large LCD screen and a computer that is located at the front door of our showroom. I'd like to start a Power Point or movie file when someone comes in the front door and activates the motion sensor. Ideally, the situation would go down like this: I have a Power Point running at all times in our front showroom. When the motion sensor kicks in, I'd like the computer to start another Power Point show or play a video file at that time. After that show or video file has ended, the previous Power Point show would continue.

Does that seem possible? If so, how do I make that happen?

Thanks!

posted by Jackie_Treehorn to computers & internet (3 answers total)

You might try encoding these to a video to play in VLC. VLC has some abilities to script via the command line, which I suspect would be the easiest to do this with.
posted by msbutah at 2:38 PM on February 10, 2011

If I were going to do this and had limited resources. I would use Eventghost, a proximity detector and an Arduino. the Arduino is probably overkill for your application but its an easy way to get the sensor data into your computer and from that event ghost can launch a PowerPoint or stop a PowerPoint or do what ever you want it to do. you can probably do the whole thing for about $50.00 - $75.00 depending on what kind of spare parts you have laying around.
posted by jmsta at 4:32 PM on February 10, 2011

A little more expensive, but prepackaged, would be something like Media ZoneTrigger
posted by samsara at 5:35 AM on February 11, 2011 [1 favorite]