Make my DVD/Blu-Ray into a kiosk display – STAT.
January 8, 2018 8:37 PM Subscribe
Helping a friend on a project, and he's produced a simple BR video/disc image for a museum that they want in a very simple interactive display. He has a Windows 10 PC with a touchscreen display to use. We just want to load the disc image, allow users to interact with the buttons to move between screens/play video, and keep them from doing anything else. We're both Mac guys, and my Google-fu is epically failing me. Plus, we need it, like, ASAFFFP. More below the fold.
This request/demand came from a client at literally the 11th hour, but we're trying to make it work for them. Given the incredibly short notice, we figured that just creating a regular DVD-style interface for navigation was the simplest way to solve this.
It has four screens - Main screen (with three buttons), screen 1/2/3, each with six videos (plus requisite back buttons, etc). SUPER simple setup.
Being Mac folks, we defaulted to what we know, so load the disc image in VLC, automatically load into Fullscreen, away we go. Right?
Wrong. if you double-click on the screen when the video is playing, it exits fullscreen mode. Can't find a way to disable this. So, now we're panicking, and trying to find something that we can get working. There's money to spend on it, but we talked to one pro shop that wanted $15K to produce an app (four screens, really?). That's not in the cards, but we're rapidly running out of time.
Short-term, for the museum display launch, we'll put someone beside the kiosk who can put it back into fullscreen mode, but that's obviously not a long-term strategy. I've found forum posts that talk about plugins that can be edited and recompiled, considered trying to use Windows Media Player, and/or apps that lock applications to the front, but I'm a bit lost as to the best way to do this quickly – and, frankly, blown away that there isn't an easy way to do this (at least that I've found). I'm very comfortable with technology, but I'm not a programmer – or a Windows user.
TL;DR – How to make a DVD/BR image work with a Windows PC/touchscreen display in a kiosk, so that end users don't f__k it up.
Any suggestions or ideas would be fantastic.
This request/demand came from a client at literally the 11th hour, but we're trying to make it work for them. Given the incredibly short notice, we figured that just creating a regular DVD-style interface for navigation was the simplest way to solve this.
It has four screens - Main screen (with three buttons), screen 1/2/3, each with six videos (plus requisite back buttons, etc). SUPER simple setup.
Being Mac folks, we defaulted to what we know, so load the disc image in VLC, automatically load into Fullscreen, away we go. Right?
Wrong. if you double-click on the screen when the video is playing, it exits fullscreen mode. Can't find a way to disable this. So, now we're panicking, and trying to find something that we can get working. There's money to spend on it, but we talked to one pro shop that wanted $15K to produce an app (four screens, really?). That's not in the cards, but we're rapidly running out of time.
Short-term, for the museum display launch, we'll put someone beside the kiosk who can put it back into fullscreen mode, but that's obviously not a long-term strategy. I've found forum posts that talk about plugins that can be edited and recompiled, considered trying to use Windows Media Player, and/or apps that lock applications to the front, but I'm a bit lost as to the best way to do this quickly – and, frankly, blown away that there isn't an easy way to do this (at least that I've found). I'm very comfortable with technology, but I'm not a programmer – or a Windows user.
TL;DR – How to make a DVD/BR image work with a Windows PC/touchscreen display in a kiosk, so that end users don't f__k it up.
Any suggestions or ideas would be fantastic.
Best answer: Check out Porteus Kiosk, a free locked-down Linux OS for public access computers. You can direct the OS to boot directly to a custom, tamper-free web page. Build a simple menu in HTML and code buttons to launch videos fullscreen. You can probably store the video files locally, too, instead of on a disc.
posted by prinado at 10:16 PM on January 8, 2018
posted by prinado at 10:16 PM on January 8, 2018
Could you disable the touch screen and provide a USB game controller or other BlueRay-player-remote-like device which wouldn't have the ability to double click?
posted by XMLicious at 11:04 PM on January 8, 2018
posted by XMLicious at 11:04 PM on January 8, 2018
Look at the command line options for vlc, here's a example of someone elses vlc kiosk mode config vlc kiosk mode
But that probably won't work as is, since you want a menu and not mouse clicks totally disabled.
posted by TheAdamist at 5:45 AM on January 9, 2018
But that probably won't work as is, since you want a menu and not mouse clicks totally disabled.
posted by TheAdamist at 5:45 AM on January 9, 2018
Response by poster: Thanks all -- we did look at the other options in our research, but we're going to try the first bodge option, knowing that the real solution is not letting the client blindside you at the last minute. We also have a line on another programmer who is not going to charge us 15k if we are truly desperate.
posted by liquado at 11:45 AM on January 9, 2018
posted by liquado at 11:45 AM on January 9, 2018
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In PowerShell (right-click on the Windows/Start button, choose "Windows PowerShell (Admin)") you can set this with the following command: While you're at it, I'd also make sure you lock the machine down by running it in kiosk mode.
posted by Aleyn at 9:52 PM on January 8, 2018