My Sirius Black Animated Photo Frame for $40 in less than an hour!

[Astyanax]

Hi all:

I thought I might share a recent WIN I've just had, because sometimes quick-and-simple can be most effective (see video at the bottom of this post)!

In my "cabinet of curiosities", I'm in the process of adding more paper props as background items. It occurred to me that this could be done with digital "paper" items as well, and the Harry Potter universe is perfect for this!

I know this kind of thing has been done (and mentioned here) many many times, but mine was so quick and easy, I had to share. So here's what I did:

1. Picked up THIS digital photo frame on Amazon. I was looking for the largest, cheap frame with a motion sensor and timeout capabilities. This frame worked perfectly for me! There is currently a 20% off coupon in play, so I was able to buy it for $40. That is the full cost of this entire project!
   
   
2. Downloaded THIS video from YouTube. Some made a pretty serviceable almost-loop-ready capture of Sirius Black's WANTED poster.
   
   
3. Edited the video, making the following changes (MP4 offered freely from my Dropbox):
   • Clipped it down to the correct last frame, so that it loops properly.
   • Multiplied it about 100 times, giving me a 10-minute clip (the frame does not loop it smoothly enough...there's a half-second of black screen).
   • Rotated it 90-degrees clockwise
   • Cropped and resized to 1024x768 (the native resolution of the photo frame)
   • Placed the finished MP4 on a Micro-SD card (okay, you'll have to buy one of those if you don't already have one...I do.)
4. Changed some settings on the photo frame
   • Defaults to Video mode when it boots
   • Motion sensor turned on
   • Motion sensor timeout set to 10 minutes.
5. And then I ran the power cord through the back of my cabinet, so all you see is the frame!

This all amounted to maybe 90 minutes' worth of work. Since you can use my final video (link above) and not have to do that part, it should take less than an hour to put it all together!

Here's a video of the frame in action:

The motion sensor doesn't work through the glass, so I have to open the door to activate it. Which is fine, because I open the doors to show visitors anyway. It times out and goes dark after 10 minutes of playback.

Hope someone finds this useful. It was so easy it made my evening!

Bill

 

[Jintosh]

Awesome!

 

[stussy]

That's cool

 

[ReplicaZero]

Adding another amazing flavor to an already impressive cabinet. Well done!

 

[thundergod124]

This is very cool.

 

[kavjapan]

Will definitely make one myself sometime. Thanks for the work-up!

 

[OasisSupernova]

Hi all:

I thought I might share a recent WIN I've just had, because sometimes quick-and-simple can be most effective (see video at the bottom of this post)!

In my "cabinet of curiosities", I'm in the process of adding more paper props as background items. It occurred to me that this could be done with digital "paper" items as well, and the Harry Potter universe is perfect for this!

I know this kind of thing has been done (and mentioned here) many many times, but mine was so quick and easy, I had to share. So here's what I did:

1. Picked up THIS digital photo frame on Amazon. I was looking for the largest, cheap frame with a motion sensor and timeout capabilities. This frame worked perfectly for me! There is currently a 20% off coupon in play, so I was able to buy it for $40. That is the full cost of this entire project!
   
   
2. Downloaded THIS video from YouTube. Some made a pretty serviceable almost-loop-ready capture of Sirius Black's WANTED poster.
   
   
3. Edited the video, making the following changes (MP4 offered freely from my Dropbox):
   • Clipped it down to the correct last frame, so that it loops properly.
   • Multiplied it about 100 times, giving me a 10-minute clip (the frame does not loop it smoothly enough...there's a half-second of black screen).
   • Rotated it 90-degrees clockwise
   • Cropped and resized to 1024x768 (the native resolution of the photo frame)
   • Placed the finished MP4 on a Micro-SD card (okay, you'll have to buy one of those if you don't already have one...I do.)
4. Changed some settings on the photo frame
   • Defaults to Video mode when it boots
   • Motion sensor turned on
   • Motion sensor timeout set to 10 minutes.
5. And then I ran the power cord through the back of my cabinet, so all you see is the frame!

This all amounted to maybe 90 minutes' worth of work. Since you can use my final video (link above) and not have to do that part, it should take less than an hour to put it all together!

Here's a video of the frame in action:

The motion sensor doesn't work through the glass, so I have to open the door to activate it. Which is fine, because I open the doors to show visitors anyway. It times out and goes dark after 10 minutes of playback.

Hope someone finds this useful. It was so easy it made my evening!

Bill

This will be next on my list to make. Maybe bigger though. Not sure.