So our museum has finally opened here in my town. We have one media projector looping videos in the auditorium but the issue is that the laptop we’ve been using will not be our permanent machine as it’s one of the volunteers’ personal laptop! The call went out to see if anyone has an old computer that can be donated to run the videos.

I have my ancient but working ’09 MBP but it doesn’t have an HDMI port and the trackpad no longer works.

I do, however, have a ’14 Mini and obviously it’s not a laptop. BUT-couldn’t I use the screen as a monitor? A little ungainly, maybe, and I’d need a mouse, but it should work, right? The HDMI cable connects to the projector and all I’d have to do is get the videos going...

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"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria

Yes. That's a pretty common setup for a slideshow or a brief video presentation that loops. The main problem is locating the Mac mini in a secure location where there's also sufficient ventilation.

The other way that it's commonly done: Have a hidden AppleTV connected to the TV (or here, a projector). A Mac resides in another room (on the same WiFi network) and the slideshow or video is sent as the screensaver or an AirPlay video.

Another thing that might be do-able: Check for a USB port on the projector and look up the documentation for that model. Some projectors (and most modern TVs) can loop a slideshow or videos (with the proper file-types) directly from a flash drive.

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Might be a job for a raspberry pi. There must be a specific distro that turns a pi into a media player that would be useful for museums. Would be nice to use a $50 computer for the job.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2024 07:57AM by mattkime.

Install Ubuntu on a small simple machine (RaspberryPi or similar), craft the slide show in LibreOffice and set it to loop.

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Thx, all, for the info! I got the Mini to work well without issues but my old BT non-alphanumeric keyboard isn’t working. I put in batteries, it connected with the Mini, then the green light went out, it disconnected from BT, and I can’t get it working. Fresh batteries, cleaned out the battery compartment (it wasn’t dirty) but no dice. Oh, well. I have a dongle KB I can use...

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"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria

It’s an A1314 aluminum KB. Old, yes, but it hasn’t been that long since the last time I used it.

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Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.

"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria