embedded video player advice needed - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: daedalus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 11:55:46 am
content: I have a project I'm planning that requires a lot of tablet like devices, the idea is to play back video and audio, and have some simple touch interaction to select videos. Nothing particularly high resolution / clever, I'm only talking 7" tft size here. One option is to go out and buy android tablets, and do everything in software, which I can probably source for around £40/unit cost.The other option is to make a custom electronic device to do the same job. That would be a pcb with a micro running a 7" touchscreen tft, a microsd for storage, battery, speaker, charge electronics, case. The concern I have is that this option is clearly more design work, and having never done any video playback on embedded devices, I don't have a good idea how cheap a micro I can find for this. Does anyone have any experience doing similar things?Initially I am likely to need about 1000 units, but the likelihood of long-term success is quite tied to the unit costs. What does everyone think, would you go straight to the electronics option, or stick with tablets and hope to negotiate a better price over time?

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 12:07:31 pm
content: Just remember, in that price range the screens on the android tablets are typically very washed out and poor quality.If presentation quality is important, you may need to look at other options.If you're serious about this being high quality you might want to hire someone like Mike Harrison of White Wing Logic and Mikeselectricstuff to come up with some designs. He's based out of Loughton, Essex.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 12:16:52 pm
content: Another option might be a small touch screen monitor and a raspberry pi.http://www.lilliputuk.com/monitors/hdmi/669gl/

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 12:26:39 pm
content: I'm sure there will be something you can find off-the-shelf to do this - either as a complete tablet type product or a devboard type thing - RasPi/Beagle/imx6/whatever.I can't see it would make any sense to do a custom unit, and if price is sensitive there's no way you'd be competitive at 1000x sorts of volumes.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 12:41:38 pm
content: Also look into those computer on a stick devices from dealextreme they run Linux or android and only need USB power. Usually around £15 or so. You'd still need to add a display

author: daedalus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 03:07:31 pm
content: thanks everyone for the replies. The digital photo frame idea is interesting, I will have a look around on that one. I will also sample a couple of the cheap tablets and see how poor the screens are, I'm hoping they will be at least passable. I think for this run it makes sense to test the concept with an off the shelf tablet/picture frame.Actually looking on alibaba there are some picture frames with sound in the 20-30$ range, which might do the trick. As much as I would like to go for something decent, im giving the hardware away as part of this, so cheap and cheerful is the way im heading.Cheers for the advice and help.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 03:08:17 pm
content: Quote from: daedalus on June 18, 2014, 11:55:46 amFreescale has several multimedia processors which can do decoding in hardware. If you have full control over the video format played you could get by with a cheap low end device. I recently did a video-playback project on an embedded Linux device with a Freescale processor. What you need is a device capable of running Linux and a working BSP (which can be a challenge). £40 per unit can be tough especially if you have to kludge several boards together. Don't underestimate running a device from batteries; a design must be optimised to go into deep sleep.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2014, 06:52:33 pm
content: I would go for the Android devices or even for some cheap "MP5" media player. ExampleeBay auction: #310960100035, although that one's display is too small.Writing some video player software from scratch is a real PITA. Android contains all the essential components for writing a reasonable player in reasonable time, all the hard work is already done. Or you can choose from many existing player apps. And in case of the video media players, they of course come with player software.