Nightmare/Atmosfear Video Player

[marr0w]

Hey folks, I've been sitting on this for awhile and now that things have settled down on my end I wanted to share. Recently HP removed it's old Innovation Stations from Staples. You may have seen these. They're a large cardboard sign which sat behind printers and had an LCD monitor installed in the center.

Innovation Station Signage

innovationstation.png (29.28 KiB) Viewed 19504 times

These where supposed to be destroyed either by the store or by vendors depending on the instructions. I ended up with one due to a store closing. There's nothing wrong with the display once you remove the signage. It's an LCD monitor on a large metal bracket which can be removed via six screws. It doesn't have an input so you can't use it like a computer monitor - but it does have a standard SD card slot.

An innovation station without signage

Curiosity got the better of me and I removed the SD card to see what types of files it read. The default files are simply MPEG, no surprise... but it also allowed me to drop a .VOB on it without issues. Thanks to a DVD or two people where nice enough to send me I just so happened to have a copy of Nightmare. Without any other files on the card it now auto-plays Nightmare every time I turn it on!!

Nightmare Autoplay

It's kinda nice having it ready to go with the flip of a switch. Being that it was meant for display there isn't any fast forward or stopping options. We play to the end and then we shut it off if we win. To restart - just turn it off and on again. The only downside is that it was meant for external buttons for the volume control and I don't have the buttons. But hey, completing the circuit with a piece of metal immediately turns the volume to maximum. Not that you ever really need any other volume setting...

[DarkWolff]

Wow that's really awesome! I know someone who works at Staples so I'm going to see if they have the opportunity to hook me up. I may not use it for Atmosfear but it certainly wouldn't hurt to dabble with it!

[marr0w]

They're fun, but kinda pointless unless you have a specific goal in mind. It seems to also auto play videos one after another, but I can't work out a way to change between them without the rest of the buttons I didn't pick up. I know when it was on display this one had three buttons wired to it which would play a specific video when pressed so logically you could build this thing into a media center of some kind. Shame it didn't come with a manual.