Mix of picture and video does seem to be tricky.
IrfanView worked for me.
Hardware Media Players don't seem to do it. In particular the Micca Speck, the Incredisonic, the Blusmart, and KDLINKS HD720 mini-hardware media players do NOT do it. That is, as of 6/2/2015 because they come out with new versions of these little boxes every year or so.
How do I know?
- I purchased the Micca Speck and tried it.
- A friend had the Incredisonic (which btw had the EXACT same menu system as the Micca Speck) and I tried it.
- For the Blusmart I asked on Amazon's question feature and someone who owned it actually tried it.
- And for the KDLINKS I also asked in Amazon and a distributor answered.
I also tried on a recent Android tablet the Gallery app and Picasa.
- Gallery you had to click on the video.
- Picasa didn't see the videos.
So following recommendations here I downloaded IrfanView today (thru LiberKey (a portable application launcher, although i think i prefer PortableApps.com without the launcher)).
File -> Slideshow opens a dialog box with copious options.
It only played one of the formats of videos i had: .wmv
That was disappointing but I can use FormatFactory or iWisoft video converter to convert them, so I'm not that worried. I also assume with some codec/plugin work i could get other formats to work in IrfanView.
In particular IrfanView lets you pick the pictures you want, including all of them.
You can select a mix of pictures and videos.
IrfanView lists what you have selected in another box where you can control the order.
It auto-plays videos, and auto-moves on to the next file, whether picture or video.
Here are its other features that I have seen people ask for in various threads as I was searching for an answer to this question:
- There is a random order option.
- You can Loop the slide show.
- You can set the automatically advance after the number of seconds you choose (default 5 sec), or after mouse/keyboard input.
- It defaults to showing little green text in the upper left with folder/file and index eg: [3/15] meaning 3rd file out of 15 total.
- It can include subdirectories, or not, when doing "Add All"
- It can remember last file index on exit, and so start where it left off, or not, and start from the beginning.
- It can show or hide mouse cursor.
- It can close IrfanView after last file (presuming you don't loop)
- It defaults to play in fullscreen mode, but has a windows option.
So given this program works, my plan is to purchase an HP Stream for about $200 USD install IrfanView on it and connect to its HDMI port o make my own media player box. I know people do this with Kodi/XBMC on a raspberry PI or similar, and that seems like more fun, but my plan seems easier.
EDIT: I executed this plan and it worked nicely. Couple things:
IrfanView has command line options can can start in slideshow mode by specifying a folder, eg /slideshow=G:\path\to\folder
I tried that. It works, but it does not have the Include subdirectories (for 'Add all') feature when used that way. So you only get the pictures in that actual dir, none from subdirs of that dir.
However, there is a Save filenames as TXT file option. So you can manually use Add all with Include subdirectories (for 'Add all') checked to add all media files in the current and all subdirectories. You can then sort/order them, or include others or exclude some. Then you can Save filenames as TXT file to some filename.txt file.
Once I had that file I created a desktop shortcut in which I modified the target to append /slideshow=d:\filename.txt ie that file i made. Now, double-clicking on that shortcut's icon starts the slideshow with 1 click (well, 1 double-click ;)
I did buy an HP Stream. It was $188 at Walmart online plus sales tax but free shipping. I found it a capable machine. Not fast. But not painfully slow. There's lag in many things i do, but only 1-2 sec usually. It has 17GB free disk space (technically SSD space)--very liming, but with an SD Card slot which I am using for the pictures.
I used Windows normally to change closing the lid behavior to "do nothing". But even when connected to an external monitor, closing the lid stops the slideshow. So the lid has to stay open all the time--even with an external monitor. Of course i changed power options to never sleep and never turn off the display when plugged in.
Also, I have the TV that this is connected to via its HDMI port plugged into an outlet controlled by a wall switch. When I flip the switch off, the TV goes off, and the HP Stream keeps playing the IrfanView slideshow. When I flip the switch back on, the TV comes back on, and the HP Stream (running Windows 8.1) recognizes it and starts displaying to it again, with out user intervention. That's nice. It does mean the HP Stream goes on playing all night long while the place is closed.