Product Guide: BH 2025 Video Player Kit

Product Guide: BH 2025 Video Player Kit



INTRODUCTION

These instructions describe how to use the Brickstuff 5" video player that was included with your BH 2025 Keynote Stage set.



Your player kit includes:
  1. One 5” video player module with USB-C input connector, Video Select button, Brickstuff power cable, and videos pre-loaded
  2. 3xAAA battery pack with on/off switch and BRANCH19 adapter to connect to the power cable on the player
  3. 3xAAA batteries

Here are some things to keep in mind when setting up and using your video player module:

  1. The video player requires a strong 4.5-5-volt power source, such as a USB battery bank, that is capable of generating enough power to charge a tablet or smartphone.  If using the supplied 3xAAA battery pack, make sure to use fresh batteries, and do not use rechargeable batteries-- these are not able to generate the amount of power required.
  2. Although you need to connect the video player to a computer using a USB-C data/power cable in order to copy video files onto the module, the module will not play videos when connected to a computer with a USB cable.  To get videos to play, you will need to connect your USB cable to a USB battery bank or iPhone/iPad-type charger.  Whenever the video player is connected to a computer, it is in “data transfer” mode and will not play videos.
  3. The video player will play files in MP4 or AVI format.  If your video is in a different format, you can follow the directions later in this document and use free online tools to convert the format into either MP4 or AVI.

SPECIAL NOTE: CABLES

There is a flat, flexible ribbon cable connecting the screen of your video player to its main circuit board.  This cable is extremely fragile and can break or tear if stressed to much.  Please use care when building the brick enclosure for the player that you do not pick up the screen by its cable or that you do not pull or stretch the cable too much.  The cable is designed to flex forward to back, but not side to side.

Alert
There is a self-adhesive backing on the main circuit board of your player.  You can use this to firmly secure the screen to the circuit board-- this will reduce the chance of movement for the main board and reduce the chances the ribbon cable will become stressed and tear over time.

Care should also be used when mounting or moving the USB connector, the Brickstuff power cable, or the button cable that are attached to the main circuit board.  These are all soldered and protected with hot melt glue, but they can become disconnected if pulled too hard.

ADDING VIDEO FILES

To add or change video files on the player, follow these steps: (also see the figure below)
  1. If you are powering the video player using the 3xAAA battery pack, disconnect that.
  2. Using a USB-C cable (not included), connect one end to the USB connector cable on the video player, and connect the other end to your computer.  You should see the video player appear as a connected memory disk, like a USB memory stick would appear when connected.
  3. Open the folder representing the video player, and copy/delete files as needed.
  4. Disconnect the USB cable from your computer and connect/re-connect to your external power source.  As explained above, the player will not play videos when connected to a computer.
Connecting the video player to your computer to copy files.

Alert
If you are using an Apple/Mac computer and you delete files from the player, you will also need to complete the steps to “empty” the trash container corresponding to the drive of the video player.  This is because Mac computers place deleted files in a hidden directory on the player and the deleted files will continue taking up space until you “empty” the trash container on the video player.

VIDEO PLAYER OPERATION

To operate the video player, connect it to a power source as shown in the figure below.  Once connected, the video player will begin playing the last selected video (and looping that video).
Three options for powering the video player.


As shown in the figure, there are three main options for powering the video module:
  1. Connection to a USB battery bank using a USB-C cable (not included).
  2. Connection to an iPhone or iPad-type charger (connected to mains power) using a USB-C cable (not included).
  3. Connection to the 3xAAA battery pack included with your kit.


Video Player Buttons

Your video player has one button connected to it: this button selects the active video being played.  The selected video will be looped until a different video is selected by pressing the button again.
The Video Select Button.

Info
Settings made using the button are saved in the video player’s memory even when power is disconnected.

FORMATTING VIDEOS

If your video files are not in MP4 or AVI format, or if they are too large to fit into the video player’s memory, you can adjust these aspects of the files using a free online file conversion tool called CloudConvert.  To access this tool, open a web browser on your computer and navigate to https://www.cloudconvert.com/.

Info
There are many other options and and applications freely available that can be used to convert videos.

Next, click the red “Select File” button on the main page to select the video file on your computer and upload it. (see the blue arrow in the screenshot below)
Selecting your video file to convert.

Once you have selected your video, you will have the option to select the type of video file to convert to.

Info
For maximum compatibility, we recommend converting to the MP4 format.

Once you select MP4 as the file format, you will see a wrench icon appear (see the green arrow in the illustration below).  Click the wrench icon to open the “Options” window.
Warning
DO NOT click on the “Convert” button.
Selecting the conversion format.
You will see an “Options” window appear:
File conversion Options window.
The video player’s resolution is 854x480.  To make sure your video plays well on the screen, we recommend converting your video to this resolution as shown by the red arrow in the screenshot above.

Info
If your video is very high resolution (4K/8K, etc.), the video player may have trouble playing it.  The player tries to re-size each video frame in real-time; as long as your videos are close to the player’s resolution (either above or below), playback should work well without needing to re-size.  If you notice significant lag in playback, or if the player won’t play your files even if they are in MP4 or AVI format, you may still need to run them through the online converter to reduce their resolution.  This will also reduce their file size, meaning you can fit more videos onto your player!

Conversion Errors

If the cloudconvert.com application is not able to read or process your video file, the file may be damaged.  Unfortunately we are not able to provide support for damaged or unreadable video files, or for any other specific issues related to video compression or conversion.

There are a number of online tools that can help repair damaged video files.  To find these tools, search the Internet using the phrase “repair damaged video file” and the file extension of your original video.  For example, if your video is a QuickTime video, which would have the file extension .MOV, search for “repair damaged video file mov”.

Once you have repaired your file, you can try uploading to cloudconvert.com again.

Playback Errors

If the player won’t play your video files, the most likely causes and solutions are listed below.
  1. Your video is in the wrong format.  This can happen even if the filename ends with “.mp4” or “.avi” (video files have internal configuration variables that can impact their playback ability).  To resolve these issues, try using the cloudconvert.com website to convert problem videos to MP4 format (even if the filename already ends in “.mp4”).  This will normalize the video’s configuration variables, increasing the likelihood of successful playback.
  2. Your video’s resolution is too high.  This can cause lag issues with playback, or result in a file that the player cannot see or play.  To resolve, see the top of this page to change the resolution of your video files.

THANK YOU

We hope you enjoy your BH 2025 Keynote kit and video player!

If you have any questions about or problems using the video player, please send us an e-mail and let us know how we can help.


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