[jaochoo]

Was walking through a big electronics mall here in Bangkok today where they have a lot of things to play with. There were these digital photo frames that caught my attention. Small little screens for as cheap as 40€. So I wondered whether it could be possible to buy one and use it as a display for the HTPC case. Unfortunately, after googling it, it seems I wasn't the first one with that idea and many say it's not possible.

However, what would be other ideas for a small little DIY display? Display such as in the Origen AE cases, or just a one line LCD display as in a normal hifi component. Also appreciate if you could point me to forums about such hacking and modding stuff (assume it's slightly off topic in the XMBC hardware board).

[Ned Scott]

Would this just be to display things like remote controls, or for an actual display for XBMC?

[jaochoo]

Any ideas are welcome. This thread is not so much about a specific use case, but more for the fun of modding the HTPC and do something DIY.

[Ned Scott]

Well, I'm not sure about using a small display like that for actual video, but I've always wanted to do something with an old/broken phone or small cheap tablet with either a nice web interface or an XBMC remote app. Then you could do stuff like control music without having to turn on the TV, have a backup set of full controls for when you lose your remote, etc.

I've got an old second gen iPod touch that I bought from ebay for $35 because it has a weak battery and a damaged dock port. I've been meaning to mod it into a case. Lots of great iOS remote apps that work great on it still, even if it's just displaying what's currently playing.

There's also a number of cheap Chinese Android tablets that are around $50-60 that likely have horrible battery life, but would work great for something like this.

A lot cheaper than the old text-LCD screens that some people mod into their cases, and with a ton more functionality.

[artrafael]

I have an older version of this as my secondary display. I use it when I don't want to turn on my TV to navigate XBMC in order to just listen to music. I'm not using the touchscreen capability since I never did figure out how to get it to work with Linux.