Movie Posters Perfected

March 22, 2024 2:11 PM

Movie Posters Perfected
I love movies—and especially movie posters. I have very fond memories as a kid in the 80s seeing new movie posters at my local theater teasing next summer's blockbusters. So I thought it’d be fun to turn an unused TV into a digital movie poster display to help recreate some of that nostalgia at home. I figured out the best way to mount a TV vertically and connect it to a cloud-based library to display my collection of movie posters. I love how it turned out, so I decided to write a guide to help people who might be interested in putting together their own.

There are some commercially-available premade "digital movie poster" setups, but they all seemed overly-expensive, used complicated custom software, or had bells and whistles I didn't need. I thought I could put together my own setup that was functionally better than existing systems, without extra bells and whistles, and for way less money.

I was really pleased with the result, so I wrote up a comprehensive DIY guide to help people make their own—for any budget (and a shorter 3-step Quick Setup guide for more technically-savvy folks.)

I also assembled a curated library of over 3,500 high-definition (4K) movie posters based on my own film collection, and (as an art director by trade) I retouched many of the classic film posters to remove dust, scratches, and other imperfections. And, because I was using an OLED display for my setup, I adjusted the contrast levels of every single poster to have "perfect blacks" for OLED screens—which also look amazing on LED TVs. Here's a Before & After gallery with some of the results.

I decided to make the library of posters available as well (which I do ask a few bucks for to help offset hosting costs), but you can run any content you'd like on your own setup.

My favorite part of the project is that the library is cloud-based. So whenever I add a new poster to my collection, it automatically appears on everyone else's display within a few minutes—so you never have to think about or take the time to add new posters yourself. And I'm happy to add any missing posters by request.

I made a website to host the project and called it Movie Posters Perfected. Hopefully this is something fellow movie fans will love to use to bring a little bit of the magic of movie theaters home.

Role: Creator

posted by wubbie (6 comments total)

Holy shit, this is amazing!!

Can I use them on my Plex server, pleaseandthankyou?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:12 PM on March 24

(Also, all the retouching in the world can't make Rodney Dangerfield look any better...)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:13 PM on March 24

@wenestvedt You're welcome to use the library however it works best for you!
posted by wubbie at 9:07 AM on March 26 [1 favorite]

This is so cool! I have been looking half heartedly into a digital signboard but like you wrote the choices commercially available are pretty over priced. I am going to source a TV and try, may need to memail you. My hope is to have it use it also for family events like birthday posters etc. I have a Frame that I adore but the software interface is a pain for adding my own artwork over the built in Samsung art.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:24 PM on May 7

@dorothyisunderwood Sure, happy to answer any questions. I actually set up a similar system for my mom just to share family photos via the cloud. Digital picture frames are grossly overpriced (and have a pretty small maximum screen size). With my mom's failing eyesight, a decent-sized TV next to her bed with family photos is perfect. And easy to update—I can just drag photos into a folder at home and they'll show up on her display.
posted by robbie01 at 10:52 AM on May 21

[This is an absolutely stunning project, so we're projecting it onto the sidebar and Best Of blog! ]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:48 AM on August 31