[tomo2607]

Hi All,

I'm hoping someone can help me find a solution to this problem. At the school I work for, we are looking to install 1 or 2 TV's into the student cafe. The TV's will be used as public info displays run via a PC for weekly messages, menu items, short videos etc etc... Kind of the same thing that you get in most leisure centers, train stations etc. Im trying to find a way to create a PIP (picture in picture) set up to allow multiple items to be displayed at once. For example the menu would be displayed constantly, but I would like to be able to have a PIP showing general school info, or mayby rolling video advertisements.

I know certain Tv's allow for multiple inputs thus allowing PIP. But.... I want something that I can control from a single PC. So I can update all of the information being displayed, either all at once, or one by one without disrupting the display.
I suppose its a little like trying to vision mix from the PC to its monitor but having the ability to edit or change the content of each item to be displayed...

Does any one have any ideas? Id be very grateful for any input that any one can share...

Thanks in advance

[timsabre]

Not sure if you are looking for DIY or a commercial solution, but this company does exactly what you are looking for...

http://www.sedao.co.uk

[beware]

There's plenty of digital signage software out there that would do what you need. If you want free, try http://xibo.org.uk/ . It may do what you need.

DIY solution is to run a webserver and refresh the page programmatically. This way you can embed videos into the website. I'm sure you'll have a student or two who might want to take on the challenge.

My next challenge (when it arrives) is to use a Raspberry Pi for this...

This post has been edited by beware: 22 May 2012 - 10:59 AM

[Shez]

Pretty much any digital signage solution will do what you're looking for. I've got half a dozen screens here that have been running the Sedao software for the last few years; it works well for us but we did look at a number of different offerings before settling on this one. If memory serves, you can download a demo of Imageflyer from their site. Their tech support has been good too on the odd occasion when we've had a problem.

[tomo2607]

Thankyou for the quick replies... It looks like the Xibo setup may be what im looking for.

Thanks again

[jonathan859]

I've heard good things about http://mediasignage.com
Just another solution to consider.

[J Pearce]

I run an xibo screen in our theatre foyer. Works brilliantly, during the day it runs school notices, upcoming events (from google calendar) and a photo reel from events; and on show nights runs show relay, upcoming events and bar prices.

[AHYoung]

You want digital signage, you have a world of choice, but for a reliable and expandable solution id use Onelan. Its not cheap at four figures per screen, but for many applications its cost effective, really depends on your needs now and in the future. Unless you are a masochist id not bother developing your own solution, There is also a massive difference between a single stand alone screen and a network of multiple screens. its going to be massively tedious to have to update the same info twice on each of your 2 screens if you go for a stand alone solution, worse if you actually find the screens usefull and therefore add more units in other locations.

Think as to how much info you want on the screens and who is going to have to manage it... Its easy to underestimate the fact that once you have a significant amount of screens , content managment becomes a substantial amount of work, and time spend tightly integrating things with existing web content, events database etc will be worthwhile. Its the slightly unpredictable of your needs that makes it usefull to overspecify at the start as these things have a habit of growing very quickly into an unmanagable beast.

Id also strongly recomend fitting a proper commercial LFD rather than a TV its more expensive, but a commercial unit will be built for extended use with a long onsite warranty to match whilst a telly will not neccesarily be up to the useage and have a 12 month RTB warranty which is an utter pain to deal with in the event of failure.

[dwright2104]

J Pearce, on 22 May 2012 - 05:52 PM, said:

I run an xibo screen in our theatre foyer. Works brilliantly, during the day it runs school notices, upcoming events (from google calendar) and a photo reel from events; and on show nights runs show relay, upcoming events and bar prices.

How do you get it to show a live video?? still can't quite work it out.

[J Pearce]

Our show relay cam is fed into a video over IP server that embeds the video in a webpage iframe. I can then call that across the network by embedding that iframe into the display layout in xibo.
It also means I didnt have to run any cable to achieve it

[tomo2607]

Thanks again for all the info. Ive started to have a play with xibo and so far so good. Currently we are only running two displays. However over the next 12-18 months we are having some extensive building work carried out. I suspect that this shall mean an expansion for the digital signage too. Considering its free I quite impressed xibo and with its capabilities.

Thanks again