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Display screen content delivery


TomHoward

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Evening all

 

We have a college building which is a theatre and music dept complex - we already have around 3x TVs around theatre areas for video relay, but I have been asked to look into adding TVs around the music areas to display photos, upcoming info, messages etc.

I had thought about installing TVs with USB stick facility, where they replay JPEGs, and the sticks could just be updated when the info is changed - maybe once a week?

 

However, talking the the music staff, they'd like it to rotate depending on the day of the week - to reflect the regular activities that happen over the week. They've suggested 6 use sticks (nothing happens on Sun) and rotating it depending on day of week, but I can't see this being practical.

 

What would people be looking at as a cheap-ish way of feeding content to these TVs, that can be regularly updated and hopefully allow some kind of coding for days of the week?

 

We already run a video matrix switcher for our show relay TVs (feed from a couple of cam options or sky box), but it's only a composite matrix, so we could add a centralised computer there (with unknown software for day of week automation) but I think composite might be weak quality for the distribution these days.

 

We could add raspberry pic or similar behind the TVs, and automate it to play an online fille, and automate a site online to change the file or similar.

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Can't imagine anything worse than using Pen drives to accomplish digital signage content delivery.

 

Are you wanting different content on each Display or are you happy with the same content on all Displays?

 

The composite feed may be all you require - have a play with one of the existing monitors and 'view' some typical content from the type of distance your audience will be viewing from - HD will be sharper but you may not require it or you can get away with down converting HD to SD.

 

Joe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Well we have some installed pen-drive based ones already, but they only show weekly menus so they are changed weekly and the content is created anyway for print so it's not a hugely time consuming process to change. (And we don't have to do it)

 

I will have a go with the composite delivery as we will be putting composite delivery in anyway for show relay cams.

 

Otherwise by the sound of it I guess Raspberry Pi signage solution might be the way to look at..

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For just displaying JPGs, composite will probably be fine but you know that down the line, someone will want to put something involving text on there. At that point, composite will struggle.

A digital signage solution will likely be your best bet; we currently use Sedao but are looking at moving to something a bit more flexible. In terms of hardware, if you want the same content on all screens, run CAT6 to each screen - you can send just about any signal format over that. Next step up in complexity is some computer hardware at each screen - might be a small form factor PC or a screen that can take an internal SBC (single board computer) - we use NEC commercial displays that can do that. Either way, you'll need some data cable pulling in. And don't underestimate the advantage of using commercial grade displays - the ability to schedule them to turn on and off, remotely access them over the network, and their ability to just keep on trucking eight hours a day, five days a week for years.

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To update-

What are going to do at the moment is pull Cat6 & composite (composite for the show relay just to simplify cabling as we already have that system in place) to each screen, then add a PC at the comms rack and convert VGA over CAT6 at the moment - but apparently in the next year or two we are installing a site-wide digital signage solution based on thin clients that are network connected - at which point we'll hand our screens over to the IT dept and they will administer - so a bodge solution will do for the moment

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As others have said lots of ways of making this work – I spent Fri over in Dublin installing one of our Octava HD over LAN 'Matrix' in a6 Source to 27 Display system which combines centralised Satellite boxes, centralised Media Players, embedded Media Players (in some Displays) and Touch Controllers (on some displays). The mix of centralised and 'local' media playback allows for a pretty comprehensive use of the system.

 

One option to keep in mind being displays with the media players embedded rather than being an 'add' on – a network connection to the display (to allow for embedded players) plus centralised Sources over a second AT cable allows you to 'toggle' the Displays between sources.

 

Joe

 

 

 

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With digital signage, you will be sooner or later meet your limitations. Its pretty hard to suggest that you need to spend four figures per display on something Like Onelan when its seriously been mooted that rotating memory sticks is actually sensible. You could also photocopy the content and stick on the front of the screen every morning. but in my experience, unless you install a fully featured system , pretty soon your going to come across a basic design limit. What youve allready described is actually complex, in that the content changes daily on each screen and at certain times may have tv, others camera, add to that the fact that you probably want different content and scheduling on each display and multiple users updating the content and you really need something fairly complex, and its not just a matter of sticking pcs behind everys screen, its the software thats important not the hardware.

Personally id look at a Brightsign based solution at the lower end, and a Onelan one at the upper end, both support the ability to stream in video and are both proven and expandable. Ultimately once setup they will be the cheapest solution as the time thats saved will soon add up..

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I had xibo running at my last place, including an embedded webcam feed for show relay.

It's quite easy to setup, but you will need someone who is good at content design to put the templates together to get it to look good.

It is very configurable. Sometimes perhaps too much so.

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For smaller venues you could try what we do which is just Samsung based media screens with built in players

We only run two and they have a built in timer ( unfortunately not able to be mon to fri and sat & sun-) so they come on at a given time and go off again, running whatever content . The ability to set individual days of the week t,one wise would be far better

You load PPT slide shows and leave them to,it. It is quite cheap and was easier than running cat X cable to the locations needed.Only problem is that you need a PC to open and save the PpT presentation. For some reason if it is done on a Mac you need to modify it in the PC to make it work.

We have another three to use eventually when their current use is done.

Not ideal but they load from memory sticks and are self contained

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Dave how do you update it, swap the memory stick out?

 

Thanks for other suggestions - we are looking at it. I think it's going to be a central PC serving all screens (about 3-4) as a stop-gap, and then swap for proper localised signage solution at some future point. At the moment we have at least 5 different departments running a variety of home-brew display screens (a mix of 2nd display on someone's computer, USB drives, dedicated PCs) so apparently the college are looking site-wide at doing something better with proper user management and a mixture of local and centralised content etc.

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slightly OT.

 

We have Samsung TVs (6 series) and you can program different times for different days however, they only turn on to a TV channel or input and will not play from the media centre. Highly frustrating.

 

Soon to replaced with proper distro. I'm not involved so I'm not sure what we are using. I'll update when it arrives if relevant.

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Another "me too" for Xibo. We run cheap mini PCs behind the screen to run the Xibo client for each display. This allows us to push content to each screen and schedule what is shown on different days or times of the day. Seems to be pretty reliable, and the software is free.
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A cheap £30 PC (from carboot /cashconverters

XP and free install of VLC Player

 

Freeware Windows Scheduler installed

Set to Launch a different VLC playlist for each day of week etc

 

Cheap VGA to composite converter ( if needed) £20

 

Cat5 Cable a few Video Balums

 

Simples!

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