Digital Signage Thoughts -- DIY approach or a more specific program?

[JaSauders]

Hello friends. I am looking around to see what kind of digital signage solutions there are. We have several RPi's and would like to utilize them for such a task. I've never done digital signage before, so I'm trying to read as much as possible in an effort to see what's involved.

 

I looked into Xibo, which seems to be a popular one based on search results on this forum. Xibo seems to fit the bill well given it's open source and can be installed on Linux. I should mention that we are almost certainly looking into an open source/Linux based solution, as nearly our entire district is running open source software -- even client systems. The thing with Xibo that I wasn't sure about is it appeared as if the Xibo client software for Linux kind of died off. I saw discussion suggesting an alternative route was being considered, but nothing seems to have materialized yet. Likewise, it seemed like the latest Xibo still requires php5, requiring that I downgrade php via a PPA on a 16.04 server that I tested it with. That's... fine I suppose. I could also run with 14.04 as that's supported, but it kind of raised an eyebrow.

 

On a hunch I thought I'd look at a possibly simpler, "out of the box" idea. I came across two, though I question how far these ideas would go in practice. One would utilize VLC, which would auto launch VLC full screened upon starting up the system. So you figure, Linux box, auto login, automatic script to launch VLC playing a predefined video (call it /home/user/Videos/Live.mp4). This, of course, would require that a video be created, but things like Movie Maker, kdenlive, etc could fill that void. The Videos folder could be shared out via Samba, allowing users with access (IT, principals, etc perhaps) to make the content and drop it in the directory. Downside is VLC wigs out if it's not killed first before switching it. So if I rename Live.mp4 to Old-Live.mp4, VLC will go nuts and spam errors, though if you kill VLC, rename the video over SMB to whatever name is being called (i.e. Live.mp4), and kick off the script again backgrounded, it works great. This command idea is something like: vlc --no-video-title --loop --fullscreen /home/user/Videos/Live.mp4

 

The other was perhaps a simple slideshow. Using EOG (eye of gnome), I can easily kick off an automatic 1 liner bash script (eog --slide-show /home/user/Slideshow/Live) upon auto-login that launches this slideshow. Figure that /home/user/Slideshow is shared out via SMB, with a folder inside called Live. Whatever images are in the Live folder = what would get played. Upside is, there's no killing anything. It just works. I can swap out whatever I want at any point, it'll just carry on through the next loop. The delay can be controlled globally by a dconf key (5 sec default, could be set to whatever). This approach would allow IT, principals, etc to kind of "manage" the individual files within /home/user/Slideshow (Slideshow being SMB'd out), and know whatever they drop in "Live" is... well... live. Downside: Someone has to create the JPGs that would go into this, though between the capabilities of MS Office, LibreOffice, and of course, Gimp, this would be possible. On the upside, folks could get playful with the designs, and IT could even provide some base frames to work from with the school logo, etc, already on it -- just need to add text over top.

 

For the most part, the folks in question outside of IT who I have in mind to maintain the content are capable of managing things like JPG creation. Video creation might be a little more hit and miss, though I suspect (famous last words?) this would be a teachable thing without too much training.

 

The goal is to have something Linux based, light, and reliable. I've read some conflicting reports about certain digital signage solutions that the stream died off for xyz reason, etc. Likewise, for it to be something that folks maintaining their own buildings can manage (i.e. more hands-off from IT, let principals do their thing on their time without having to wait for a tech), would be absolutely great. While elaborate, sophisticated transitions would be nice, at the end of the day we just need something that won't require a ton of focus, maintenance, etc. Like everybody else reading, there's other priorities on the radar, and adding one more thing would be nice to -- well -- kind of avoid.

 

In short, that's where my thoughts lead me. I'm not married to any particular solution. Just trying to dig up some info so I can shove a bunch of ideas on a table and hash out the good/bad/ugly. I wanted to relay my thoughts here to see what others thought. Bad idea? Plausible? Is Xibo more do-able with our platform choice than what I gathered from my reading? Is there a Xibo alternative worth looking into that fits the set-it-and-pretty-much-forget-it paradigm?

 

Open to all ideas. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

[gady]

Sounds like you got it covered

 

No, seriously though, sounds like a lot of work either way.

[JaSauders]

Sounds like you got it covered

 

No, seriously though, sounds like a lot of work either way.

 

I struggled with it a bit. If we go the EOG route, we're limited with basically no transitions, but can control the delay, and it's crazy simple to set up and maintain all the way around. With the SMB link, users with access can drop in images, maintain it the way they want, manage it when they want, etc etc. I had difficulty finding a downside to this, outside of being unable to dress it up with flashy animations and transitions (which really isn't a priority). I mean, we want it to look good, and we can make it look decent via the content/styling on the slides (and IT laying a base-layer with some logo'd images users can work from would help), it just wouldn't be flashy flashy. It being a project that isn't 100% maintained by IT, controlled by IT, and updated by IT is a higher priority. We could lump these things into puppet for automated management, even.

 

I'm trying to pry myself away from this idea in an effort to be open minded, but unless there's a slam dunk crazy awesome amazing "this is exactly what you need, trust me" solution out there that takes EOG's capabilities and builds onto them, yet maintains its simplicity, I may find myself suggesting this to the others and see how it sticks.

[APMerry]

Has anyone had experience of using a paid digital signage solution such as UCView? I've just installed Xibo and really like the look of it, just curious if anyone's used a paid solution and what you get that Xibo doesn't give you?

[Bob_the_Goon]

We are currently using a paid for solution called OneLan, however I'm switching to a free solution next week. I've came up with a very simple WordPress solution hosted on an internal VM. The client PCs are running Mint OS and automatically launch the WP page in full screen mode.

 

Does everything that we need it to and cost absolutely nothing.

[nathan]

Raspberry Pi with Chrome kiosk mode booting full screen displaying a website. Of course you would need to develop the website though

[TechMonkey]

We use Xibo with USF PCs. Tempted by the Samsung offering but the cost is a bit restrictive. Ours works well enough I think

[bclarke]

I am using regular TV's with an Intel Compute Stick running Windows 10 Education with a piece of free software called PresentationPoint and PowerPoint. The free software monitors a network share where the PowerPoint sits and updates the screen when the slideshow is updated. The PowerPoint can be designed as a normal slideshow with all the transitions you need. We have one screen in reception which has student notices and a promo clip for drama, the outside one has various messages from marketing and out PTA for parents and visitors.

 

It is then really simple for users to update a PowerPoint with very little training needed.

[ITBadger]

We are in a similar position as @nathan in that we use Chrome kiosk on both Raspberry Pi and Windows devices connected to our signage screens. We then have a Google Slides file that is published to the web and point Chrome kiosk to that file (or those files if we want different content on different screens). The hardware is set to auto logon and display Chrome kiosk on startup, and the Google Slides file can be updated by office staff, so once it's set up it requires little or no input from the IT team. We did get Xibo running before deciding that this was a simpler and more robust solution.

[CAWJames]

50" TV's and Pi3 running a simple chromium browser on startup here. We have Planet eStream as a media system here, so we can just go to the published webpage for the signage player we want, but any web content would suffice.

[Joanne]

someone I know was running a Google Slideshow for theirs. Could be done with the Pi's as it is just a website and nothing needs to happen when staff update it, because it will just auto-refresh anyway!

[mavhc]

I did this: https://github.com/mavhc/digital-display-webpage

 

There's a DST bug in the countdown timer, whoops.

[ColinP]

We are using planet-estream here, It pulls calanders from iSams, Twitter, pictures, RSS feeds and scheduled powerpoints for opendays. I never have to do any updates

[Guest MD5T]

We are using planet-estream here, It pulls calanders from iSams, Twitter, pictures, RSS feeds and scheduled powerpoints for opendays. I never have to do any updates

 

Planet estream is a good bit of kit but expensive. They are also rising their prices!

[JimmyTown]

Hi, had to call eStream after hearing about price rises as our renewal was up. They've assured me there are no price rises and in fact they prices haven't changed for a number of years. Might be worth calling them to find out for yourself @MD5T

[CAWJames]

With our eStream, we subscribed for a year to make sure it would fit our needs, then bought it out right with a discount in the second year, and now just pay maintenance, but haven't been told of any price rises, and they are usually very good at letting people know about any changes.

[jonspurs]

PE wanted one. They just wanted Powerpoint stuff showing.

So we got a Panasonic 40" LCD and a decent PC hooked up. Later, they made a basic website with wix.com and full-screened that.

We do have a OneLan box for the diner screen that was set up years ago and that does what it says on the tin. Though it's not for anyone to login to and change / not very straightforward like Powerpoint. But once you learn how to use it, it's decent enough with scheduling displays and playlists.

[mavhc]

You can also use Google Slides and publish to the web, secret url, embed that into a webpage for tv to load

[lukehemingway]

Check out what I did with ours

 

Digital signage screen using raspberry pi - Lahemingway