Android Announcements (Like BenQ Broadcast)

[barrytech]

We are contemplating getting a fit out of BenQ panels. The BenQ broadcast functionality is okay (it allows for us to send out messages), however, it leave a lot to be desired.

 

We demoed a the ByTello DMS which was surprisingly feature rich. It has a 2-click alert feature for fire alarms/lockdowns etc that is immediately broadcast to all TVs (BenQ would benefit from this) and also 20gb cloud storage so we can prep things for the week (BenQ needs to be uploaded at the time of the announcement), and also streaming from RTSP etc for our live events where not all students can fit in our auditorium.

 

Is there any android-specific applications that handle broadcasting messages across other android devices (i.e. interactive TVs)? The ByTello DMS appears to only run on ByTello OS which is a shame and the BenQ is a bit lacklustre.

[BenQ_Chris]

Hi,

 

Appreciate the feedback on our products, positive or negative they are appreciated. I will feed this back to our development team.

 

Just to add that on BenQ Broadcast you can schedule messages days, weeks, months in advance. Broadcast is split in to "Interrupt" & "Schedule". You have a flag on both for "Important" messages that are not cancellable locally and will play an alert through the speaker. Additionally on the schedule function you can set a repeat cycle.

 

On both you can do text (static or scrolling), images, video (including YouTube), audio, files (.PDF, .PPT & Google Slides via Google Drive).

 

Broadcast is included FOC on our interactive displays, along with DMS (Device Management System) & AMS (Account Management System), they just need internet connectivity, all of our screens come with a LAN port and our RP03 screens include the optional wireless.

 

If you'd like to know anymore, have any questions or would like a remote demo just let me know.

[barrytech]

Hi Chris,

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

A quick question for you, we bought a RM7503 two weeks ago (although I understand there's now a newer A version, and I read the 04 was demoed at BETT - what's the timeline for these)? But the actual question is the Instashare and Miracast both have noticeable lag. I'm surprised the Miracast is so laggy. We demoed another Maxhub panel and Miracast was ultra smooth, like the Screenbeams and Microsoft Wireless Display Adaptor.

 

Is the issue the android implementation? It has a better cpu and GPU than the Maxhub. The other thought is the USB wifi adaptor is the culprit. Happy to order a better adaptor if that's the case.

 

We want teachers to be able to wirelessly project and interact without lag (i.e. write in their OneNote).

 

Cheers Chris!

[barrytech]

Hi Chris,

 

I've ordered a different USB Wifi adapter and will report back to see if it makes a difference (or even works).

 

On a side note, how do we provide feedback about feature requests for the x-sign broadcast? In particular, I'd love to see:

 

+ Bells integrated. The ByTello DMS has a bells feature where you can schedule 'bells' to play through the TV. I get this is kind of possible through the calendar scheduling but not really that elegant.

+ Live streaming locally from RTSP

+ 1-click alert that is big and easy to find for admin/leadership team (i.e. an exclamation mark)

+ Storage allocation (even small) to be able to re-use assets

[BenQ_Chris]

Hi, apologies for the delay, was on annual leave yesterday (not your Birthday everyday! lol).

 

There is an RM03A unit, however as I understand this may not be released in Europe (I haven't had confirmation of this yet), we demonstrated the RP04 prototype which will be available 2024 (

).

 

Can you advise which wireless dongle you have purchased? Additionally are they connected to the internet and has the firmware been updated on the panels and have the apps been updated?

 

Please feel free to raise suggestions with me and I can forward on to the development team. If you drop me a DM I can give you my email address.

[barrytech]

TP-Link AC1900 is the dongle I ordered.

 

We have the official BenQ wifi dongle but the Miracast is horrible (Microsoft Wireless Display Adaptor and the MaxHub Bytello Miracast are rock solid so I think it's the BenQ dongle or android implementation or CPU/GPU of the board). I'm keen to narrow that down as it should be lag free and the best windows solution. I couldn't get Miracast working at all from my android phone but works fine on the Microsoft Wireless Display Adaptor and also MaxHub with Bytello Miracast, flawlessly. The Instashare 2 app was okay, but noticeably worse compared to native Miracast.

 

Firmware is up to date. I am also finding Chromecast to be average at best. I thought that might be a good compromise... "Use the Instashare for general viewing and Chromecast if you're watching a longer video". But the casting from an Chrome tab took a while to load the YouTube app and then the pause/seek functions didn't work.

 

Another feature request with the Instashare is to have an option offload YouTube to the board similar to how Vivi does it.

 

Any who, just trying to make the best decision for the school. We'll be rolling 60+ boards out in the next month or so, so I'm keen to get the best solution

[BenQ_Chris]

If using Instashare from iOS, when using the YouTube app, it should offload YouTube to the screen.

 

If you drop me a DM with your email I'll send over the latest whitelisting document which has all relevant ports/sites that are required to be opened. One other thing to add Miracast in Instashare is a manual broadcast and devices need to be on same network (Microsoft dongle I know works across different networks. We had an issue recently with Aruba WAP which had a secondary filter (in addition to the firewall), there was an advanced network setting that was filtering broadcast packets (mDNS).