Information screen and delivering information to it

[Sonic007]

Hi,

We are a small primary school and had a Tv that was connected to a laptop to inform parents of notices/events in reception. The TV is old and stopped working today.

I'm looking for options on getting a new screen (40 inch is big enough for the location) and a way of sending information to it. 
Currently it has been being updated using a powerpoint manually.

 

How are you all updating and what display options are you using?

 

Thankyou.

[MYK-IT]

We use Yodeck Digital Signage Pricing Plans | Free Players Included

 

If this for one screen, it will be free (*education pricing available if you need more) and you could use existing laptop (or Raspberry PI) etc. TV wise, it is best to obtain a Commercial TV as they are designed for long-term use.

[FN-GM]

We use PADS4, it's not cheap.

 

XIBO is good and free.

[flipthebit]

32 minutes ago, MYK-IT said:

We use Yodeck Digital Signage Pricing Plans | Free Players Included

 

If this for one screen, it will be free (*education pricing available if you need more) and you could use existing laptop (or Raspberry PI) etc. TV wise, it is best to obtain a Commercial TV as they are designed for long-term use.

 

Yodeck and a Raspberry Pi is a good combination. Works with any HDMI screen.

[JRA]

I use something in rpisurv on mine. Bit of Linux necessary to set up but nothing horrid. Is also free which is a big plus, aside from the raspberry pi to run it. Has been bulletproof over years I must say - and now I've typed that I bet it explodes!

 

Have also used Xibo in a former life, which I loved tbh.

Edited January 19 by JRA

[icechris]

We use info-beamer on a raspberry pi for our reception screens. One screen is free but we've got 2 screens running now on it so it costs us about £90 a year in credits. 

[SamanthaD]

Xibo is a good choice. We use OneLAN which is horrendously expensive and for a single screen solution wouldn't make sense.

 

Definitely get a commercial grade screen, 16/7 or 24/7 operation is best. There are horror stories of domestic screens being used and retailers working out what's gone on and not honouring the warranty, so if you take the gamble be aware of the possible consequences.

[flipthebit]

Some screens have a mode where it detects if there's a signal coming from the HDMI and switches on/off. Useful for turning off the screens outside of the school day automatically.

[JRA]

34 minutes ago, flipthebit said:

Some screens have a mode where it detects if there's a signal coming from the HDMI and switches on/off. Useful for turning off the screens outside of the school day automatically.

 

This is handy. Though I've gone low-tech myself and it's all on a timer plug. Turns on at 07:30 and off at 16:30 weekdays. Probably not all that amazing for non-pi solutions though!

[jmak]

Xibo and Yodeck are both good solutions. For an even simpler solution I've set up a slide show on Google Slides and then you can use any machine that'll display a web browser and anyone who can update a slideshow can add content.

[dhicks]

2 hours ago, JRA said:

This is handy. Though I've gone low-tech myself and it's all on a timer plug. Turns on at 07:30 and off at 16:30 weekdays. Probably not all that amazing for non-pi solutions though!

 

We also use a simple on/off timer switch. We did use a Raspberry Pi a while back, the v3, when it could actually power itself from the USB port of a smart TV. Newer versions are a bit too power-hungry, though, and we've found managed ChromeOS devices (a £200 mini PC from Amazon with Chrome Flex installed, then managed as a ChromeOS kiosk device) to be more resiliant to having their power suddenly cut every day.

 

We've not had any issues with our standard 65" Samsung TVs (they've been in our lobby for a couple of years), but honestly at education prices it's not much more expensive to get a touch screen, which are designed for all-day use and tend to be a bit more robust, so if a child does bash their bag / an elbow into it on the way past they'll probably just bounce off.

 

We either use a simple Google Slides slideshow for our displays, or my own custom web page that can display content. For our lobby display screens, if they were touch-screen I think a "click here for more info..." type kiosk might be nice.

[DrBeaker]

 

 

1) Screen - commercial TV
 

2) Platform - Whatever your budget and skillset is.

Used Xibo for well over 13x years in several places (self-hosted and cloud). Can count on one hand the issues we had (mostly self-caused).

It DOES still have a high learning curve and some functionality e.g. Facebook lacking compared to the 'prettier' solutions like BrightSign etc.

But it's UK-based and cheap. We had cloud-hosting, no issues with it at all. 

For a glorified PowerPoint presentation, it works fine.

If you want to delve deeper into it's power, it also has that option.

3) Getting someone to update the content - This has ALWAYS ALWAYS been the issue. The logical person is the office manager/admin/receptionist etc. But always for whatever godly reason is beyond my earthly understanding, it always ALWAYS comes to IT to do this... somehow.

So make it simpler and dumb it down for the person doing the updates.... I think that's why YoDeck and Google Slides work well.