mattpant Posted April 2, 2006 Posted April 2, 2006 Hi Guys, We're thinking of setting up a digital signage network in school. I've seen a few demos of some software packages out there which costs quite alot of money... has anybody come across any open source solutions. I'm guessing that more and more schools will be going down this route in the not so near future, PowerPoint is fine for the time being!! Regards, Matt PS. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum section, didn't really know where to slot it in!
plexer Posted April 2, 2006 Posted April 2, 2006 Hi Matt, Nope not found anything yet. There was a post previous with someone who had developed an asp or php based website I think to display stuff. Shouldn't be too hard with a mysql or even access db backend. Split the page up into information zones and have the content of these customizable. Each message is entered from a form with a valid from and valid to date and which information area it goes in. Web page then auto refreshes every few minutes. Ben
plexer Posted April 2, 2006 Posted April 2, 2006 Ok maybe this is what we want: http://www.digitalsignage.ca/ That site was down last time I was looking for digital signage apps but is now back up. Ben
john Posted April 2, 2006 Posted April 2, 2006 Looks a good site, I will give it a read up, I see NSM gets a mention - "The source is easily modifiable and distribution of source files is best done with NetSupport Manager."
plexer Posted April 2, 2006 Posted April 2, 2006 Not sure if that would be the same product we know though but could be. Trouble is I've registered and there are no links to downlaods page Ben
mattpant Posted April 2, 2006 Author Posted April 2, 2006 I had that problem, registered but couldn't download.. I logged out then back in again and the links appeared!! Matt
plexer Posted April 2, 2006 Posted April 2, 2006 aha yes indeed didn't seem to like firefox after I logged in though text was off the side. Well lets hope this is good stuff Ben
mattpant Posted April 3, 2006 Author Posted April 3, 2006 I've downloaded the files on the webpage... anybody got any ideas what to do with them!!!!!!] Not much info really to go by! Regards, Matt
Geoff Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 PowerPoint is fine for the time being!! Linux box running OpenOffice Impress?
alan-d Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 I got the same question :oops: It seems that it would take more effort to re-jig the pages every day - Although it could be made to look very nice - its not as simple as a powerpoint display. I was expecting a simple user interface which enabled you to drop in text, pictures, movies etc and hey presto a new display. Or am I missing something :?
alan-d Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 PowerPoint is fine for the time being!! Linux box running OpenOffice Impress? and for those not running Linux or open office?
Geoff Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 and for those not running Linux or open office? Download the latest Ubuntu ISO? The OP wanted an opensource solution remember?
indie Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 This isn't open source but we use Net Top Box from Onelan. It's a small linux box, some of the software they use on it is under the GNU licence so they may even have to release the source code, i don't know! I wrote some PHP to get it to grab the entries out of MRBS and show them on the screen, along with some RSS feeds, webcams and work done here (The black area's are movies which show up like that on the preview's i've used here).
webman Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 This isn't open source but we use Net Top Box from Onelan. It looks remarkably like a Mini-ITX board in a nice case with a video output card. Shouldn't be too hard to knock one together yourself.
indie Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 It's exactly that, it runs Mandrake (not my personal fave). It's got a web interface on it which isn't the best, but you can hand craft the config via xml files on the box which is what I did.
webman Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 If you don't mind me asking then indie, how much do they retail for, as I can't seem to find a price on the website.
mattpant Posted April 3, 2006 Author Posted April 3, 2006 Nice thought Geoff, But when I mean Open Source system I'm thinking something more in the region of being able to add content remotely, easily make changes and schedule changes, when I say PowerPoint is ok for now, I mean it runs a presentation that has already been setup, but if you want to make changes, you need to go into PowerPoint make the changes and then re-run the PowerPoint... if this is going out to the screens it all looks very messy!! Any other ideas... are there any other schools already doing similar things. Cheers, Matt
indie Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 Webman, pretty sure it was £900 with a TV tuner card in there. Not fantastic value for money but it wasn't me who wanted it, I was just made to set it up Oh and if anyone wants the PHP to pull entries out of MRBS i'll gladly dig it out! It's configurable so that the NTB will only display entries between a certain time. We have another "Type" setting in MRBS so any entries we don't want the NTB to display we set as "Hidden" they show up on MRBS but not the NTB display. Useful for adding comments to the day but keeping them hidden. It's not just for the NTB either, it's plain PHP so it could be used to integrate MRBS into your website/intranet etc.
Geoff Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 Nice thought Geoff, But when I mean Open Source system I'm thinking something more in the region of being able to add content remotely, easily make changes and schedule changes, when I say PowerPoint is ok for now, I mean it runs a presentation that has already been setup, but if you want to make changes, you need to go into PowerPoint make the changes and then re-run the PowerPoint... if this is going out to the screens it all looks very messy!! Any other ideas... are there any other schools already doing similar things. Cheers, Matt What about doing something webbased then? http://podium.sourceforge.net/
jamesloker Posted January 30, 2009 Posted January 30, 2009 Found this, may be of use Digital Signage Software Free Download, Digital Dynamic Signage
Popular Post alexharrington Posted February 28, 2009 Popular Post Posted February 28, 2009 (edited) Heya Shameless plug for a project I develop on. Xibo Open Source Digital Signage Project We've been running it as a commercial product where I work, but it's now available as an AGPL v3 Open Source system. PHP based web interface (server can run on Linux or Windows) and a Windows .net client (a Java client is on the way for Linux/Mac machines). Have a look! There's not much of a website yet, but the manual gives an idea of what it looks like and how it works. Xibo Manual We released 1.0.0-rc1 earlier this week. There were a couple of bugs in it that are worth avoiding on a new system, so wait for 1.0.0-rc2, hopefully next week! Cheers Alex Edited February 28, 2009 by alexharrington 9
john Posted February 28, 2009 Posted February 28, 2009 Thanks Alex, looks very good from the manual, any plans to allow a live video Stream in to it at all? John
alexharrington Posted February 28, 2009 Posted February 28, 2009 Hi John We've very much getting what we have already up to par at the moment. I've got allsorts of plans in my head for a MythTV integration, but I expect we'll be looking at those kind of things for a 2.0 release. The server is written in a very modular way - in fact that's been the bulk of the work that has been done to release the code publicly was to modularise the way content is added to the system. The Java client has been written ground up to be modular, so there's nothing to stop somebody developing a 3rd party module and plugin to make video streaming happen earlier. Cheers Alex
hillcrest Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 Just trying out Xibo now. I've been asked to spec a digital signage system for my school (approx 10 screens eventually). The open source development of Xibo looks far more promising than buying into a commercial system and being stuck with it.
plexer Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 Xiob is exactly the kind of system we've all been waiting for someone to develop I think Ben
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