Open Source Digital Signage System

[mattpant]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

I had that problem, registered but couldn't download.. I logged out then back in again and the links appeared!!

 

Matt

[plexer]

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]

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]

PowerPoint is fine for the time being!!

 

Linux box running OpenOffice Impress?

[alan-d]

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]

PowerPoint is fine for the time being!!

 

Linux box running OpenOffice Impress?

 

and for those not running Linux or open office?

[Geoff]

and for those not running Linux or open office?

 

Download the latest Ubuntu ISO? The OP wanted an opensource solution remember?

[indie]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Found this, may be of use

 

Digital Signage Software Free Download, Digital Dynamic Signage

[alexharrington]

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

[john]

Thanks Alex, looks very good from the manual, any plans to allow a live video Stream in to it at all?

 

John

[alexharrington]

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]

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]

Xiob is exactly the kind of system we've all been waiting for someone to develop I think

 

Ben