Digital Signage - Help!

[fs7]

Hi,

I am aware that this topic has been discussed a lot but i`m still a little unsure.

Our school is looking into having a screen in the entrance hall.

What my thought are is to get a LED screen and use one of our spare baseunits plugged in through VGA to control what is displayed.

We will be using it to show pictures, school news, videos of activities.

The base unit will be situated nearby and updated every week.

 

Will this work and can anyone suggest any good/fairly cheap software to use?

Does it need to have internet connection or is there some software that just works standalone with the screen?

 

You can tell i`m all new to this!

Also, if there is anyone in the area (Derby) who has a set up that I could come and see, please get in touch!

Thank you for your help!

[Oaktech]

how basic do you want it to be?

 

you could buy a screen that will play a presentation from a memory stick, and just get it replaced weekly/daily.

 

You could buy a screen with a vga connection and use the spare base unit, put powerpoint viewer on the machine and just vnc/rmtutor/impero the box to upload a presentation,

 

You could go the whole hog and buy something like anders and kern's PADS system and stream TV, RSS, twitter feeds into it live as well as playing a presentation.

 

You could also use Xibo which is freeeee!

 

Choices, Choices!

[glennda]

No internet connection required and can all be installed run on the single pc

 

Xibo Open Source Digital Signage

 

EDIT: beat me too it!

 

When looking at a TV make sure they are at a decent resolution - you need to make sure you are not buying a 42" TV and then finding out it only supports 1024 x786 etc

 

Also make sure if its an old pc that it can support screen res's that the TV will provide - probably 1920 x 1600

Edited April 5, 2012 by glennda

[fs7]

Cool, thanks.

Well i`m wanting it to look quite professional...

Ideally it's going to show:

Slideshow of pictures

Videos of activities

Scrolling school news

Dinner menu

If we get technical then BBC news, etc...

 

Thank you for the info on TV's- I didn't give that a thought!

[Oaktech]

Good thought @glennda with the TV's.

 

If you are good with powerpoint then all of the above (apart from BBC news) is achievable from a stand alone presentation... even to the point of being able to draw data from an ODBC, possibly to pull the menu for the week from a database somewhere!

 

I know all the things you want are achievable easilly with PADS, but it will cost you money. I've not played with Xibo to the point of getting live TV into it, but the documentation suggests it is possible.

[glennda]

Xibo will do all of the above - I run 9 Screens around the school and its great.

 

Slideshow of pictures - Use Power Point 2010 Photo Album Option to auto-generate a Powerpoint with images on a slide of there own.

Videos of activities - with convert to flash video or use AVI/MPG (can't remember format needed)

Scrolling school news - could be rss from twitter feed etc or just generate an RSS feed

Dinner menu - Could be picture/webpage etc

If we get technical then BBC news, etc... - again you can use RSS feeds from both

 

I also have code to stream BBC1 and BBC 2 live on to the boxes at full screen (ideal for breaking news events such as we had with Japan tsunami

[fs7]

Is Xibo fairly easy to use?

I have just looked on the website and it seems good but a bit technical!

Putting a clock on & the weather an option aswell?

Sorry, i`m new to this!

[Rozzer]

I started using xibo and once you get your head around its very easy to use. Took me an afternoon of playing to understand how it works.

[glennda]

Once the server is installed its easy!

 

If you want to run on windows install xampp, copy xibo files to web directory and go to web http://localhost and follow instructions!

[fs7]

Once the server is installed its easy!

 

If you want to run on windows install xampp, copy xibo files to web directory and go to web http://localhost and follow instructions!

 

 

 

What's that???!

[glennda]

It's apache mysql php bundled - xibo server runs as a website so requires

[robk]

@fs7 how many screens are you looking to run? Just one or multiple? We have xibo running really well for us, allows different content at different times on currently 7 sets of screens for us.

[JJonas]

+1 for Xibo

[fs7]

@fs7 how many screens are you looking to run? Just one or multiple? We have xibo running really well for us, allows different content at different times on currently 7 sets of screens for us.

 

Just the one.

[fs7]

Right, I've had a go.. & failed

I've followed the guide on xibo site & installed xampp. When I try to go on the local host bit it just says no website.

Im not very tech minded with all these codes & that so if there's an alternative that would be better suited then I think that will be better.

I have had a look into sedao, d|sign & the Samsung magic info & these all look fairly good and possibly more simple to use. The only downside is the sheer cost!

[robk]

Not sure if there is a pre build.portable version available. Will have a look.

[fs7]

I have just been looking at the hp mp8000r, aswell as the software such as mediacat, etc.

Not sure whether these would be more suitable

[plexer]

Wow that HP is big the s version based on the usdt is better.

 

Ben

[fs7]

Right, I've had another go at xibo as I've heard its fairly straight forward once you have the server done?

I've not managed to get that far..

I have followed the guide on Xibo site and installed XAMPP

When I click on the MYSQL Admin tab, like the guide says, it come up with and error screen which reads:

Error

MySQL said:

 

The connection could not be established due to invalid settings.

phpMyAdmin tried to connect to the MySQL server is set up, however, has rejected the connection. You should check your settings for the host, username and password in your config.inc.php and make sure that the information that you received from the administrator, meet.

 

Why is this?

 

& If I try to access the http://localhost/xibo it says

 

Object not found!

 

The requested URL was not found on this server. If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again.

 

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.

 

Error 404

 

localhost

04/07/12 16:27:00

Apache/2.2.21 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.21 OpenSSL/1.0.0e PHP/5.3.8 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1

 

Any help??? Or should I go for the paid software option?

 

Thanks

[glennda]

Go to start - run and type services.msc. Make sure the mysql service is running

[fs7]

Go to start - run and type services.msc. Make sure the mysql service is running

 

Yep, it says on the xampp control that it's running, I've tried stopping it and running it again... Still the same message

[glennda]

I'm guessing here as not ever used Xampp before (i use linux hosts) but open up the config.inc.php file and make sure the settings are correct namely the user/password. PHPmyadmin doesn't tend to live the password being blank on my linux hosts - did you leave it blank?

[fs7]

Well it all worked fine when I first installed it, but the guide said I needed to changed the password on the settings do the MySQL opened up fine at first (apart from being in German) & I changed the password like was asked... The next step was to go on the localhost/xibo but that didn't work.. So I tried to go back on MySQL and it just says that now...

[glennda]

Well it all worked fine when I first installed it, but the guide said I needed to changed the password on the settings do the MySQL opened up fine at first (apart from being in German) & I changed the password like was asked... The next step was to go on the localhost/xibo but that didn't work.. So I tried to go back on MySQL and it just says that now...

 

Ok - well it probably hasn't updated the password in the config.inc.php or didn't change the password. if you open it up it will be in there either way.

[fs7]

Ok - well it probably hasn't updated the password in the config.inc.php or didn't change the password. if you open it up it will be in there either way.

 

It's not letting me open that file...