Color coded sections for different categories of questions
Step by step guide to getting your hardware set up to play a Display5 Show
If you already have a screen(s), then you need to determine the resolution of your screen(s) so you will know the canvas size when you develop content for them.
If you need to buy screens then follow these guidelines:
A screen needs a player (computer) that can run an up-to-date browser like Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari to play the Display5 Show. There are 100’s of options open to you. If you have screens with integrated players, often referred to as System on a Chip (SoC) the go-to STEP 3.
If you need to buy a player(s) then follow these guidelines:
If you are having an integrator to get your screens and players set up, please give them the URL to this page so they can read this information.
A computer (player) of digital signage content needs to be dedicated to ONLY playing the content, so the content will play smoothly. To ensure you do not experience interrupted content play, here are the things that need to be done to prepare a player to be ready to play a Display5 Show:
If your organization uses a standard browser, you can use that browser, otherwise, pick one of the common browsers to install on your player.
Once you have selected a browser to run on your players you will need to configure the browser to make sure it plays the Display5 Shows optimally. This will include:
These topics are all covered separately in the browser section below.
Once your screens and players are all set up, you will need to register your players with the Display5 service. This should only be carried out by a Display5 supervisor. The supervisor should be logged in on the player first and then navigate to the player registration page.
To register a player, please follow the steps below:
Configuring your players for optimal Show play
Auto-refreshing your player’s browser is a best practice. Auto-refreshing your player’s browser helps to prevent the browser’s cache from filling up or becoming cluttered with remnant data/info which can cause the browser to freeze up and stop playing content.
To implement Auto-refresh on the players’ browser and keep your players running uninterrupted see the instructions below:
There are 2 options available:
The frequency of refresh can vary. We recommend refreshing at least once a week and once a day is better. Refreshing at off-peak hours is ideal.
We recommend suppressing auto-updates of both the player OS, e.g. Windows and the browser software.
Suppressing Auto-updates will lead to a more stable play of content (the Show) on the digital screens:
Player OS:
Player Browser:
Playing video in your Display5 Shows
If you are using Chrome as your player’s browser and you would like to play videos in your Display5 Shows, you will need to change the settings in Chrome to allow videos to play automatically.
How to enable Autoplay in Chrome (Version 76.0 and higher):
How to enable Autoplay in Chrome (versions prior to Version 76.0):
If you are using Firefox as your player’s browser and you would like to play videos in your Display5 Shows, you will need to change the settings in Firefox to allow videos to play automatically.
How to enable Autoplay in Firefox:
Safari’s default is to NOT autoplay video or sound content from a website. If you are using Safari as your player’s browser and you would like to play videos in your Display5 Shows, you will need to change the settings in Safari to allow videos to play automatically.
How to enable video Autoplay in Safari:
Ensuring your Display5 Shows are playing on the Full Screen
You will want your Shows to play on the whole screen without any other content on the screen. In Windows, this is known as “kiosk mode“.
How to enable kiosk mode in Windows IE:
You will want your Shows to play on the whole screen without any other content on the screen. In Chrome, this is known as “kiosk mode“.
How to enable kiosk mode in Chrome:
You will want your Shows to play on the whole screen without any other content on the screen. In Firefox, this is known as “kiosk mode“.
How to enable kiosk mode in Firefox:
To ensure that your Show (content) is playing using the entire screen canvas, you will have to make sure the browser is in FULL-SCREEN mode.
How to turn on full-screen mode in Safari:
You will want your Shows to play on the whole screen without any other content on the screen. In Opera’s browser, this is known as “kiosk mode“.
How to enable kiosk mode in Opera:
How Display5 is built to maximize your Show’s uptime
Browsers have a native ability to cache content built into them. This capability is useful for playing content on displays to: reduce network load; play content faster; store GBs of data; caching can be managed by the user.
How it works:
Total or temporary failure recovery, using App Cache:
Total or temporary failure recovery, using the Display5 Panel Refresher:
Display5 has developed a “Panel Refresher” plugin extension to the Chrome browser which is designed to significantly improve the ability for the browser to recover Show content in the event of a significant failure of the network or Internet connection.
Installing the Panel Refresher plugin on a player’s Chrome browser will avoid the situation where a network outage, or hiccup in connection, can cause the browser content play to freeze on the display.
This new extension keeps detailed information on each slide’s:
For each panel in the Show framework, the extension detects if there is a content play lag beyond 2 seconds. When the 2-sec threshold it breached, the Panel Refresher will adopt a healing mode for that panel and will attempt to reload the last item until successful. This means that if a panel has a major lag or delay in playing content, the extension will attempt to reload the slide and restore the content. This can also assist when specific web content causes the browser to fail due to some loading errors or script errors.
In the image to the right, you can see an unattractive message that has replaced the content in the top-right of the Show.
The browser has put that message there because it can’t get to the intended content or there has been some failure loading the URL. See the message detail below.
When the browser has been tripped up by events out of its control, which interrupts the normal play of content, it also freezes the browser and a browser refresh or restart is required.
The new Panel Refresher will prevent the browser from freezing. No more browser refresh/re-start required.
In the event of the connection being totally lost for an extended period, and the content is unavailable, the Panel Refresher will upon reconnection, re-establish the content in every panel, and Show play will resume exactly where it left off.
The Panel Refresher will work with desktop Chrome versions, as well as those found in Chrome devices, or Linux devices and any device running the Chrome browser.
In addition, the Panel Refresher will work in harmony with the new Chrome/Firefox, etc. local cache and cache recovery module which will be available soon. The Display5 Local Cache module will offer some advanced off-line browser play capabilities, especially useful when the network or Internet connection is lost for an extended period of time.
The Display5 Panel Refresher plugin is available for free on the Chrome Store (see link below). Add it to your players that are using the Chrome browser to play Display5 Shows.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/display5-panel-refresher/pcfcmgfmnaajmlkdiljbfangepjdbhjo
Cookies play a pivotal role in the behavior of the browser (player) when connected to the Display5 server. Display5 uses cookies to identify the unique IP of a player, to identify and store the user identity (login account) on the player, to store information on the player: Time zone; City name; Room name (used for room scheduling/booking).
How it works:
Technical Items: How to / Need to Know
Display5 uses a number of 3rd party integrations with Web content providers. These 3rd parties change their token policies from time to time. Here is a list of some of those content providers: Google Maps; WeatherStack weather; Google calendar; Instagram; Twitter; Office 365; Vimeo; and others.
How it works:
TV feeds are increasingly being distributed over the Internet (IP). It is very easy to integrate an IP stream into Display5 using our live stream widget. But cable and satellite TV are still the majority sources for live TV. Below we detail how to play the live TV within a Display5 Show.
How it works:
There are 2 widgets that enable the play of a live stream.
First, in the “Video” widget category, there is a Flowplayer widget, which is a Javascript player that uses Flash to display streams in specific formats – RTMP (Flash), RTP (legacy streaming) and some versions of the m3u8 format videos. You need the URL of the stream that you want to play with this widget and enter it into the appropriate field in the widget details.
Second, in the “Live Stream Widgets” category, there is a “Live TV” widget. This widget uses a Javascript pure video player with no Flash required, making this a more current approach to stream playback. The “Live TV” widget is able to support the m3u8 video format (h264 encoding). It plays back this content type well if the stream itself is reliable. There are some sample streams included with this widget designed to allow you to test the widget. You can enter your own stream URL into this widget as desired.
Using a Raspberry PI, as a player for Display5 Shows is cost-effective for a player option and works well as long as the content workload isn’t too much for the PI processor. Some Display5 customers are using these players and are very happy with them.
If you are trying to get the Raspberry PIs to play on a 1080p resolution screen, they have encountered some challenges. Below, you will find some troubleshooting steps to get 1080p working with your Raspberry PI: