DMS 4

Digital Media Server Version 4.2.1 for Microsoft Windows (DMX-W)

User Manual – English

STINOVA Ltd.
Published: December 2010
Revision: 4.2.1

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DMX4-W Packages

The DMX4-W Appliance Digital Media Software is the next generation of WEB based content management play-out software for Digital Signage applications.

DMX4-W software edition allows you to build a Digital Signage Appliance from any Windows PC running XP embedded, XP Pro, Vista and Windows 7 32Bit. There are two different license packages available:

1. DMX4-W as Stand-alone Edition (SE) or

2. DMX4-W as Network Edition (NE)

The DMX package has also a DMP-W Player included which is described in the DMP-W manual section.

DMX4-W SE

The Stand-alone Edition (SE) software is designed to build a Digital Signage Appliance managing one player/display with the WEB browser. Applications are Welcome Screens, Time Tables and other single screen control applications. The SE has a built-in EasySignage WEB composer tool for content authoring and content creation. It allows to schedule the playlists at pre-defined times. Also it is possible to playback Content via USB-Stick like Pictures, Videos and even PowerPoint Presentations.

DMX4-W SE does not support the following features compared to DMX4-W NE:

• Managing other players in the network
• Template based playlists
• Content and events such as: Video Stream, TV Tuner, HTML, Shell Event

DMX4-W NE

The DMX4-W Network Edition (NE) software is designed to build a Digital Signage Appliance acting as a player and a server for managing other network managed players within the local network running our Digital Media Player (DMP) software. WEB CMS Server and Player capable of manage the local player plus other players in the loca network.

DMX4-W NE does not support the following features compared to DMS4:

• Player Management via Internet
• Multi Account Management
• IPTV Channel Management
• Management of max. 250 Players

Installation

Please unpack the Install.zip in a temporary directory and double click on the setup.exe.

Press Next to proceed with package selection.

Select the packages you want to install and press Next.

Click on Install to begin installation.

When DMP-W Package was selected it will now be installed. Press Next and follow the install instructions.

Let the Dependencies option checked to install required 3rd party packages as Adobe FlashPlayer, Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual C++ Libraries, Microsoft DirectX and Codec-Packages.

Press Next to install the required packages.

After starting DMP-W the Optimizator screen should appear

The Optimize settings now option is recommended. There the user will be asked some question about Player usage and sets automatically the best options.

Except the Cancel option you will end up on the complete configuration screen shown above. Here you can manually change some settings if needed or just click the OK Button to close the window and continue installation of the Sever part.

Important note!
Don't forget to setup the right DMS Address. Following entries should be set:

• DMS Address: localhost:port e.g. localhost:1054
  
• User: admin
  
• Password: 123

Press Next to install server part of DMX.

Follow the installation instructions until you get to the window where you can select the port number for the Webserver that will be installed.

In many cases the default port 80 is already used by some other applications on the PC. In this case you can select any other free port number. By clicking on Get port the suggested port number 1054 will be used. Also you can verify your selected port number.

Please don't forget to add this port number when connecting (by Web-Interface or DMP) to your server - otherwise the player can not connect to your DMS or you can not get to the login screen of the DMS!

You have to license the DMX. Press Next to get to the Activation screen.

You can activate your DMX as 30-days trial or full version by clicking on the accordant button. If you have purchased a license you have to enter enter the name and license key on next screen.

Now Press Finish to start the Server. There should be a round tray-icon which color inidicates the status of the server:

• Red: Server stopped
  
• Yellow: Server starting/stopping
  
• Green: Server started

Congratulations - you have installed successfully the DMX.

In case there are updates available you will see a notification window showing current revision and new revision of the update.

Please wait until you see the following window that indicates that the update has been completed successfully.

Configuration

To configure the DMP you have to right-click ont the DMP (Play)-Icon. Detailed description how to configure the DMP you can get here.

To configure the DMX you have to click with the right mouse button on the green LED icon in your task bar.

The following menu will appear with the following options:

- Start:	Starts the DMX Service
- Stop:	Stops the DMX Service
- Open in browser:	Open the Web-Interface in the default Browser
- Configuration:	Here you can configure the DMX
- Update:	Checks if there is a new DMX update available
- Info:	Displays the current DMX Version
- License:	Shows the actual license information and allows to Activate the license
- Exit:	Exits the DMX

The options are:

- Auto start:	Sets if DMX schould start automatically with Windows
- Port:	Sets the Port number of DMX-Service
- Disable watcher:	Disable Watchdog
- Restart if unable to restore:	Enable to restart PC if an error occurs
- Auto update:	Checks automatically for updates
- Update confirmation box:	If update available it shows a confirmation box
- Update Server Address:	Server to check for new updates

DMX4-W Interface

DMX4-W Login

To connect to the DMX interface via the browser you just need to open the IP_address:port_number e.g. http://192.168.0.1:1054.

The initial administration login of DMX4-W is:

- Login (User):	admin
- Password:	123

After login you should see a screen like the following. Normally you are in the Playlist Management after login. You can change the default page inside the Change user information dialog.

On top you see following mainmenu:

	Content Manager
	Playlist Management
	Calendar in weekly / monthly view
	Player Management
	Group Management
	Logs
	Change user information
	Resolution Management
	About
	Current user
	Used / Maximum Disk Space
	Actions menu
	Logout from DMX

Content Manager

Before you can start creating Playlists you should upload some content which you want to show inside the playlists onto the DMX. You can do that inside the builtin Content Manger which can be opened by clicking on the Content Manager icon in the mainmenu.

Now you see the Mainscreen of the Content Manager. Here you can watch your already uploaded content, manage directories and upload media files e.g. pictures, videos and flash. Select the folder which should be filled an click on the Upload content' button. On the appearing popup-window select Browse to open the local file browser where you can choose which content shall be uploaded. You can upload multiple files simultaneously. Click on Upload to start the upload.

Playlist Management

A playlist is a collection of various content elements and events assembled for a looped playback in the Digital Media Player Software (DMP).

Multiple playlists can be aggregated in a queue that can be scheduled or played instantly.

Playlists can be exported in playlist containers (zip format) containing all layouts, playlist XML and content elements that belong to this playlist. Exported playlists can be imported in other DMS or DMX systems. There are three different types of playlists:

1. Fullscreen playlists (red)
2. Composer based playlists (blue)
3. Frame Template based playlists (red)

Beside of these there can be two more types of icons on the interface:

1. Queued playlists (green)
2. Playlist folders (yellow)

Dependent on the type of signage application required, Fullscreen, Composer or Frame Template based playlists are better suited. The characteristics of each type of playlists are described in the following:

Fullscreen Playlist

With a Fullscreen Playlist you can create very easy Playlists. You only have to drag and drop your Picture and Video Contents into the playlist and set there durations. On playback the content will be played in fullscreen one after another in loop.

Composer based Playlist

The WEB Composer Editor is an easy to use signage content creation tool. A composer based playlist is a composed selection of content elements using our WYSIWYG WEB Composer for full screen usage. The content formats that can be used in this type of playlists are: Text incl. RSS Ticker, Images, Videos, Audio, Flash. The Composer supports pages and content containers. The WEB Composer features are described in more detail in the WEB Composer chapter. The following formats are not supported within a Composer based playlist: HTML page, Shell Event, PPT

Frame Template based Playlist

A frame template based playlist is more complex than a Composer based playlist supporting all available content formats. The frame template builder is an easy tool to define your screen layout with a number of frames (zones). Every frame can have one or many sequential content elements or other events. The content elements and events can be managed with our Event Manager. All elements inside a frame are for independent looped playback. The following formats are supported: Images, Video, Video Stream (multicast), TV tuner, RSS Ticker, Composer (including all Composer object elements support), HTML page (remote or local), Flash, Shell Event, Audio, PowerPoint ppt.

Calendar

In the calendar you have an overview over the Playlist Timetable. Here you see which playlist is playing to a specific time. There is a weekly and a monthly calendarv view.

Also you can change the schedules of each playlist.

Player Management

A hardware device running the Digital Media Player software is auto-registering at the DMS account to which it is configured to. It appears in the Player Management menu with its MAC address as the unique identifier. Additional to this a name, location and some notes can be assigned to each player. For information it shows the group name it belongs to, last update time, up time, last status, what is now playing, the sync status, the sync time, the update time window and the online status. If a new player is pointed to a DMS account without any or non existing group name, it will be assigned to the default group called unassigned. For player error notification there is a control field on the main menu showing how many players are online, offline and with an error state. In case the player fails for 3 times to sync with the server in the pre-defined sync interval, it is marked as error. An error could be an interrupted network connection or power loss or any other malfunction of the player. If a player is known as temporarily offline (e. g. on service) it is marked as offline.

Group Management

A group can consist of one or many players. The initial group is called unassigned. All new connected players that are not assigned to a group during installation will be added to this group. To assign players to specific groups just drag the player name and drop it into the required group. The player will synchronize with all content and playlists that are assigned to the appropriate group.

Pressing the Add Group button will add a new group. The following group properties can be set:

• Name of the group
• Synchronization time Window from/to
• Idle Playlist that will be played when nothing is scheduled or no instant playlist is activated
• Instant Playlist will be played instantly with higher priority than schedule
• Check players online status will check if players are online or offline
• Online status check period determines the period after the player is set to offline

Change user information

When clickling on Change user information following dialog window will open

Here you can change all information about the current user

Resolution Management

The resolution management allows you creating any resolution for any display size for landscape and portrait mode operation. Each resolution has a name, horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) pixel size assigned to it. The resolution will be used when creating playlists to determin the workspace pixel size and aspect ratio. In case the play-out will be done on a different screen resolution with same aspect ratio, the content will be scaled accordingly.

Add Playlists

Add Fullscreen Playlist

To add a new Fullscreen Playlist you have to click on the Add playlist Button in the Playlist Management and select Fullscreen Playlist.

Type in the dialog a Playlistname and an optional Note and click on the Add Button. With Color you can select the color of this playlist inside the Calendar.

After pressing the Add button you will see the Event Manager.
Here you can drag and drop your uploaded picture and video content into the eventqueue. Also you can set the duration in seconds of each Event by clicking on the Edit Button on the bottom left of the Thumbnail. When finished close the Event Manager.

As soon you have saved your playlist you will see a thumbnail of the first screen in playlist. A live preview of the full playlist is only available in the composer based playlist.

For playling this playlist you have to publish it by clicking on the Publish Button on the playlist and then by clicking on the red Play Button. There you have to click on the proper group for playback.

Add Playlist (Frame Playlist)

This chapter describes the frame based playlists. In frame based playlists you can create a screen layout with multiple frames (zones) that can be filled with various content such as

• Ticker
• Images
• Video
• HTML Page
• Audio
• Composer Event
• Multicast Stream
• TV Tuner
• Shell Event (e.g. RS232 commads)
• JavaScript Event
• Volume Event

To add a frame based playlist click on the Add Playlist button in the Playlist Management and choose Playlist.

It opens a menu where you can add:

• playlist name
• the color how it is shown in the calendar
• any comment
• select if this is a just a template or fully working playlist

After pressing the Add button you will see the Frame manager.

The properties button on the top right side will allow you to:

• select the resolution of the playlist
• change the name of the playlist
• set the background colour of the main playlist frame

To add a new frame (zone) press the add button. To select the size and position of the frame click on the frame so it will be red and press the edit button. You can now resize with the handles on the frame border and drag it to where you want to have it positioned. For pixel precise positioning and frame size yozu can just add the X, Y position and the W (width) and H (height) in pixels from this point.

To add content into the frame just double click on the frame name on the left menu or on directly on the frame to open the Event Manager.

Now you can drop content or other events into the frame by dragging the content into the timeline of the event manager. You can drag the content in the timeline for another position in there, change the duration of each element and change some properties of each element or delete it.

The special feature of a frame playlist is that it allows you also to integrate additional content formats such as HTML pages, video streams, local TV tuner, etc...

If you have multiple frames layeres on top of each other you can choost the layer position of each frame by dragging the layer name in the list on the right side to the layer poistion your desire. The most bottom layer has the bottom position in the screen and the most top one has the top position on the screen.

If you finish with your playlist editing just press the save button on the bottom right. If you do not want to save your changes press the Exit button.

As soon you have saved your playlist you will see a thumbnail of your first screen of your frame playlist. A live preview of the full playlist is only available in the composer based playlist.

Add Composer Playlist

A Composer based playlist is using our WYSIWY WEB Composer to easily create playlists in a full screen mode. The composer is page based allowing to place different objects in each page such as:

• Text (Ticker)
• Image
• Video
• Flash
• Audio
• Container

The container object is a special object that can be inserted only on the first page because the contents of this container (videos, images, multicast, tuner) are looped independently of the pages at this container position.

To add a new playlist just select the Add Playlist button in the Playlist Management and choose the Composer Playlist item.

As a minimum you need to assign a name and choose a resolution to create your composer playlist. The following options can be entered here:

• Name -> Name of the Playlist
• Color -> how it appears in the calendar
• Resolution -> the playlist resolution of the Composer workspace
• Note -> add any note here
• Is draft -> select weather it is a draft playlist or a full playlist
• Duration for queued -> this determines the play time if the composer playlist is added to a playlist queue

After you press the Add button the composer will be started in your browser with an empty workspace.

To save and exit the composer event press the Save button on the bottom right. To exit the composer without saving press the exit button on the bottom right and you see a window where you can choose to exit without saving, to save or to cancel and go back to the open composer event. Please note: there must be at least one object added to the composer event otherwise no composer playlist will be created.

After a new composer based playlist is saved it will create the following object in the playlist manager.

Please note: dependent on your internet connection it the preview might not show all content immediately in its first loop until all elements are cached in local browser.

Workspace Options

There are several helpful features for the composer workspace that will be listed in the following.

• Page dismensions displays the target width and height in pixels of the composer workspace
• Workspace zoom in with the workspace scale slider on the top right - displays the percentage of zoom out factor
• Language selector let the user select the language of the composer interface
• Show mouse checkbox selects if the mouse pointer is shown in the composer player when mouse over
• Show grid checkbox selects if a grid on the workspace is shown
• Show guideline checkbox selects if the guidelines are shown. If this checkbox is selected there are guideline bars on the left and top of the workspace from where you can drag new guidelines with the mouse or remove the guidelines by dragging back to the bars.
• Guideline offset sets and shows the offset in pixel of the guideline relative to the left (for vertical guidelines) or top (for horizontal guidelines). To set the offset for a guideline click on the desired guideline so it is red colored, type the offset value in pixels and press the checkbox.
• The checkbox Lock guide can lock or unlock the guideline so it can not be moved if checked

Page Options

The composer tool is based on one or multiple pages where objects can be placed. There is a minimum of 1 page required. The following page operations are available:

• Add page -> inserts a new empty page after the current page position
• Copy page -> copies the current page and inserts it after the curren page position
• Delete page -> opens a page selector window that lets you delete one or man pages with the from - to selection
• Page transition selector selects the transition between all pages. The following transition options are available: CrossFading, KenBurns, Fade in/out, Random, none
• The Page duration sets and shows the current page duration in seconds
• The total duration shows the length of all pages and determins the length of the loop
• Page selector can step forward or backwards thru the existing pages and shows the number of existing pages and the actual page position
• The Page color selector sets the background color of the page
• The Delete b/g button deletes a background image that is set for the page
• The Transparent b/g checkbox alows to set the composer with transparet background if no background color or background image is set. This option is only available if composer player is embedded in a web browser and is not supported for DMP-W.
• The Preview button shows you a preview of the composer event. Please note the quality of the video is reduced in a browser preview.

Composer Objects

Now you can add objects in one or multiple pages. There are 6 different types of objects that can be added.

1. Text object
2. Image object
3. Video object
4. Flash object
5. Audio object
6. Container object (only on first page)

If you select the add object button for one of the above mentioned content types then only the selected content type is shown for the following content types: image, video, flash and audio.

If you check the Always visible button for the selected content object then this object will be visible thru all pages at this position independent of the page transition. This option is useful for adding a logo that should be visible at the same position whiel pages are sliding. If an object is set to always visible it will be also always on very top layer.

It is possible to overlay objects and set layer position by the layer up/down selector. Please note that videos might not support layering on the DMP player and only works in the web play and preview.

Text Object

Click the Add Object button to add a new text object to the workspace. You can now place it wher you like to have it positioned by dragging the frame border and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner. For pixel exact positioning just the X and Y coordinates and the width and height of the text object can be set.

Now just enter some text in the text object frame.

There are various text formatting options available such as:

• Font type
• Font size
• Font style (italic, bold, underline)
• Font colour
• Left aligned, centered, right aligned, block text
• Font spacing
• Line spacing
• Bullet points
• Tabs

There are various text object formatting options available such as:

• Alpha value
• Alpha colour
• Text border insets
• Rounded corners
• Reflection

A text object can be animated with some animation types triggered on page load.

A text object can be copied on the page with the text object copy button.

If you click the ticker button you can choose weather you want to have this text scrolled vertically or horizontally or you can add an RSS link to read the text from an external RSS feeder.

RSS Link

If you want to add an RSS feed copy the RSS link in the RSS link menu. There are 3 types of RSS text options available:

1. Horizontal
2. Vertical
3. Block

You also can choose weather you want to have the title or descritption displayed in the text object field.

To format the text of an RSS feed type the word style only in the text object and format the word style (font type, size, bold, color etc...) so the RSS text will be displayed with this format.

Image Object

Click the Image object button to open the media manger to select an image that can be dragged to the workspace. You can now place it where you like to have it positioned by dragging the image and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner.

For pixel exact positioning just the X and Y coordinates and the width and height of the image object can be set.

If you want to ignore the aspect ratio of the image you can uncheck the keep aspect ratio button on the top left.

If you want to add the image as a background check the Add b/g checkbox at the bottom.

If you want to replace an existing image with the same properties then

• click the image that need to be replaced
• check the replace checkbox at the bootom
• drag the image onto the workspace

There are various image object formatting options available such as:

• Crop image
• Image alpha
• Object background alpha and colour
• Rounded corners
• Reflection
• Shadow effect

To crop an image click on the image object and click the Crop Image button. With the four handles on the corner you can select the cropped area.

An image object can be animated with some animation types triggered on page load.

Video Object

Click the Image object button to open the media manger to select a video that can be dragged to the workspace. You can now place it where you like to have it positioned by dragging the video and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner.

For pixel exact positioning just set the X and Y coordinates and for the width and height of the video object set the W and H in pixels.

If you want to ignore the aspect ratio of the video you can select none. Otherwise you can select 16:9 or 4:3.

The video plays until end of page so make sure the page lengths is minimum length of video. If you want to play the video until end of video at a shorter page duration check the checkbox play til end at the top left.

Flash Object

Click the Add Flash Object button to open the media manger to select a flash that can be dragged to the workspace.

Please note - there are some limitations of .swf (flash) objects that can be embedded inside another flash player. In case you want to embed another flash with a transparent background make sure this swf has a background size determined otherwise it will be not fully shown. Place the flash object where you like by dragging it on the flash object (note: transparent flash can only be dragged by clicking on the non-transparent areas) and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner. For pixel exact positioning just set the X and Y coordinates and W and H to set width and height in pixels.

If you want to ignore the aspect ratio of the flash object you can uncheck the keep aspect ratio button on the top left.

If you want to add to the flash object a background color with an alpha level (only useful for transparen flash objects) move the Object b/g alpha slider to the right to increase the alpha level and select the object background colour with the color picker.

If you want to decrease the alpha level of the flash object itself move the Alpha slider to the right.

If you want to replace an existing image with the same properties then

There are various flash object formatting options available such as:

• Flash object alpha
• Flash object background alpha and color
• Rounded corners
• Reflection
• Shadow effect

A flash object can be animated with some animation types that is triggered on and relative to page load.

Audio Object

Click the Add Audio Object button to open the media manger to select a audio file that can be added to a page. The audio icon is just a placeholder to add and remove audio elements to the page but does not appear on the player page.

The audio plays until the end of the page.

Container Object

Container objects are areas for content elements such as videos and images and for other events such as multicast and tuner events looping independently of the composer pages inside the container position. Therefore the container object can only be placed on the first page. To add a container object go to the first page and click Add Container Object button. To see where a container object is positioned, it is visible as a frame thruout all pages.

You can now place the container object where you like to have it positioned by dragging the container icon and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner. For pixel exact positioning just the X and Y coordinates and the width and height of the container object can be set.

If you want to mainly add videos you can select the aspect ratio for the container to 16:9 or 4:3. To ignore the aspect ratio of the container object you can select none in the Video ratio selector.

If you want that the video is played as flash video and not in the original format in the player, check the Embed checkbox.

To add content into the container click the Manage Video/Image button which opens the content manager.

It supports videos, images, flash and as special events such as multicast and tuner event. Drag the content element in the timeline area. To change the length of each element click on the time valune (in seconds) and type in a new value in soconds. The total duration of the container loop will be shown on the top left of the media manager. To change the sequence of the elements drag the element and move it to the left or right of the timeline.

To set options to the video playback or tuner events add the options in Video params input field. To remove an element in the container timeline press the Remove element button.

Kiosk Mode

The composer offers a simple way of creating a simple interactive menu. For running in the kiosk mode the Kiosk checkbox must be checked. This will open the composer on the first page (menu page) and let it stay there until a link area is pressed to open another page. The following objects can be defined as link areas: text, image, video, flash

The following commands are available and can be used in the Object Link input field:

• page (x) e.g. page 2 -> opens page 2 of the composer when clicked
• continue -> resets the timer and continues the loop of the composer pages
• http://www.stinova.com -> opens a new browser window with the given html link (only available for desktop signage or web signage).

If the composer pages should start to loop after time of no activity, a timer can be set by addnig a time in seconds at the Timer input field. If set 0 then the timer is deactivated. If set 10 then the slides will start to loop when no click activity after is recognised by the composer page and the set timer countdown time has been reached. The loop will be stopped and the time reset to the given time when an object link was clicked.

Playlist Scheduler

Instant Playback

The instant playback allows the immediate play-out of playlists by pressing the play button inside the playlist object window. Instant playback has the highest play-out priority and will pause any playing schedule of the selected group. If instant playback is stopped the scheduled playlist continues to play.

Schedules

In contrast to an instant playback (play now) a schedule is one or a queue of playlists that are played at a pre-defined time window. A schedule is always assigned to a group that can contain one or multiple players. All player belonging to this group automatically synchronize the content and playlist and playing it at the predefined time. A schedule can be created by clicking on the schedule icon in the playlist object window. There could be as many as needed schedules created. If there is a time window overlap for the same group a conflict warning appears, since there only can be played one playlist at the same time for a group of players. The calendar view shows the pre-scheduled playlists in a weekly or monthly overview.

Idle Playlist

An idle playlist is played in case there is nothing scheduled or no instant playback is activated for this group. Idle playlist avoids having nothing be played in case no schedule is assigned to the group or no instant playlist is activated. An idle playlist can be assigned in the group properties.