DMS SVG v5.x

Digital Media Server SVG Version v5.x for Linux

User Manual - English

Introduction

The DMS5 (Digital Media Server 5) for SVG hardware is the next generation of WEB based content management play-out software for Digital Signage.

DMS5 SVG Interface

DMS5 Login

To acess the Digital Media Server (DMS) CMS user interface, you just have to enter the IP_address:Port_number or Domain-name in your Browser. For example: http://85.214.230.210. Once the connection is established, you can enter your given username and password to access the CMS (Content Management System).

The default page, after login, is set to the Playlist Management overview. You can change the default page in the Change user information dialog.

Main menu:

	Content Manager
	Playlist Management
	Calendar in weekly / monthly view
	Player Management
	Group Management
	Logs
	Reports
	Account Management
	FTP
	Change user information
	HMP
	About
	Current user
	Used / Maximum Disk Space
	Free / Total Space
	Actions menu
	Logout from DMX

Content Manager

Before you start creating your own Playlists you need to upload the necessary content. The Content Manager can be opened by clicking the first icon in the main menu.

Once you have opened the Content Manager you can browse through the already uploaded content, manage it, or upload new content such as pictures and videos.

You can create, rename, and delete folders with the appropriate buttons. Also you can filter the files by using the Filter by Combobox. By moving the mouse over a media-file you will receive further information about resolution, filesize, or duration.

For uploading new content select the folder which should be filled, and click on the Upload content button.

Click Browse in the appearing popup-window to open the local file browser. Here you can browse for your content. Note that you can upload multiple files simultaneously.

Once you have selected your files click on Upload to start uploading into the folder you have selected earlier.

Playlist Management

A playlist is a collection of various content elements and events assembled for a looped playback in the SVG Player.

Multiple playlists can be aggregated in a queued 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 two different types of playlists:

1. Composer playlists (blue)

You can also create Playlist folders which will be yellow.

Composer Playlist

The WEB Composer Editor is an easy to use signage content creation tool for all SVG devices. A Composer playlist consists of several content elements which you can set up using our WYSIWYG WEB Composer in full screen mode. In a Composer playlist several formats can be used, such as: Images and Videos. In the newest update of SVG you can even animate Text Graphics. The Composer supports multiple pages and content containers (on the first page only). The WEB Composer features are described in more detail in the WEB Composer chapter. Formats like HTML pages, Shell Events and PPT's. are not supported within a composer playlist. Note that a playlist with Full HD Videos and Images will not work on some SVG Devices. For those that are not capable of playing Full HD you have to insert the files in SD size.

Calendar

With the Calendar tool you can acess an overview of all scheduled playlists. It enables you so see which playlist is being looped when (day and time), and which group of players it's deployed to.

Also you can change the schedules of each playlist.

Additional information about scheduling in chapter 7.

Player Management

Once you have entered the HMP link (address to your server) into your SVG player, it will auto-register at the at the DMS account to which the link 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. If a player is known as temporarily offline (e. g. on service) it is marked as offline.

With the Show Player Logs button you can get additional information for selected box.

You can send special commands to each box by clicking on Shell Commands.

Group Management

A group can consist of one or multiple 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

With the Button Switch to List View you get a listed overview of all groups.

Logs

Here are all server logs stored.

Reports

In the reports section you can get every report for every time you wish. Just click on the Add Button, select the whished report and time period. The DMS will create the report in a few minutes. When the report is ready you can export it as pipe-separated (|) .csv file by clicking on the Export Report Button.

Account Management

In the Accountmanagement you can see and change the rights for all accounts (only for Administrators).

FTP

The ftp-feature is used for different things but mainly to push data up to a Server.

You can use ftp as alternative to upload media files. If you don't want to upload files via Content Manager because of filesize (limited to 1GB), or other causes, you can use ftp. In the FTP users management window click on Add and create a new ftp user there. As server folder you have to select Manual Upload since you are now manually uploading your files.

After the ftp-user is marked as active you can connect with any ftp-client (like FileZilla) and upload your media-files. When all of your files are uploaded, you have to press the Add Uploaded Files Button to import them into the DMS-System. In the Content Manager, the new files are stored in the Upload Folder.

Second option is to use ftp for AutoPicture and AutoVideo Events. For these you have to add a new ftp-user, unlike for the manual upload you have to name them either with Auto Picture Upload or Auto Video Upload as Server folder and follow the same procedure as listed above.

You can also set up Management ftp-users for AutoPicture and AutoVideo Events. Just create new users with AP/AV-Management as Server folder.

Change user information

When clickling on Change user information following dialog window will open

Here you can change all information about the current user like password, name, address, language and many default settings for the interface and behaviour.

HMP

In order to access the DMS with your SCG device you have to insert the HMP link. When you click on the HMP button in your Server menu, the server will generate an encryptet link, which you will have to enter in your SVG player. The HMP link includes server address, username, and password. Now the player will sign into the DMS, and then download the neccessary content.

About

The About-Section gives you Information about the Version of the Product and let you see the Release Notes. Also there is a link to the Stinova Online Help

DMS5 SVG Playlists

Add Composer Playlist

A Composer based playlist is created using our WYSIWYG WEB Composer to easily combine and animate different contents to a playlist. The composer is page based, allowing you to place different objects in each page such as:

• Text (Animated, RSS Ticker, XML Parsing)
• Image
• Video
• Container

The container object is a special object that can be inserted only on the first page, because the contents of this container (videos and images) are looped independently of the remaining pages at a fixed 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 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. Now 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 the preview might not show all content immediately, it might take a few seconds till all files are cached in your 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 appears red, 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 current page position
• Delete page -> opens a page selector window that lets you delete one or several 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, and none
• Page duration -> sets and shows the current page duration in seconds
• Total duration -> shows the length of all pages and determins the length of the loop
• Page selector -> can step forward or backwards through the existing pages, it also keeps count of the total number of existing pages and the actual page position
• Page color -> selector sets the background color of the page
• Delete b/g -> button deletes a background image that is set for the page
• Transparent b/g -> checkbox allows to set the composer with transparent 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.
• 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 4 different types of objects that can be added.

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

If you select the add object button for one of the above mentioned content types, the content browser will only show you the files that fit into the chosen objects criteria. For example: If you choose to add a Video to your playlist, the content browser will only show you files in video formats, such as : wav, mp4, mpg, avi, and many others that our DMP's supports.

If you check the Always visible button for the selected content object, then this object will be visible throughout 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, while the pages are sliding. If an object is set to always visible, it will always be the 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, and may only work 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 by dragging the frame border, and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner. For pixel exact positioning just add the X and Y coordinates, and the width and height of the text object.

To start writing just click inside the objects text frame.

There are various text formatting options available such as:

• Font type
• Font size
• Font style (italic, bold)
• 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

An Text object can be animated with some animation types, which are triggered on page load. Here you can edit different animation effects and settings as the Text comes In, and as it goes Out. You can choose the Side it should enter and exit in, and even select an exact position by giving the X and Y coordinates. Duration and Delay let you set the duration of the effect, and how long after page load a delay should be if wanted. If you want to see what your Animation will look like, just click the Test button and wait on the animation in the window.

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

If you click the ticker button you can choose whether you want to have the 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 of your object. There are 3 types of RSS text options available:

1. Horizontal
2. Vertical
3. Block

You also can choose whether 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 manager, then select an image that can be dragged into the workspace. You can now place it by dragging the image, and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner.

For pixel exact positioning just enter the X and Y coordinates, and the width and height of the image.

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 replacement image
• check the replace checkbox at the bottom
• 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 select' your image, and then click the Crop Image button. With the four handles at the corners, you can select the area you want to crop.

An Image object can be animated with some animation types, which are triggered on page load. Here you can edit different animation effects and settings as the picture comes In, and as it goes Out. You can choose the Side it should enter and exit in, and even select an exact position by giving the X and Y coordinates. Duration and Delay let you set the duration of the effect, and how long after page load a delay should be if wanted. If you want to see what your Animation will look like, just click the Test button and wait on the animation in the window.

Video Object

Click the Video object button to open the media manager where you can select the video you want to drop into the workspace. You can now place by dragging the video, and resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner.

For pixel exact positioning just enter the X and Y coordinates, and width and height of the video object.

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 the minimum length of video. If you want the video to play it's full duration time across multiple pages, then check the checkbox play till end at the top left.

Today HMP100 supports the following Video Codecs: ISO MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 ASP (DivX), MJPEG, Microsoft VC1 (Windows Media Video 9). The following media containers formats are supportet as well: AVI, ASF/WMV/WMA, VOB, AIFF, OGG, WAV.

Container Object

Container objects are areas for content elements such as videos and images, 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 throughout all pages.

You can now place the container object by dragging and dropping.You can resize it by dragging the handle on the bottom right corner. For pixel exact positioning, just enter the proper X and Y coordinates, and the width and height of the container object.

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.

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

A container object supports videos and images. Drag the content element in the timeline to arrange them in a loop. To change the length of each element, click on the time value (in seconds), and type in a new value in seconds as well. 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 in the timeline.

To add options in the video playback, add the Options in the Video parameters input field. To remove an element in the container timeline, press the Remove element button.

Add Picture Slide

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

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
• Is draft -> select weather it is a draft playlist or a full playlist

Picture Slide allows you do edit your pictures, and overlay a text fast and easy using a simplified version of ourWYSIWYG Web Composer. You can see this feature as an online Photo Editor. You can find all information on how to edit your text here and how to edit your pictures here. Note that some of the Composers features like Animation and Slide Transitioning are disabled in Picture Slide.

Once you have created your one page Picture Slide you can insert it in a Fullscreen Playlist Special Event along with other Picture Slides, Photos, and Videos.

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.

In the dialog type in 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 Fullscreen Editor.
Here you can drag and drop your uploaded media content into the eventqueue. Also you can set the duration in seconds of each Event by clicking on the Edit Button at the bottom left of the Thumbnail or by clicking directly into the duration number. When finished press Save.

As soon you have saved your playlist you will see a thumbnail of the first screen in playlist. When moving the mouse over the thumbnail you will see a live preview of the full playlist.

For instant playing of this playlist you have to publish it by clicking on the Publish Button. If you want to add other groups to this instant queued just click on the red - or Play button, select the proper groups, and then confirm with save.

DMS5 SVG Scheduler

Instant Playback

For instant playback just press the Play sign in your playlist. The instant playback function allows the immediate start of playlists in the assigned groups. Instant playback has the highest play-out priority and will pause any playing schedule of the selected group. If it 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 players that belong to this group will automatically synchronize the content and playlist. Once they have downloaded their content from the DMS, the whole group will start playing at the predefined time. A schedule can be created by clicking on the schedule icon in the playlist object window. There is no limit to the amounts of schedules you can create. If there is a time window overlap for the same group, a conflict warning appears, since only one playlist can be played 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 an empty screen 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.