When we say Display we actually mean two things; the video display or monitor your content is shown on, and the computer that provides the signal to that video display. The two of them together; video display + computer = Display in our lingo.
There are two steps to setting up a Display. First you name and add it to Rise Vision and then you install our Player software on the computer that’s been dedicated to drive that display. We recommend installing on a dedicated computer as the Player will continuously, and therefore reliably, do whatever it can to keep driving your content to your video display. Not ideal if this is your personal notebook or the kitchen counter recipe computer.
Let’s Add a Display
- From the menu bar, click the Displays link.
- On the Displays page, click the Add button located in the upper right corner.
- In the Name field, type a name for the Display. (E.g., Lobby Display).
- If for some reason you don’t want the Status of this Display to be Active, change the status to Inactive. Demonstration Presentations will appear on inactive Displays and they won’t be available in any Display distribution lists. They will however remain in any distribution lists they are currently part of, albeit not visibly. If you change the status of the Display back to Active, the Display will appear in that Display distribution list as if it never left.
- In the Resolution field select the resolution that matches your video display or select Custom and enter the preferred resolution.
- If your Display resides at an address other than the Company Address, uncheck Use Company Address and enter the correct address for that Display. This address can be used to drive location-specific content so it’s a really good idea to make sure it’s accurate – think weather, Tweets nearby, and that type of thing.
- By default, the Company Social Connection Token and Venue ID are selected, but you can update the Venue ID to be whatever you want. Check this out for more information on what a Social Connection is.
- Click the Save button which is next to the name of your Display, and you will now see some additional fields that will stay blank until you install the Player on your dedicated computer and it starts reporting back it’s status:
- Display ID: This is the unique identifier for this Display. You cannot use the same Display ID on two different Displays. If you do, the most recent Display that the Rise Vision Player started on will work correctly, while the original Display will change to a Demonstration Presentation, while intermittently displaying the message “Multiple Displays are attempting to use the same Display ID“. This message will not disappear until all other Displays using this ID are turned off, and the original Display is restarted.
- Install: The links listed here are for the Player installation files for the different operating systems supported, which are Windows, Linux and Mac. We’re not ready to install just yet, so let’s keep reading.
- Heartbeat: The Heartbeat shows the current status of the Display. Green means online, red means offline, black means not installed yet.
- Last Update: If the Display is online, the Last Update time shows the last time the content showing on that Display was updated. If the Display is offline, the Last Update time shows when the system detected the disconnection.
- OS Version: Indicates whether the operating system on the Display is Windows or Linux.
- Install Version: This is the version of the Rise Vision Player that is running on the Display.
- Chromium Version: The browser being used to show your Presentation is an open source version of Google Chrome called Chromium. This field indicates the version of Chromium installed on this Display.
- Cache Version: The Cache Version refers to the proxy caching program ‘Polipo’ that is installed with all Linux and Windows Displays. Polipo caches all video content on the Display so that they are not cached within the running instance of the Chromium browser, and will not have to be downloaded each time the Display restarts. Files that are not accessed for 30 days are automatically deleted from the cache. Even though the videos are cached, the Player still requires the Internet when the Display starts up.
- Restart Display: This field refers to when your Display restarts every day, the default time being 3 am. You can change this time, or choose to not restart the Display at all, but it is highly recommended to restart once per day. When your Display restarts at the scheduled time, the Player cache, NOT the Polipo cache, will be cleared, and all Gadgets and Player settings will be downloaded again if the Internet is available. This is done to ensure you have the newest versions of all Gadgets and Player settings. If a Display restarts and there is no Internet available, it will show an animated loading icon until the Internet is restored. Again, don’t worry, the Polipo cache with all your videos won’t be cleared, just the cache with all the Gadget and Player settings. Restart Display does not restart a Linux Display, it simply restarts the Rise Vision Player on the Display.
- Monitoring: Check Monitoring if you want selected users to be notified when this Display goes offline or online. For more information on setting up those selected users, check out the My Company Details page. A check is made every 15 minutes to see what Displays are offline. After 2 consecutive periods (between 16 and 30 minutes) of being offline, an email notification is sent to the selected users. A similar action is done when a Display recovers and comes back online. Emails will only be sent if a Display goes into an offline state and it is scheduled to show content at the moment its status is checked. Scheduled to show content means that the Display is assigned to a Schedule, and it has at least one Schedule Item that is set to play on the Display at that time. Check out this page for more information on what Schedules are all about. All notification emails are sent from support@risevision.com.
- OK, now we are ready to install. Click your preferred installer link and up pops the installation details, caveats, disclaimers, and Terms of Service and Privacy – have a read and make sure you’re okay with all of them. If you are, check that you agree and then click Install and the file download will begin. When complete, locate and run that file on the computer that is dedicated to this display (Remember – DEDICATED COMPUTERS. Have I mentioned that already?) and the installation will automatically finish the setup of your Display with the ID that has been assigned to it, and start showing the Schedule assigned to it.
A couple of notes on the Linux Installer: We recommend that you use Ubuntu v10.10 or higher as your Linux OS. Once the installation file has been downloaded, right click on it and choose “Properties”. On the “Permissions” tab, check “Allow executing file as a program”. Now double click on the installer file, and choose the “Run” or “Run in Terminal” option. This will begin the installation of the Linux Player.
Some important information regarding firewalls and proxies: The Viewer API (which is used to show Presentations on your Display) as well as several of the Gadgets you may use in your Presentations use HTTPS for authentication purposes. For this reason, you will need port 443 open on your firewall or proxy server for your Displays. The Rise Vision Player relies on a caching program called Polipo which requires basic authentication through a proxy or firewall. More information on Polipo can be found here.
Once you have a whole bunch of Displays set up you might need to find a specific one. Just click the Displays link on the menu bar and up will come the Display list. You can sort the list by Name or Status and you can page through the results by clicking on the page number navigation at the bottom.
Searching and Sorting your Displays
There are a number of ways you can search and arrange data on the Displays page. You can search for a single character, which will retrieve all Displays that start with that character, or you can search where the term is found in the middle of the name; For example searching for “Display” will retrieve “Bob’s Display”. Searches are not case sensitive, and you can search by Display Name, ID or any part of the Address. Searching for “active” will retrieve all Displays in “Active” status, while searching for “inactive” will retrieve all Displays in “Inactive” status. Searching for a numerical value will include results that match that number to the resolution fields, and searching for two numerical values split by an “x” character will search for the width and height fields in the resolution. Press Search or hit the Enter key on your keyboard to start the search, and pressing the “x” button will clear the search box. You can search for Displays that belong to client Companies, and when that Display is selected, you will be taken to that client Company. The list of Displays is sortable by the up/down arrow next to each column header, and if you have more than 50 Displays, scroll to the bottom of the page, and more Displays will show up. By default, 50 results are displayed at a time, and older results are kept within the list when new ones are loaded.
Make them Shine!
Once you are done adding your Displays it’s time to put some content on them. To learn how to Schedule your Presentations with your Displays click here.
