Digital Signage allows you to bring content to a meeting room with the ClickShare Base Unit, while nobody is using it to share their meetings or presentations. The content can be shown as static or dynamic wallpaper or video, without sound. You can consume content from any Signage Vendor that exposes it via a Web URL. You can also display company news, tips and tricks or other internal information, from a URL in your company network.
Digital Signage on ClickShare:
ClickShare C-5 and C-10 are wireless presentation solutions and ClickShare CX-20, CX-30, and CX-50 (Gen1 and Gen2) are wireless conferencing solutions widely deployed in meeting rooms. The main target for digital signage on ClickShare is to show (corporate) content while no one is sharing content to ClickShare. In this way it can enrich the meeting room experience and can also be deployed as signage solution in spaces that also benefit from having wireless presentation and/or conferencing capabilities.
Depending on the platform used, care should be taken what signage content is used:
- On the C-5, C-10, CX-20, CX-30 it is recommended to have “simple content”, i.e. mostly static pages with limited effects and a limited playlist. If more complex content is used it should be configuring the display output resolution to 720P via the ClickShare web configurator to adapt the dynamic content and avoid the high memory consumption on the base unit.
- On the CX-50 more complex, dynamic content with more transition effects can be used.
It should also be checked which kind of content the selected signage provider supports on its web-based player. Often there are limitations versus the signage application on dedicated signage hardware.
How to enable the Digital Signage:
Use the XMS Cloud to enable and configure Digital Signage on your Base Unit.
- Connect to the XMS Cloud and log in with your credentials.
See How to use the XMS Cloud Management Platform for how to use the XMS Cloud.
- If you have rights to more than one tenant, select the right tenant/company name in which your Base Unit is located.
- Go to Manage Baseunit > CONFIGURATION and activate Barco Digital Signage feature.
Note : The Explore workflow can help you to select the different digital signage providers.
- Select the corresponding signage content URL on the list to apply the change.
Deployment guidelines:
This section describes some practical recommendations to successfully run signage on your platform.
Run 2.16 or newer release on ClickShare. This release includes important reliability improvements.
On the C-5, C-10, CX-20, CX-30 limit the complexity of the signage content:
- Use mostly static pages
- Limit the transition effects
- Limit the playlist
- If more complex content is used it should be thoroughly tested before deploying it.
On the CX-50/CX-50 Gen2 more complex, dynamic content with more transition effects can be used. However, it is always recommended to thoroughly test the content during an extended period before deploying to operational systems.
From 2.16, ClickShare includes a mechanism to monitor the internal memory used by the signage application. To keep the system healthy for presentation and conferencing, it will restart the signage application when this application starts using too much memory, e.g. when complex content is used, or when the content web application doesn’t properly clear memory.
Specs and limitations:
Firmware version 02.16: Chromium version 102, Qt WebEngine version: 6.4.1
Rendering
- GPU Acceleration has been enabled
- Video playback for H264, VP9 and VP10 is enabled
Video performance
It's advised to not exceed the following values for video content:
- Resolution: max 1080p
- Bitrate: max 8Mbps on CX-50 (Where possible, use a bitrate of 5Mbps or lower, especially on CX-30 or CX-20).
These values come from practical experience on ClickShare + Youtube's recommendations on bitrate
See checking the bitrate of Digital Signage content - FPS: max 30fps video
- It does not mean the Digital Signage can be played with ClickShare if the content bitrate is under above values. Please always have a trial test on the content before deploying it.
Storage
- Since firmware version 02.16 total browser storage is limited to 1.9GB (= 2GB minus some reserved partition space)
Per domain, storage is limited to 60% of the total browser storage. (IndexedDB, Local and Session storage combined)- This storage can be used to store media offline
- Local/Session storage APIs are limited to 5MB. (Browser default)
- LocalStorage should be used to store client configuration/credentials/licenses
- Note that storing configuration in IndexedDB might work but we strongly discourage this. We cannot guarantee that your configuration will remain stored in IndexedDB since Chromium can freely decide to free up IndexedDB
- LocalStorage is persistent through reboots and upgrades
- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/localStorage
- LocalStorage should be used to store client configuration/credentials/licenses
Memory
JavaScript heap memory is limited to ±1.5GB (CX-50) and ±1GB (C5, C10, CX-20 & CX-30). Exceeding this will kill the render window. The Base Unit is still capable of sharing/conferencing. If the Base Unit becomes completely unusable, then please report this back to Barco.
Behaviour
- Digital signage has options to select the different digital content providers.
You can select “none” to disable the digital signage. - The digital signage endpoint is Chromium-based and should support content/functionality as one would expect from a Chromium browser
- When digital signage is enabled, the content from the signage URL is shown only if the HTTP response status code is in the 200 to 399 range. When this is not the case, then the Base Unit will display the wallpaper.
- User requests (camera/microphone access, screen capturing, file saving, …) are refused by default
Known limitations and issues
- Audio is not supported currently
- Touch input is not supported currently
- Using XMS to configure multiple units for digital signage is not yet supported at this time
- Not all time zones are correctly supported for signage content. This can affect time-related functionality on web pages, as well as scheduled content deployment for some signage providers.
Important considerations:
| Digital Signage - FAQs | |
|---|---|
| Question | Answer |
| How can I remove the browser storage? | For IndexedDB storage, files can get deleted automatically once the device is low on storage space. LocalStorage however is not automatically removed. You'd need a Factory Reset to fully clear this storage if the web page cannot do this. |
| My content does not appear in 4K, even though I connected a 4K display. | In the ClickShare Configurator (HTTP://<baseunit-ip-address>), go to “Display” and check the “Resolution” property. Usually, the “Auto” setting is fine, but some 4K displays choose full HD as the preferred resolution if the setting is on “Auto”. If that is the case, you should set the resolution to 3840x2160. |
| What happens if the signage webpage could not be loaded? | If a webpage was not found, signage tries to reload every minute. If the network was not available, signage tries to reload every 5 seconds. This should make signage available more quickly after a reboot. |
| Why does the screen turn black sometimes? |
This can happen when the Base Unit ran against its memory limit. This can occur mostly on CX-30 and lower in combination with 4K displays. To avoid a case where Base Units keep showing just black content, the base unit will reload signage if it runs out of memory, so the black screen should be temporary. If this happens a lot, then consider:
|
| How can I debug network problems? |
|
| Languages supported by Digital Signage on ClickShare | Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish |
Checking the bitrate of Digital Signage content
- Open the Digital Signage content URL in the Chrome web-browser - label 1.
- Open the console menu by right-clicking the webpage and then clicking Inspect (or press Ctrl+Shift+C).
Note: Press Ctrl+Shift+I (Windows, Linux) or Command+Option+I (macOS) - Open the Media panel - label 2.
Note: If Media panel is not visible, click here for the related information. - Check the bitrate of your Digital Signage content - label 3.
