Managing Digital Signage Content

Overview

The simplest and convenient way to manage your digital signage assets (images, posters, videos, etc.) is via your Call Connect NextCloud account.

Log into your NextCloud account and you will see the files for all of your locations 

From here you can navigate to the site you wish to manage.  You can see the file path at the top of the screen note the site/location here "Waco_TX".

Here you will see the standard signage directories.   The Call Connect digital signage system will automatically pull content from these directories.  All content for the signage system is managed from a simple directory structure.

Here is a quick overview of the directories and the functions.

• html - This directory stores html snippets that are used to pull dynamic text content into the signage displays. For example ticket prices, messages, etc.
• Posters - This directory stores posters for Box Office, Now Seating and Auditorium entrance displays.  If the signage system is integrated with showing provider and the feature is enabled the signage system will automatically download posters for showing from our poster content provider.  Automatically downloaded posters can be override by using an "Override" directory
• PosterBoxes - This directory stores " Coming Soon" an other promotional posters (video posters) for digital poster box displays
• Misc - This directory is a catch all for signage content of any type announcement, menus, videos, etc.  "Misc" content can be organized into groups by creating sub directories under the "Misc" directory 

Supported Content Types

The Call Connect digital system supports both images and video with a few limitation

Images 

The system support the following formats:

• JPEG
• PNG (Portable Network Graphics)

The system support all resolutions but the ideal resolution for images is HD 1920x1080 (landscape) or 1080x1920 (portrait). Very low resolution image will have artifacts and blocking and very high resolution images will cause memory issues with our digital signage players.

Videos

The system supports mp4 videos.  The audio and video codecs supported depend of platform and model of the digital signage player used.  In most cases it's best to test out the videos you want to display on our signage players.  Here are some guidelines to ensure your videos play well on our digital signages players

• H264 Video Codec
• MP4 or MP3 Codec Audio Codec   (Note: AAC is not support due to Apple licensing)
• 1080p or 720p resolution
• 1Mbps - 2Mbps bitrate

Updating Poster Content

To add a poster image for Door Entrance or Box Office signage navigate to Posters directory and upload the image for the poster based on the film name in the ticketing system.  You can upload an image by using the upload option or dragging and dropping the image into the directory on the browser.

The poster file for a film should be named the same as the film name in the ticketing system, but lowercase with all spaces and special characters removed.  Here are some examples:

Film: Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania

Image: antmanandthewaspquantumania.jpg

Film: Cocaine Bear

Image: cocainebear.jpg

Film: Creed III

Image: creediii.jpg

Film: RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ

Image: renaissanceafilmbybeyonc.jpg

Overriding Posters

If you need to replace a poster that has been automatically downloaded or replace a poster for a showing you can use the "Override" directory.  Placing a new image with the same name into the "Override" directory will cause the signage system to use that image instead of the one from the "Posters" directory.

To replace a poster for a particular showing, such a special event for a film where the film name is the same in the ticketing system you can use the showing ID from the ticketing system to override the poster image.  If you place a image file in the Override directory using the showing id as the name the signage system will use that image for the showing.  You can view the showing ID for a particular showing using the Tickets Sold dashboard.

For example, to override the poster for "Cocaine Bear"  at 1:30PM.  Click/Select the showing, you will see a dialog with the showing information.

Here the showing ID is 41679509800000.  To override the poster for this showing you would place a new poster image with the name 41679509800000.jpg into the "ShowingOverride" directory.  That image will only be used for that particular showing.

Common Poster Content

If you have multiple locations and want to have the same poster show at all of your locations, your Call Connect system can be configured to use a "Common" directory for this common poster content.

Instead of uploading an image to the site's "Signs/Posters" directory, you would upload the image to the "Common/Signs/Posters" directory.

Images in the "Common" directory can also be overridden just like they can for a specific site.

Resolving Poster Content

The system will search for a poster in the following order. The first image that is found will be used.

1. A site's ShowingOverride directory
2. The Common ShowingOverride directory
3. A site's Override directory
4. The Common Override directory
5. The site's Posters directory
6. The Common Posters directory

Updating Misc Content

The "Misc" content directory can be used for any signage you wish to display.  This directory supports all of the standard content types images, videos, etc.

Misc Content Groups

The Misc content folder is designed to be flexible.   You can create groups of content for different purposes (menus, promotions, employee messages, etc)  and different signage displays by creating content group folders under the Misc folder.   These directories can be named to identify the Misc content group.  See the sample Misc directory below.

If we wanted to add a new content group for a menu board display we could create a new folder call "Menu" for all menu related signage content.

Content Sequences

By default content (images, video) in the Misc folders are displayed in a random order.  This is the most common use case where you would want to a set unrelated content.  To control the order of content you will need to name the files in the folder with a content sequence pattern.  The signage system will then display the content in the order of the sequence.

For example if we have three menu board images drinks, appetizers, entrees that we want to display in order.  We would name the menu board images as follows:

menu_01_drinks.jpg

menu_02_appetizers.jpg

menu_03_entrees.jpg

The images would then be displayed in order drinks, appetizers, entrees.

There general content sequence pattern is:   <group_name>_<sequence_number>_<file_name>.<extension>

The combination of "Content Groups" and "Content Sequences" make "Misc" content very flexible  

Common Misc Content

As with the posters, Misc content can also be uploaded to a common directory to be used across multiple locations if your Call Connect system is configured to use the common directory.

Instead of uploading content to the site's Misc directory, you would upload the content to the Common/Signs/Misc directory.