Top Digital Signage Features
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TimeLine constantly delivers new features to help you get the most out of your screens. From create and playback image and video, to new ways to full content automation, it’s now easier to drive your screens so you can get more done and stay
Explore helpful features for your business with our digital signage solutions
It enables users to make and publish customized content easily. With our solutions, you can create high impact projects including video walls, interactive kiosks and live streaming video. You are always a click away from previewing your digital signage project in full screen and from publishing it on display.
The content creation tool allows the user to upload media content (images, videos, and audio files) on the player, and to create and edit Playouts and Playlists. These are commonly referred to as assets. The next step after having uploaded or created some assets on the player, is to schedule them to be displayed during certain periods of time using the content scheduling tool.
An layout can be seen as a scene composed of different layers which are displayed all together according to the predefined order of appearance in space and time.
With professionally designed templates, you create amazing content quickly – no design skills needed. Intuitive tools let you resize content for any display, add quality effects in a snap, brand your screen, change your color code, animate text, add video, images, and so much more – all in one place.
By simply uploading and playback all major file types such as PNG, JPEGs, SVG, animated GIF, TIF, BMP, MJPEG, MP4s, MPEG2, QuickTime, HEVC, WMV. So, whether you’re uploading simple JPEGs, or very large 4k video files, system allows image and video to be played on Digital signs and you can be confident that storage limits will never be reached.
Attract attention and engage your audiences by adding audio content to your digital signage. Audio output or audio out simply refers to an audio signal, digital or analog, driven out from one device (in this case, a player) to another device’s audio input. All our players are capable of outputting both digital and analog audio.
If you have an IPTV solution or any other kind of live streaming source (e.g. HLS, RTP, or MPEG-TS stream), you can use it and display the video on your screens.
Our players can display real-time streaming media received over the network from local or Internet sources.
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming server – which is a hardware / software product that is solely responsible with delivering streaming media (this is in contrast with a traditional web server that delivers all forms of web content, including HTML text, images, etc.)
The hardware backed Webpage app feature increases your creative options and brings powerful content development tools to a familiar and intuitive setting.
With the Webpage app feature, our tools allows you to display HTML pages that feature video, images, text, and other dynamic content such as JavaScript elements. You can display webpages as part of your screen content in full-screen or as a app part of a broader screen-content composition.
The feature is especially useful when aiming to display HTML content made for the purpose of signage (e.g. 16:9 aspect ratio, not password protected, etc.) This includes menu boards, public transportation feeds, room reservation screens, publicly accessible KPI dashboards, HTML video, webcam feeds and many more.
All our players use a pseudo-HTML engine based on PhantomJS and can be displayed static and semi-static web pages. And our advanced players feature an HTML5 rendering engine, based on Chromium, with support for hardware accelerated video decoding and WebGL — most of the web pages can be displayed, including embedded video content.
No more seeing that annoying black interval between videos. Enjoy instant transitions between videos or any type of Media.
Landscape and portrait mode support so you can display your content in whatever direction your display requires.
Combine images, videos, texts, dates, widgets, and apps for your perfect playlist that will play on rotate.
An playlist is a collection of slides that are displayed sequentially or in shuffled order. A slide can be anything from basic content like rich text, image, video, audio, real-time streaming media, web page or more complex content such as layout, (non-looping) playlist, schedule, widget. A playlist can include both local and remote resources.
Usually playlists are set to loop, meaning that once the last slide has finished playing, the first slide will automatically start. For a nicer effect between each slide, a transition can be selected.
Any number of playlists can be created within a project and each can be used in various ways:
- as a slide inside another playlist;
- as a layer inside a layout, including the main index file of the project;
- as a media event inside an schedule.
To add a playlist into an opened document, simply drag and drop the playlists either into the Edit panel or into the Preview panel.
The Playlist view let the user see and modify the assets used in the Playlist.
Users can:
- Drag and drop media or Playouts from the asset selection view .
- Change the order of the assets using drag and drop.
- Remove an asset from the Playlist using the cross icon.
- Change the properties of the Playlist assets using the gear icons.
- Duration of the selected assets (note that for video the duration of the video is automatically used)
- Start and End display time. Asset will not be considered as part of the Playlist if the current time is before the start date or after the end date.
Sub-Playlist
Organize your content in smaller Playlists and add these ‘sub-Playlists’ as items in other, larger Playlists. This way, you can structure your Playlists to easily manage hundreds of Media, or allow access to specific Playlists only to specific people.
Real-time digital dashboards made easy.
Looking for a quick and easy way to view and share your company’s performance in real time with the rest of your team?
A digital dashboard is the ideal tool for the purpose. But before we go into how to make a digital dashboard quickly and easily, let’s see why visualizing data at the workplace is more than just a good idea.
A recent study by Gallup of 2.5 million manager-led teams in 195 countries found that the majority of employees often lack regard for their performance or the performance of their organization. This leads to employee engagement that is less than optimal.
Visualizing data in the form of charts on digital displays is a great way to solve that. It enables you to engage your employees with reliable and meaningful information coming right from the source – your everyday business tools.
The main goal of visualizing data is to present raw figures in a format that is easy to understand, insightful, and draws attention to the right information. Digital signage, in turn, helps engage and empower your teams by distributing the visual data on digital displays throughout your workplace. Your team is always kept up to date in real time.
With the Catalog widget you can flip through thousands of items / products while displaying their description and image. Best of all you can set all this up in a matter of minutes. The catalog is a powerful database engine that supports the ability to cycle through a list of items while combining animation and custom content. Integrate it with the Kiosk and have your viewers interact with your product list.
Nowadays, there is a hidden battle taking place in every busy workspace – a battle for meeting space.
People forget to look at the calendar. It’s easy to assume an empty room as free while it’s actually booked. Interruptions and delays are commonplace. Anything that helps you organize and streamline your staff and clients’ daily activities could easily save you a ton of money.
Get your calendars on screen and use them outside meeting rooms or for planning your day.
Schedule your content for different times of day, for certain weeks, or for special events. Schedule the availability of a media for specific hours and days per week.
- Content Scheduling. Use the scheduling feature to show different content during different hours or days or turn off your screens during off-hours.
- Schedule Repeating Events (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc). Create recurring entries that schedule content every X days, weeks or months. Easily plan ahead for as long as you need.
- Screen On/Off Hours (over HDMI). Our players support CEC, which means you can turn off your screens over the same HDMI cable used for the video signal. Save power and extend your screen’s life. Please note: your screens must support CEC.
- User-friendly Schedule Editor. Use a simple calendar to plan out your Schedules. You can view your Schedule on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, and easily add or change content.
- Volume Level Scheduling (for noisy peak hours). Public venues, like malls and stadiums, can be very noisy. If you use sound, you can set up schedules to change the volume level of your screens during different days and hours, to make sure your message is heard.
Whether you are a Fortune 500 enterprise or a small coffee shop down the street, spreadsheets come in handy to store, share, and edit information. Spreadsheets are useful because they are a universal tool that people are already using today. However, rows and columns of data that dwell in the back office don’t by themselves speak to everyone.
Data-driven digital signage is a powerful tool for companies of all sizes to leverage their data, and in the process, increase sales, efficiency, and productivity. Digital signage costs less than traditional signs and data you show on the screen can change as often as you want it to.
As a store owner, you may manage pricing in Excel. If you run a gym, you are probably already using a spreadsheet to keep track of classes. Did you know that changes you make in your Excel or Google sheet to prices, item names or class availability can instantly appear on your digital signage screen for your customers to see?
Spreadsheets are the ideal source of dynamic data-driven digital signage content that your business needs today.
Being able to sync your digital signage network with your main social media profiles can bring strong impact to your local customers, employees and guests. It can also ensure a much-needed efficiency boost to your operations. Our digital signage solution enables easy access various social media platforms so that your campaigns are automatically synchronized to your display network.
Our widgets automatically connect to your social media accounts and display your latest posts in real time. Several filtering criteria let you define how to automatically select the posts you wish to highlight and those you prefer to hide. We support Twitter, Flickr, Yammer, and more. All our widgets can be used as is and are ready to be customized to match your communication needs.
The cliparts are SVG-based images that can be added within the content – they can found under the “Cliparts” folder of widget library. All these clip art images are open source and can be used for free in your content. Some of them offer the option to change the color used.
A large set of additional open source clip arts can be found on openclipart site.
The Clock Widget allows you to add a layer with a digital clock to your project in order to display the local time and/or date. Use any App in our growing collection and make your screens more interesting and engaging, with more information for your audience.
The date widgets can be used to display the current date in different calendars beyond the Gregorian calendar, like Buddhist, Chinese, Hebrew, Indian, Islamic, Japanese, Minguo, and Persian. The time zone, locale, and date format can be modified by the user.
The counter widgets can be used to display different counter animations measuring the elapsed time from a date / time or remaining time to a date / time. The counter is refreshed every second.
The sun times widgets display informational content related to the sun movement, or, in the case of the sun times playlist widget, user-defined content that is triggered accordingly to key times of the sun movement (e.g., sunrise, sunset).
The moon times widget displays informational content related to the moon movement and phases.
The text effect widgets can be used to improve the aspect of text content entered within interface, with effects like shadow, rotation, blur, glow etc. Different widget properties are provided to further customize the text effect.
Text crawler widgets can be used to display large & formatted text content using animations whenever the entire text doesn’t fit into the widget area.
The QR Code app brings a touch of interactivity to your project. QR Codes in Digital signage are useful when you want to provide a way for the viewer to get more information about the subject of your content by directing your audience to a website with just a scan from a mobile device.
The background widgets are useful for replacing simple solid-color background images within the content. They are scalable and offer the option to change the color(s) used within the “Properties” tab in Edit panel.
All these backgrounds are open source and can be used for free in your content.
RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a form of dynamic news feed that is constant updated. Use scrolling vertical or horizontal ticke keep your viewers engaged. Choose from dozens of free RSS feeds like news, politics, sports, health and others. Customize it anyway you like with fonts,gradient backgrounds, scroll speeds and others. You can e enter your own custom text message and have it scroll through any screen division.
The RSS app allows you to display reliable RSS feeds. You can choose from a curated selection of RSS feeds in multiple languages from well-known news sources. The RSS feeds are well suited for Digital Signage as they contain both high quality images and synchronized text.
Display the current weather and temperature, along with detailed forecasts on an hourly or daily basis. Use your location or any location in the world, and combine multiple forecasts on your screens.
Our data-driven widgets are useful for displaying the current weather or the forecast for up to 15 days. The weather information can be retrieved from various weather channels, such as: AccuWeather, Open Weather Map, World Weather Online, etc.
Data feed is a mechanism to deliver structured data from one system to another, like from a server to a client. Data feeds make it possible to automatically have new content or updates delivered to the player as soon as it is available.
Data feeds are often described in terms of their methods of delivery. The data feed can be in the form of a file (product information, corporate communication, information about current or upcoming events etc.), a web server response (live news, Facebook news feed, Twitter timeline, weather forecast, stock quotes from the Internet etc.), or the result of an interactive action (push instant messages from the reception desks).
The file types can vary – formats like CSV and RSS / XML are common for structured data, plain text files can be used because of their simplicity, thus allowing non-technical people to easily create their own data feeds.
Our players are able to integrate dynamic / static data feeds and present the desired information with a certain style on the screen. This can be resumed in three steps:
- The player retrieves the raw data from the data source. Any text-based data format can be used, such as: RSS, plain-text, CSV, ICS, XML, JSON etc.
- The player processes the raw data in order to retain only the meaningful data.
- The player displays the final data on the screen using the predefined content layout.
The Wayfinding app allows you to help people navigate or locate places around your building, campus, or environment by indicating the direction of the desired destination. Follow the simple steps below to learn how to use the Wayfinding app.
With our Digital Menu Boards you can increase your sales and improve your customer experience through dynamic digital food menu boards. Digital Menu boards have been proven to increase average order value at the point of sale. You can raise the average order value, up- and cross-sell. In fact, one of the best ways to increase your total restaurant orders is to integrate QR based digital menu boards directly into your Digital Signage, Web site and table-tops, luckily we support all that and integration is super easy.
The Menu widget let you display a menu on the screen. The menu can be composed of text with a description and a price for each item.
The data can be stored in any of the spreadsheet data source format (i.e. CSV file, Excel file on the computer, Excel online or Google sheet) and will be updated automatically by the widget once published on the display.
You can display simultaneously live TV and Digital Signage content using a video capture device.
If you have an IPTV solution or any other kind of live streaming source (e.g. HLS, RTP, or MPEG-TS stream), you can use it in our solutions and display the video on your screens.
Use the IP Streaming feature to integrate real time self portrait right onto your Digital Signage presentation. The digital signage player gets the live stream directly from network-camera and display it on the screen. No PC or additional cabling is necessary.
- Upgrade your public digital signage displays with video assistance option allowing clients, travellers and tourists to get a live support right on the spot.
- Digital signage kiosks will allow your shoppers to connect with a product expert who helps to make a decision.
- With a virtual reception powered by digital signage solution your guests will be instantly connected with your receptionist, who could be anywhere supporting multiple locations.
You can setup 2×2, 3×1, or any matrix-like video wall made of any number of screens. You can even use landscape or portrait screens and combine them into asymmetric video walls to get that wow effect.
To bring you the cutting-edge signage experience of the future, we partnered with Crestron and integrated smart room scheduling with state of the art digital signage.
The combination of technologies brings a true synergy between digital signage and smart-building. It empowers room scheduling systems and offers additional customer benefits including:
- Richness of interactive content displayed on the screens (videos, images, messages)
- An easy, consistent customization of the screens with customer branding
- Digital signage as default content when room scheduling is not used.
Got something you need to share this instant? Put it on your screen in seconds.
Mass Notification systems are used to inform students, employees, visitors and the public of emergencies. Parties served by mass notification systems include emergency services departments, local, state and national governments and building managers. Mass Notification systems can contribute to safety and security by providing real-time alerts and instructions during a crisis situation.
In emergency situations, users can override the standard content and easily broadcast Emergency Alerts to designated screens.
Campuses and large facilities use CAP-enabled systems to unify management of emergency broadcasts. Our systems can be integrated using the CAP protocol so that emergency alerts are also broadcasted on your screens.
Get real-time insights on your content playback, schedule reports to be sent to your email, and analyze reports in detail, or export the data to create your own reports.
Teamwork makes the dream work – invite your team to manage and update your screens together with different roles and approval workflows.
In large, collaborative environments such as: hotels, conference centers, museums, academical centers, stadiums, sport arenas etc., people have different responsibilities regarding digital signage content and a content manager might need to limit the access to some Elementi features to certain users. A typical example is that of a restaurant where:
- The content manager needs to have full control over the content editing and publishing;
- The chef only needs to edit the menu from time to time;
- The staff need to publish different menus on the screens according to the time of the day, without being able to change the menu content.
The answer to such challenges is the User roles feature, which allows assigning different authoring and publishing roles to users. There are three editing roles and three publishing roles, that can be freely combined, resulting in up to nine possible roles to use for different users within the same team / organization.
Craft content rules that adapt to your viewers’ demographic real-time, IoT Sensor data and even set time-based rules to keep your content fresh and relevant throughout the day.
All content uploaded to your players to save on network bandwidth, so your screens can still perform even lost internet connection.
Make your content truly interactive by incorporating touch screens into your digital signage displays. Advanced native support for HTML5, network, and physical interactivity enables you to craft captivating user experiences for any display, touchscreen, and kiosk.
Our players can support virtually any kind of resolution, even custom ones using direct-view LED panels and billboards. As long as there is an HDMI or DVI input, some of our players can drive almost any kind of screen.
Synchronize players, so multiple side-by-side screens show playlist content at the same time. Also, you can sync any playlists, that don’t include videos, in the same layout, so they change in sync.
In digital signage, the term “synchronization” means that the content displayed on one screen is time-synchronized with the content displayed on other screens. In this context, multiple players can be used together to display synchronized content on multiple screens, with an accuracy of one vertical refresh period. These screens, powered by synchronized players, can be combined together to create the illusion of a bigger screen (also known as video wall) or can be independently positioned from one another, yet giving the impression of a whole.
This feature opens the door for unlimited possibilities of using players for more than regular digital signage content of texts and playlist of images or videos. Here are some examples:
- Multiple displays can be grouped together in regular grid-like arrangements, but also in non-conventional patterns, to create video-walls – this is the typical way to achieve a higher impact over the audience.
- Multiple displays can be deployed in the same hall to create an ambiance or a “leitmotif”, with messages that appear synchronously on some or all screens, thus increasing the impact over the visitor. Furthermore, special animations can be created that are moving from one display to the next one creating global effects. This can be used in retail shops, hotels, bars, offices etc.
- Multiple displays can also be deployed one after another to create a long array of screens, as for instance along the escalators in an airport, mall etc. Well-timing the content would then give the impression that the message is following the visitor as he / she moves along.
Our tools are designed to integrate with everyday corporate tools such as Microsoft Office 365 including Yammer, Excel graphs, SharePoint lists, and PowerApps. This innovation brings more opportunities than ever for corporate clients to share more of their data in a meaningful way to the right audience.
Depending on the location of the media folder, there are three possible usage scenarios:
On the player
The media folder is included into the project itself and the files are imported into it using software – upon publishing, the files are pushed onto the player, which assures total autonomy. You could also use another WebDAV client to update that folder on the player.
On a web server
The files are uploaded on a server accessible via HTTP and having the WebDAV extension enabled on it. This assures high flexibility for updating the files independently of the project, however, as the player will play the media files from the server, this generally requires a reliable network connection; those media files will be locally cached for up to 2 hours. There are not too many public web servers offering WebDAV support, so this mostly refers to internal servers or NAS devices.
Mix of the two above
The files are located on a web server (with or without WebDAV support) and are periodically retrieved by the player into a predefined folder used as data source for the widget. This assures both autonomy and flexibility, however it might be more complex to set up as it employs advanced Scheduled Download or Pull Mode mechanisms.
Our solutions can be purchased as a cloud service (SaaS) or installed locally.
See uptime for individual players, their location and what they are displaying in real time. Real-time preview of content loaded to players, player status, player location, and other technical details for players connected to your account. Check historical uptime and status of players connected to your account.
The future of digital signage is all about data-driven high-impact content delivered in an automated way to any combination of screens. We believe that creating such content should be a one-stop process. Our widgets are your fast track to bringing data from your everyday tools beautifully to the right audience at the right time.
With 250+ subscription-free Widgets, integrated in our software, your data goes where your audiences go. Widgets are digital signage components designed to display live data that auto updates. They are easily customisable, simple, and beautifully powerful when delivering information from the data source of your choice.
AMX, Crestron, Fire, Evacuation, ESII, Q-Matic integrations and more.
SYSTEMS mode allows you to immerse audiences with your story through IoT solutions and third-party technologies. With sensors, cameras, smart-building, queue management systems and more, you have the full integration capacity to deliver experiences with an unlimited degree of personalisation.
Third-party technology integrations and interactivity: our solutions make it possible to integrate third-party technology within a digital signage installation. This includes queue management (for example, ESII), room reservation and audience analysis systems (for example, Crestron), touch-screen kiosks, infrared (IR) sensors, GPS navigation for use in transportation installations, and many more.
Content send to displays are stored to play. Use default content or advanced back up play features to ensure there is no information loss.
Our solutions benefit from the developer features and tools for those who wish to provide the ultimate level of digital signage customization by creating their own integrations. Some of the developer features include are advanced data feed widgets, advanced data parsers (XML, JSON) and options to format the data once received.
Use tags to filter, organize and publish. The smartest way to manage your content. Tag content to be displayed on different screens. Distribute it with a click of a button.
Use the optional Batch Setup service for large multi-screen deployments for speedy installation.
Display content where & when you need it via GPS coordinates
Location-based service (LBS) can be defined as a social, entertainment or information service, enabling a company to reach and engage with its audience through tools and platforms that capture the geographic location of the audience. The delivery mechanisms used for LBS is powered by a GPS device that pings the current location and allows the Digital Signage Player to play the content within the specified radius.
Location-based marketing (LBM) bridges the gap between all forms of marketing media, inclusive of social media, the Internet, OOH, and real-life interaction. LBM covers the utilization and/or integration of all media to engage and market to people in specific places with specific offerings. LBM uses location-based services to reach and engage with consumers based upon where they are located.
With our location based service, you simply set points and a radius on a map and let any moving object (most likely a vehicle such as bus, taxi or train) display Digital Signage content when the object enters the radius you specified. When the object leaves that radius, your standard signage presentation will resume. This allows you to set GPS coordinates which correlate to particular resources such as videos and images and present them when and where they matter most.
If location-based services are the technology and media delivery platforms used for the identification of an individual’s location and preferences, then location-based marketing is the use of these platforms by brands, retailers, and their agencies to target the message to individuals and engage with them based on their location. The key is that location is most often linked to a specific intent to buy or research products and services at that moment in time. LBM can be effective by many application such as tour buses, taxis, trains and other moving transports that can display or act upon triggers which correspond to a specific GPS location.
How is it done?
At TimeLine we believe in simplicity and affordability. That’s why we designed the Location Based Component so that anyone can easily configure it and display GPS based content in a matter of minutes. You can use any GPS transmitter, we recommend the Raspberry PI as it is inexpensive and simple to configure. The GPS will post current location every few seconds and our Hyper Media Player will take care of the rest. Best of all, the entire configuration can operate with or without internet connection.
Need more?
Ask our experts to make custom solution for your tasks. Ask a TimeLine Expert today. TimeLine Experts are certified developer and consultants that can help you do more with automation.