Digital Signage Settings

Solstice’s digital signage feature gives you the ability to extend HTML-based signage to Solstice displays when they are not being used for wireless collaboration. This feature allows you to add signage feeds to your Solstice-enabled meeting rooms, huddle rooms, and transitional spaces without the additional cost or complexity of deploying dedicated signage hardware.

The following signage content sources are supported:

  • https://digitalsignage.mersive.com
  • Appspace feeds
  • Carousel Digital Signage feeds
  • Google Slides + Sites
  • Screenfeed
  • Static images such as custom web-based welcome screens

Certain individual feeds, even from these sources, may not work with Solstice. If the URL you are attempting to run is resource intensive, stability and performance can be negatively affected. However, Solstice version 4.4 and later will cache up to 1GB of content.

Requirements

  • Solstice Pods with Enterprise Edition Licenses
  • Solstice version 3.4 or later (both Pods and Dashboard)
  • Source URL content must be compatible with Android Webview.
    • As a note, Chrome browser and Android Webview are similar in many ways, but Android Webview will lack some advanced browser features and behaves best with less resource-intensive feeds.
    • Test your URL in Solstice and verify that it is playing well on a single display before rolling out to other Solstice Pods and/or leaving signage enabled on the Pod.

Layout Options

Some signage layout modes will render the source content in an HTML IFrame. The Solstice Platform supports three layout options: Full Screen, Footer Only, and Footer + Sidebar. The digital signage source content is rendered differently depending on your layout choice.

Mode Description Notes
Full Screen Signage content is displayed in full screen mode on the Solstice display. No Solstice connection information is shown — users must know Solstice display name in order to connect. Source URL is rendered as a full-screen web page.
Footer Only Only the Solstice welcome screen footer that displays connection information is shown over the signage content. Source URL is rendered within an IFrame, so content must be embedded in an IFrame within the website used for the source URL.
Footer + Side The Solstice welcome screen footer and overlay instructions are shown on top of digital signage to provide users with full connection instructions and/or room calendar information. Source URL is rendered within an IFrame, so content must be embedded in an IFrame within the website used for the source URL.

Video Content

Video content is supported if it is in one of the following formats and configured to auto-start. The maximum video quality is 1080p at 60 fps and up to 20 Mbps.

  • H.264 Baseline Profile Level 3
  • VP8
  • VP9

Supported Authentication Methods

Some signage systems provide mechanisms to identify the device with which it is communicating. This can be helpful to tailor content to groups of devices, prevent unauthorized access to the feed content, and for analytics.

The Solstice's digital signage playback supports the following authentication methods:

Scheme Description
Open The signage URL is not protected by an authentication scheme. The content will load in any network-connected browser for any user.
URL-Based The signage URL is protected by a URL-based parameter. In this case, the content will only load when the URL parameter is provided.
Cookie or Local Storage The signage URL will load an initial page that presents a unique identifier for the Pod. The signage administrator will record the code and enter it into the signage provider's device management console. After this process is completed, a cookie or other browser-based persistent mechanism like Local Storage is utilized to store the identification information.
MAC Address Primarily relevant to an on-prem signage system, the administrator will configure the Pod MAC address as part of the device configuration in the management console. This process may be automated by the signage system, however, the signage server and Solstice Pod must typically be on the same VLAN.

Tips

  • When Solstice's digital signage feature is enabled and you have a scheduled daily restart configured in Solstice (Dashboard > System Settings tab), ensure that the web server serving up the content is configured to handle the concurrent traffic.

How To

Not all signage feeds are supported by Solstice. Always validate signage playback in a test environment before making it live across your deployment.

  1. In the Solstice Dashboard, select the display from the list of Your Solstice Instances.
  2. Go to the Digital Signage tab.
  3. Select Enable.
  4. Choose a signage mode from the list of options:
    • Full Screen: Signage content is displayed in full screen mode on the Solstice display. No Solstice connection information is shown — users must know Solstice display name in order to connect.
    • Footer Only: Only the Solstice welcome screen footer is shown over the signage content. Users that are familiar with Solstice will be able to see the Solstice display name and/or IP address in the footer area in order to connect and share content (requires the source URL to be viewable within an iFrame).
    • Footer + Overlay: The Solstice welcome screen footer and overlay instructions are shown on top of digital signage to provide users with full connection instructions and/or room calendar information.
  5. In the Source URL field, enter the source URL of the digital signage feed or web content you’d like to display between Solstice sessions.
  6. In the Start After field, select the amount of time you want the digital signage feed to start playing after.
  7. Click Apply. A pop-up confirmation window appears.
  8. Click Yes.

Some signage providers require you to register your signage endpoints. Please refer to your signage content providers instructions to complete this process as needed.

To play an Appspace digital signage feed, the Solstice Pod must have internet access. The Solstice Pod will need to be connected to a display monitor in order to complete the device registration in Appspace. See Solstice + Appspace Digital Signage for more information.

  1. Open the Solstice Dashboard and select the Pod you want to add the digital signage channel to.
  2. On the Digital Signage tab, enable the digital signage feature, then select the Footer Only option. 

    The Footer Only option is selected in this step so that you can properly view the registration code. This setting can be changed after your device is registered with AppSpace.

  3. In the Source URL field, enter https://cloud.appspace.com/app/ then click Apply. The Pod’s display will show an Appspace screen with a registration code.

  4. Log in to Appspace and go to the dashboard. Enter the registration code in the Device Registration section, then click Go.

  5. Complete the fields to register your device and assign a channel.
  6. Click Register. The Pod will begin displaying the content from the assigned Appspace channel.

For more information on how to use Appspace or more in-depth information on how to registering a player, see the Appspace documentation.

  1. Log in to your Carousel Cloud account and go to Configure > Players > Player Setup.
  2. Under Player Setup, select Mersive Solstice. A Carousel for Mersive Solstice pop-up appears.
  3. Copy the link for the player URL.
  4. Open the Solstice Dashboard and select the Pod you want to display the Carousel digital signage feed on.
  5. On the Digital Signage tab, enable the digital signage feature, then select the Footer Only option. 

    The Footer Only option is selected in this step so that you can properly view the registration code. This setting can be changed after your device is registered with Carousel Cloud.

  6. Paste the copied URL from Carousel into the Solstice Dashboard's Source URL field.
  7. Click Apply.
  8. Once it has loaded, the Pod's display will show the Carousel Cloud Player registration page.
  9. In your Carousel Cloud account, register the Solstice Pod as a player to begin displaying your initial channel.

For more information on how to register your Carousel Cloud player, click here.

For more information on Carousel Cloud and its digital signage capabilities, or more in-depth information on registering a player within Carousel Cloud, see the Carousel Cloud documentation.

  1. Physically go to the location of the Solstice Pod where you enabled signage.
  2. Confirm the signage feed is visible.
  3. Connect to the Pod and share a piece of content.
  4. Disconnect and confirm the signage feed automatically reappears, plays the entire feed, and restarts the feed from the beginning.

If you need to exit digital signage mode in order to access the Pod's local configuration panel, you can do so by plugging a USB mouse into the Pod, then long-clicking with the left mouse button.