Android Software
SignCloud requires DS Loader to be installed on Android devices. When installed, different player software can be selected and loaded remotely using our admin interface. This page includes a summary of the player software available and differences to consider.
DS Loader
This application provides a management layer for loading digital signage player software. When DS Loader is installed on an Android device, player software can be remotely updated and monitored. DS Loader will start a player when the device is turned on and restart the player if there is a player software failure. It can take screenshots and post logs back to the server.
Player Software
We have 3 primary player applications. The player chosen should be based on hardware specifications and digital signage requirements.
Standard Android Player
This player uses standard Android components to display multimedia. Videos are decoded using Android’s built in video player. Images and web pages are drawn as part of Androids view hierarchy.
- Works on all Android versions with good performance.
- Support for events and triggers for interactive content.
- Support for sequence frames (but not dynamic layers).
- There are no advanced transition animations.
- Videos must be fully downloaded before playing.
- Basic peer to peer file sharing.
- Basic VAST support. (See implementation details here)
SignageNode
This player uses OpenGL ES to render content to the screen. Videos are decoded using ExoPlayer and images and web pages are scaled and drawn to OpenGL textures.
- No support for events and triggers or interactive content.
- Requires a modern, high performance Android device.
- Includes over 50 advanced transition animations.
- Support for multiple, independent dynamic layers of content (but not sequence frames).
- Advanced distributed caching proxy for peer to peer data sharing.
- Videos can be streamed immediately without full download.
- Support for HLS, DASH, SmoothStreaming, RTSP…
- Advanced VAST support.
- Built in management server that can be accessed via central admin interface.
Standard Android Player with ExoPlayer
This player is similar to the standard player but uses ExoPlayer for decoding videos. If the standard player has problems playing videos and the device can not meet the requirements for running SignageNode, this player can be used.
4K (3840×2160) Support
Unfortunately, Android is usually limited to 1920×1080 for performance reasons even on hardware that claims to support 4K. This imposes limitations on our players
Auto Start
DS Loader will attempt to auto start the digital signage software when the device is first booted. However, this fails on some devices, particularly those running Android 10 and up.
There are a couple of solutions.
First, ensure the option Auto start and keep running is enabled in DS Settings. This is enabled by default but may have been disabled accidentally.
Assuming this option is enabled. Try the following:
- Android Settings
- Apps
- Special App Access
- Display over other apps
- DS Loader
- Allow.
Finally, if the above still fails to auto start DS Loader, you can run it as a screen saver instead:
- Android Settings
- Device Preferences
- Screen saver
- DS Loader
- 5 mins inactivity
Advanced Content Types
HTML5
The platform is designed to display web pages directly from the Internet. Sometimes it is necessary to host the site locally on the device so it can work in offline mode or reduce delays loading. To achieve these goals it is possible to create a .zip file containing all the HTML and resources for the site and upload it to the platform.
Zipped web page
Name the web page index.html and make all paths to images, JavaScript and CSS relative. Compress index.html and resources into a single zip file. Upload the zip file as regular item and it will be recognised as a zipped web page.
The zip will automatically be extracted onto the device and read locally by the internal web browser.
Streaming media
An item can provide a streaming media address to display live video. Examples include:
- rtsp:// – Video streamed via RTSP from another device e.g. rtsp://192.168.0.2/live-video.rtsp
- camera:// – Local camera e.g. camera://0 or camera://1
- hdmi:// – Local HDMI input e.g. hdmi://localhost?port=1
- hdmi://zidoo – Special HDMI input from Zidoo device
- http:// – Remote video streamed from the Internet via HTTP e.g. http://www.example.com/remote-video.mp4 – Not recommended. Non-live video should be imported into our content management system to benefit from our CDN, P2P, caches and offline playback.
- hls-http:// – HTTP Live streaming.
- dash-http:// – Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP.
PDF, SWF, DOC, PPT etc
Using these formats is not recommended. However, if they are uploaded, 3rd party viewer extensions may be used to attempt to display them. It is best to use JPEG images and H264 encoded video for consistent output for digital signage.
Note: Advanced content types are only supported on Android devices.
Security
Administration Interface
All user accounts are protected by an email address and password. Traffic between the web browser and user interface is encrypted using the latest encryption standards (when SSL Certificate is installed).
All passwords are scrambled before storage using bcrypt hashing.
Live traffic analysis is performed to prevent brute force attacks. All actions, including failed password attempts, are stored in an audit log that can not be deleted.
A password policy can be defined in a cloud config to restrict passwords that can be used.
Devices
There are two layers of security between devices and servers. All data on the first layer (loader comms) is digitally signed by a private key on secure servers. Devices verify the data using a public key before to invoking second layer communications (player comms). The second layer uses digital signatures in additional to an optional TLS connection.
DS Loader will only execute new player applications that are digitally signed with the correct key.
We have the ability to transition to new keys in the event of a private key security breach.