I was playing with a competitor product today. demo Media Sign Pro. vs BSign, they are two very different configurations.

I must say beyond the cost of using a mac mini for each location and the MSP software licenses for each location. I really like the MSP offering.

#1 real time Project editor interface where you can see the live output very nice in real time.
#2 support Web zones - you can have a web zone pull in a website page url for display and even schedule multiple websites to loop in the web zone. very very cool
#3 support Twitter zone - grabbing twitter feed timelines. extra very cool....


They (MSP) have draw backs in that they do not offer hosted solution or web server publishing. No central contorl other than using a dynamic dropbox or idisk to hold media in cloud. You update the cloud and the MSP updated the content.

I am sure I am over simplifying this and doing an Apples to Oranges comparisons. I just cross my fingers my #1 #2 #3 above items are on the future product list for BSign.

I asked about #3. It's not something I've heard about regularly. Usually, we add things that customers ask for. So, unless a lot of customers are asking for twitter support, it would be a longer period of time before it's add.

For #2, I'm going to check. I know html support has come up more than once. Is this just for looping playback? Most web pages don't normally seem like a good fit for looping playback on a large screen or for interactive use unless you have a mouse and keyboard. Is this so you can repurpose a web page without having to layout your content/info for a different screen?

I don't quite understand what #1 is. Do you mean you can remotely see what's playing on the device?

Any computer, even a mac mini, tend to run into the same problems when used for signage. If it's not size, then they tend to be more prone to overheating, software conflicts, etc. I've spoken to customers at shows and on the phone that thought a mac mini or mini pc would be a great signage solution, but they don't tend to hold up over time.

Lyndon

my picks ....

#3 twitter would be a great start. I have spent a lot of time creating facebook/twitter feeds for the businesses that advertise on my screens. I know twitter may not be for everyone to display. Social media is advertising and content. My customers all have facebook and twitter feeds. I see it as a big step forward in making the screens look more interactive and not so static.

Anyone under 30 in age are face down on a mobile phone texting, tweeting facebooking etc etcs. I need to show content in the format that attacks younger eyes. A video,static image, text or rss feed in a loop now to me looks like something from another time.

#2 I agree web pages are generally static. My use would be:

create 5 generic scheduled url pages sized to the screen web zone and loop the schedule. i can manage and update the web zone info on the fly via my web server. The web zone display being on a MAC or any full browser support device ( if you can add in a browser zone in BSign & BA )would display any content I choose. I would not be limited to BA media picks. i could even give customers access to update web zone content via access to my webserver. Allow them to self publish if needed.

#1 The MSP editor shows you real-time on the Mac Editor screen what the final output looks like and shows loop and schedule content in action. If I change fonts colors or zone info it all is displayed on editor screen. Example:

I downloaded the demo software. I open it up and choose a default template. I added a web zone from two website to be displayed. I added a twitter feed zone and RSS feed. All Zone updated on screen in real-time as I changed the properties. So I saw the live twitter feed scrolling in the Editor window, same for web zone and all other zones. Very nicely done.

You can download a free 14 day trial of the MSP Mac only. This is a big step forward when you look at BrighAuthor Editor.

I am sure you BSign product manager has reviewed MSP. They are more for centralized building systems and not for distributed systems central control as BSign. but they have a lot of the bells and whistles everyone using BSign have been asking for.

http://www.mediasignpro.com/

Do not get me wrong i very much like BS tool set. But I am looking to offer more options to my customers. with cellphone, ipads, tablets becoming so common. Static video displays are just background noise now. I need to offer more update info in real time to my screens.



thanks bill

I have confirmation that a twitter zone is in the works.

I'll forward your comments, and check on the web zone again.

For the "preview", I know there's been a lot of talk about it, but not sure where it sits right now.

L-

twitter, that is great news... can not wait so see that... a good step forward...

I know these things take time... but twitter will be a big win for alot of college and campus displays.

thanks
bill

There is a way to use the Twitter RSS feeds with BrightSign. It only displays one tweet at a time, but it does work.

First find your Twitter user id number - http://www.idfromuser.com
Plug in your user id to this url - http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/[id].rss

My example feed - http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/25287857.rss

There are other feeds out there for the public timeline, hashtags, etc. You should be able to find them in the Twitter help section, or using Google.

Facebook has RSS as well (including mrss), but it does not appear to work with BrightSign's RSS module.
Example - http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php? ... 8505594922

Did you get this working?

I have tried and BA 2.0.39 will not accept the twitter feed as an RSS natively.

any suggestion on how you got your working?

I just checked with 2.2.0.39 and 2.2.0.37 and I couldn't get it to work at first, but I figured out why.

If you try to do this in a video or images zone with a 'Media RSS Feed' item it will fail and say the feed is not a valid media rss feed.
If you try to put this URL in a ticker zone with the 'New RSS Feed' item it will accept the feed and work properly.

Here is an image of my Twitter status in a ticker zone -

Neither type will work with the Facebook feed I posted earlier. With any feed that doesn't work it is possible to run it through Yahoo Pipes to format it for the BrightSign box as RSS or MRSS. I have tested this idea with some iTunes video podcast feeds with minor success. Here is an example using Pipes to convert the Reuters iTunes Video Podcast to an MRSS feed the BrightSign can handle - http://pipes.yahoo.com/waltermoore/reuters_mp4_mrss Here is the resulting MRSS w/MP4 videos- http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=9d673ce7286608b398c22222b24d353b&_render=rss

If someone wants to try it I made a quick Pipe to feed a ticker zone with Facebook Page updates. BrightAuthor accepts it as valid, but I don't have a unit here right now to test on.

Here is the Pipe URL - http://pipes.yahoo.com/waltermoore/face ... htsign_rss
Here is the RSS Feed it returns - http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_ ... render=rss

Since Pipes has gone to V2 engine my RSS feed seems to not be as stable for use. Just to caution anyone on using PIPES with Version 2 engine.

bill

Walter, I'm excited to learn about Yahoo Pipes and the ability to create MRSS feeds. I was able to look and your example and get it to play on my HD210s and HD1010s. However, I was not able to do the same with other feed sources. I'm looking for some very basic static images containing weather and news headlines without any audio or video. I run a small network on a college campus and would like to mix "outside world" content with the local jpegs created for on-campus events. We had an ideal setup with framechannel, but they've gone out of business. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Michael Keen
Director of IT
Southern Vermont College

Bill thanks allot for bringing mediasignpro.com to everyones attention. I also downloaded the trail and really like some of the features. After trying the demo, I decided to try media sign pro on a small project for my client and the client loved it. Really cool software.

BS can you guys take a look at this company and start adding some power features into your app like mediasignpro.com? I am a long time user but the total package including the mac mini is really compelling compared to what I am using now. They even gave me a discount for mentioning where I have heard of them from. Really cool.

What specific features would you like to see in the brightauthor software? The majority of our features added are driven by user demand. If something is requested often, then it will get added normally.

I really really would like #2.
We present dynamic slideshows using jQuery and AJAX calls for a true "realtime" slideshow as our photographers feed new images to our webserver.

Currently we take our svga output (fullscreen Firefox browser) from a PC and pipe it into a roku live video module and display it in a live video zone. Yeah, it works but is not high def, and it takes a lot more programming to insert other material into the playlist.