Advanced Features in Player Setup
The Player setup dialog contains comprehensive features to effectively control playback on your media network.
In the network section as described in Setting Up a Local Player you define the relevant IP Addresses of you digital signage network. Features not discussed previously are:
1. ‘FTP Use Passive Mode’ – in certain instances where you have firewall restrictions you may want to FTP passive mode. In order to resolve the issue of the server initiating the connection to the client a different method for FTP connections was developed. This was known as passive mode, or PASV, after the command used by the client to tell the server it is in passive mode. In passive mode FTP the client initiates both connections to the server, solving the problem of firewalls filtering the incoming data port connection to the client from the server.
2. ‘Poll for Updates’ – when you have limited connectivity and the link to the server is unreliable you can request the Player actively polls for updates, as the server push request may have failed.
3. ‘Upload Logs’ – enter the time when you would like the Player to upload its play logs. The Player would obviously have to be online for this to occur.
The ‘Options’ section allows you to set global parameters that govern the Player behaviour:
1. ‘Start Player When Windows Starts’ – this feature is typically checked in a normal Player environment.
2. ‘Hide Mouse Pointer’ – this feature is typically checked in a normal Player environment.
3. ‘Synchronise Slideshow With Playlist’ – allows you automatically set the Player to ensure that a slideshow feature on an Overlay ends at the same time as a video playing in the Overlay.
4. ‘Display On Secondary Monitor’ – if a secondary monitor has been setup, playback will be directed at that monitor.
5. ‘Cache Web Pages’ – if there is an HTML object in the Overlay, content will be cached for speedier display.
The Troubleshooting section allows you to set parameters that under normal situations are not required but help to isolate problems in situations where the cause of the problem is not obvious:
1. ‘Watchdog Timer’ – is a listener hardware or software device that runs continually to monitor Player computer behaviour.
2. ‘Always On Top’ – forces the Player on top of any other Windows on Windows Desktop.
3. ‘Enable Flash “IsPlaying” function’ – utilises a Flash function to ensure playback in Flash is occurring.
4. ‘Complete Video Before Doing Update’ – ensures that playback is not affecting Playlist & Media updates.
5. ‘Do not use DirectDraw’ – turns off DirectDraw hardware acceleration to help isolate hardware issues.
Video Input