Content Sources

Thanks to the built-in Chromium engine, BrightSign players can generally display any web page that is capable of being displayed in the Chrome browser.

As mentioned previously, BrightSign players are capable of displaying presentations in either the HTML (.html) or BrightSign presentation (.bpfx) formats (note that .bpfx presentations must be published directly from BrightAuthor:connected). Since HTML is the format preferred by the majority of our partners, HTML presentations will be used in the examples throughout this guide.

Typically, partner presentations will consist of an HTML file that resides locally on the player’s storage device. Content displayed by the HTML page can be broadly categorized as follows:

1. Local

   1. Content resides on the player’s storage device.

   2. Since the content is local, it can begin playing immediately.

2. Web

   1. Content is retrieved from an external web URL.

   2. Unless the content has been previously cached, it must first be downloaded before it can be displayed.

3. Streamed

   1. Content is streamed, either locally or from an external server.

   2. Streamed content relies on dedicated streaming servers and various streaming protocols like HLS, UDP/RTP/RTSP, and HTTP.

   3. Video and audio data are transported as a continuous flow that can be watched or listened to almost immediately without having to wait for the full download to complete.

These categories are not mutually exclusive, and as we will see, players can readily play content from a mixture of these content sources.

Next, we will walk through a hands-on example demonstrating many of the key concepts described thus far.