Autowall

Owned by BrightSign TechDocs
Last updated: Sept 24, 2024
7 min read

The Autowall Plugin Kit allows you to publish video walls that automatically resize to fit the number of players in the wall. Autowall presentations play videos from BSN Dynamic Playlists, MRSS feeds, remote streams, or HDMI® input.

Using HDMI In with Autowall requires that all players have HDMI In capability and that the same HDMI signal is fed to all of the players.

The Autowall Plugin Kit

If you have trouble downloading the Autowall plugin kit file below, right-click it and select Save Link As....

Autowall Features

  • Landscape or portrait video walls

The maximum frame rate and resolution of portrait videos are restricted on HD and LS players. See here for more details.

  • HTML-based layouts

  • Support for any publishing method (Local File Networking, BrightSign Network, etc.)

  • Multiscreen ticker

  • Video wall content populated from BSN or MRSS feeds (any image or audio files that are part of the feed will be ignored)

  • Support for streaming video and HDMI Input

  • Ticker content populated from BSN or RSS feeds

  • Automatic caching of videos from the feed

  • Automatic scaling based on the number of players in the wall

Change Log

Changes since Autowall version 1-4:

  • Support for streaming video

  • Support for HDMI In

  • Support for portrait video

Player Setup 

First, you'll need to set up each player for the video wall. You can perform device setup in either BrightAuthor or the BSN WebUI:

  1. Open the Unit Setup window or Device Setup page.

  2. Give the player a Name according to its physical location in the video wall. The diagram on the right shows the naming convention for players in the video wall: For example, in a 4x4 landscape video wall, the top-left screen will be named "A-1", while the bottom-right screen will be named "D-4"; in a 4x4 portrait video wall, the top-left screen will be named "D-1", while the bottom-right screen will be named "A-4"

     

  3. Under Customization, select the Use name only option. 

  4. Configure the rest of the device-setup options as desired.

  5. Write the setup files to SD cards and publish them to the players.

  6. Connect all the Autowall players to the same local network via Ethernet cable.

Autowall Setup

Once you've set up the players, you'll need to publish an Autowall presentation to them:

  1. Unzip the Autowall Plugin Kit.

  2. Create a new BrightAuthor project. Alternatively, you can use one of the .bpf example projects included in the Autowall Plugin Kit.

  3. Add the Autowall plugin to the presentation:

    1. Navigate to File > Presentation Properties > Autorun.

    2. Click Add Script  Plugin.

    3. Select the autowall.brs file from the unzipped kit.

    4. Specify the plugin Name as "autowall".

  4. Add the Autowall HTML file to the presentation. Note that arbitrary HTML files will not work with the Autowall plugin. See the “Building Autowall Templates” section below for information about how to develop HTML files for this plugin.

    1. Navigate to File > Presentation Properties > HTML Sites.

    2. Click Add HTML Site.

    3. Under HTML site specification, select Local Content.

    4. Click Browse and select one of the following HTML files from the html folder included with the kit:

      1. index.html: The standard landscape Autowall, which plays video files from an MRSS feed or Dynamic Playlist

      2. index-with-ticker.html: A landscape Autowall with a multiscreen ticker

      3. index-stream.html: A landscape Autowall that plays streaming video from a remote source. To edit the streaming video source, open the index-stream.html file with a text editor and modify the src string in the video tag on line 23.

      4. index-hdmi-in.html: A landscape Autowall that plays video from the HDMI Input on the BrightSign player.

      5. index-portrait.html: A portrait Autowall that plays video files from an MRSS feed or Dynamic Playlist

    5. Drag and drop an HTML5 state into the presentation playlist. This will open the HTML5 window:

      1. Select the Autowall HTML file from the HTML Site dropdown list.

      2. Check the Enable external data, Enable mouse and touch events, and Enable native video plane playback boxes.

      3. Click OK to save the HTML5 state.

  5. If you're using an Autowall that plays video files from a feed (index.html, index-with-ticker.html, or index-portrait.html), add your MRSS feed or Dynamic Playlist to the presentation:

    1. Navigate to File > Presentation Properties > Data Feeds.

    2. Click Add Data Feed.

    3. Under Feed Specification, pick one of the following:

      1. If you're using an MRSS feed, select Url and enter the URL of your MRSS feed.

      2. If you're using a BSN Dynamic Playlist, select Dynamic Playlist and use the dropdown list to pick the feed to use in the video wall.

    4. Under Data Feed Content Usage, select MRSS Feed. 

    5. Click OK to save the Data Feed.

  6. If you are using the index-with-ticker.html Autowall, populate the ticker with text by adding your RSS or Live Data Feed to the presentation:

    1. Navigate to File > Presentation Properties > Data Feeds.

    2. Click Add Data Feed.

    3. Under Feed Specification, pick one of the following:

      1. If you're using an RSS feed, select Url and enter the URL of your RSS feed.

      2. If you're using a BSN Live Data Feed, select Live Data Feed and use the dropdown list to pick the feed to use in the ticker.

    4. Under Data Feed Content Usage, select Text. 

    5. Click OK to save the Data Feed.

       

  7. You may wish to account for the bezel size of the monitors that make up video wall. This will make the alignment of each portion of the video more accurate (especially when there are large gaps between the screens).

    1. Navigate to File > Presentation Properties > Variables.

    2. Use the Add Variable button to add the following variables: "bezelWidth", "bezelHeight", "screenWidth", "screenHeight", and "ptp_domain".

      1. Enter the measurements of the screen and bezel (in millimeters) in the Default Value fields. The "screenWidth" and "screenHeight" values refer to the dimensions of the screen itself, while the "bezelWidth" and "bezelHeight" values refer to the dimensions of the border around each screen.

      2. For the "ptp_domain" variable, enter any value between 4 and 127. If you want to run multiple Autowalls on the same local network, the "ptp_domain" must be different for each Autowall.

         

  8. Publish the presentation to the players in your Autowall using your desired publishing method (Local Network, BrightSign Network, etc.).

Editing the Autowall Playlist

To modify the contents of the video wall playlist, edit your MRSS feed or BSN Dynamic Playlist. When you add, remove, or edit a video in the playlist, the video wall will automatically update itself.

Modifying the Autowall

If you want to add more players to your Autowall, set up the players as described above, making sure to name them appropriately to add new rows and columns to the video wall.

If you want to rearrange players that are already part of your Autowall, you will need to rename them. For players set up for Standalone, Local File Networking, or Simple File Networking, you will need to perform the player setup process again to rename the player. If you are using the BrightSign Network, you can update the player names remotely:

  1. Open BrightAuthor.

  2. Navigate to the Manage > Status tab. 

  3. Expand the group that the player belongs to.

  4. Right-click the player and select Edit. 

  5. Edit the player Name.

  6. Click OK to save the changes. The player will update itself the next time it checks in with the BrightSign Network servers.

Building Autowall Templates 

You can use the Autowall plugin to develop your own HTML templates for synchronized video walls. If you wish to develop your own HTML templates, please note the following best practices:

  • We recommend using the index.html file included with the Autowall kit as the basic template for your HTML. Specifically, the following elements should be preserved for Autowall synchronization to work:

    • Preserve the JavaScript libraries in the <head> section.

    • Preserve the ng-app and ng-controller attributes in the <body> section.

    • Ensure the <video> section includes the mrss-feed attribute.

  • You can modify the size and position of the <video> element, but the dimensions of the video should match the aspect ratio of the video wall, not the aspect ratio of a single screen.

  • Set the z-order of the HTML video to -1 to ensure graphics are displayed. For L-bars and other features that require transparency, you will need to use PNG images with alpha values for transparency effects to show the video.

  • If your template includes animated graphics, you will need to use the BSSyncManager JavaScript object to ensure they are synchronized across multiple displays. Otherwise, you will need to restrict each animated graphic to a single screen on the video wall.

Troubleshooting and Considerations

If your Autowall is not working, please consider the following guidelines:

  • Disable Enhanced Synchronization: Make sure that the Enhanced Synchronization feature is disabled in your BrightAuthor presentation. This feature is disabled by default in new presentations.

  • Ensure content files have unique names: Each file in your MRSS feed must have a unique name.