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Digital Menu Boards... anyone using ChromeCast?

I

Integraoligist

New member
Working on making a digital signage board… plan was to run an HDMI from one of the POS stations to the TV and use the TV as the secondary monitor to show the menu, specials and such.

Then I was trying to find some software for these boards and it looks like there are a few companies out there that already offer this for “free”, although it’s an online only software. Not installed onto any system. Which I do not care for.

So 1st, I was wondering if anyone has any software suggestions?
2nd, if I have to use an online only free service, could I be able to use a Chromecast device to just run the webpage that the software creates?

Thoughts?

Thanks all!
 
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I think it may even be easier than that to do what you want.
Are you talking about a simple slide show where the screen changes every few seconds?

I have a 60" Vizio HD Smart TV, I hardwired a wi-fi router to the TV with an ethernet cable, (it’ll also run my slideshow through wi-fi, but if I have a ton of guests on the network, in can glitch my slide show)

I have an el-chepo 8GB USB memory stick in the USB port on the router, the firmware in the TV handles all the rest for me, so I am not sucking up computer resources. The router I’m using is an unsecured access point for our guests to get wi-fi, and that is daisy chained off an 8-channel ethernet switch to my main router. The wiring looks like a complete schitt-show, but it works
This nicely separates my infrastructure from my public access too.

I can run almost anything I want off that memory stick, Pic’s, video, music, whatever it has been working nicely.
Let me know if you need a better explanation
 
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I’m guessing your TV is a Smart TV if it has an Ethernet connection to it? I do not have Ethernet but do have a USB which I’ve put the menu on and is a static image right now. I’m looking to have the menu on one side with the current weather, RSS feed and a movie or FLA in the corner for the specials… all while playing music in the background.

I’ve been working with this free software: http://www.digitalsignage.com/ but their “player” auto fills the entire screen(s) right when Windows starts, the player will not just stay on a secondary screen. Then I noticed they produce it via a webpage as well so I was thinking of that Chromecast which is just using the USB connection on the TV and just pushing the webpage.
 
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Integraoligist said:
I’m guessing your TV is a Smart TV if it has an Ethernet connection to it? I do not have Ethernet but do have a USB which I’ve put the menu on and is a static image right now. I’m looking to have the menu on one side with the current weather, RSS feed and a movie or FLA in the corner for the specials… all while playing music in the background.

I’ve been working with this free software: http://www.digitalsignage.com/ but their “player” auto fills the entire screen(s) right when Windows starts, the player will not just stay on a secondary screen. Then I noticed they produce it via a webpage as well so I was thinking of that Chromecast which is just using the USB connection on the TV and just pushing the webpage.
Click to expand...
Oof!
That seems like a whole ton of stuff happening at once
Thats probably a bit more than most smart TV’s can do simultaneously.

I have apps built into our TV’s such as weather, youtube, netflix & such. But they cannot run concurrently as far as I know.
We run “iTunes radio” through one of our POS terminals and into a stereo receiver for music. We play the blues here so I customized a station around Stevie Ray Vaughan for tunes and that works out very well for us
One TV is typically running the slide show off a memory stick. the other TV has some sport of the day playing, or “How It’s Made” on the science channel.
I was considering getting another 21.5" touchscreen monitor and orient that to portrait for a slide show of specials at the counter, but it is probable better to just use another Smart TV with a memory stick for that too since video can eat a ton of resources on a POS terminal.
I’m curious to see what you come up with, take a look at just using a smart TV with a slide show, it may be way less hassle than your current plan and easier than you think.
 
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We have 3 TV’s. 2 for menu boards that are static jpg images on a usb drive. The third is a slide show of our product shots, etc. Also on a usb drive that uses the TV’s slideshow software to play it. Don’t have any fancy options for the slide show (normal, slow, fast is it!), but it works and is simple. Maybe I will improve it at some point, but its not too hard to change the jpg files on my PC, grab the thumb drive, plug it into the PC and then stick it back in the TV once transferred.

Dan
 
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I don’t know if it’s the easiest way or not, Intergraoligist, but it should work the way you want. Just cast your Chrome tab to it. I love Chromecast. I have one at the store and 2 at home. I use it if I want to run a movie or tv shows for background noise since we don’t have cable/dish at the store.
 
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I would recommend the following site. http://www.risevision.com/ The basic software is free and they have many templates to play with so that you can quickly have a menu board or other type of display up and running in no time. I helped set up a three menu display using a raspberry pi ( http://goo.gl/h4e1Xc ). The only other things needed using this was and Internet connection and a flat screen display. They have all of the directions listed on the site to do it yourself or you can pay to have them do all of the work for you.
 
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durbancic said:
We have 3 TV’s. 2 for menu boards that are static jpg images on a usb drive. The third is a slide show of our product shots, etc. Also on a usb drive that uses the TV’s slideshow software to play it. Don’t have any fancy options for the slide show (normal, slow, fast is it!), but it works and is simple. Maybe I will improve it at some point, but its not too hard to change the jpg files on my PC, grab the thumb drive, plug it into the PC and then stick it back in the TV once transferred.

Dan
Click to expand...
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nothing like reviving an old thread but…anyways…
This sounds entirely too simple. Is this a simple as making a high resolution scan of my existing beautiful paper menu, do a little cut and paste in a photoshop type program to arrange the pages/portions of the menu, and then put the resulting jpg on a thumb drive? We were thinking about putting in three or four 50" TV’s to replace out old tired menu boards
 
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nothing like reviving an old thread but…anyways…
This sounds entirely too simple. Is this a simple as making a high resolution scan of my existing beautiful paper menu, do a little cut and paste in a photoshop type program to arrange the pages/portions of the menu, and then put the resulting jpg on a thumb drive? We were thinking about putting in three or four 50" TV’s to replace out old tired menu boards
Click to expand...
I suppose you could do that. The only concern would be if the type is too small to be read on the tvs. We have never tried it like this, we actually make a photoshop file with all text and colors, etc. as our menu boards. But I might try this and see how it turns out!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
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.
nothing like reviving an old thread but…anyways…
This sounds entirely too simple. Is this a simple as making a high resolution scan of my existing beautiful paper menu, do a little cut and paste in a photoshop type program to arrange the pages/portions of the menu, and then put the resulting jpg on a thumb drive? We were thinking about putting in three or four 50" TV’s to replace out old tired menu boards
Click to expand...
Do you have a PDF proof of your menu?..If so, that may be able to be opened in Photoshop (or Illustrator) and edited there…
 
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We run USB on TVs with High Quality PDFs. Do the editing in Illustrator.
We have different images for different menu items and set it up to slideshow to have rotating product shots on some screens.
 
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johnnz said:
We run USB on TVs with High Quality PDFs. Do the editing in Illustrator.
We have different images for different menu items and set it up to slideshow to have rotating product shots on some screens.
Click to expand...
Are you using PDF files or JPG files for your menu?
So you have multiple TV’s, some with static menu and some with rotating slideshow? Are you just using the built in slideshow feature of the TV and using JPG files? Or do you use a PDF for that?
 
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durbancic said:
Are you using PDF files or JPG files for your menu?
So you have multiple TV’s, some with static menu and some with rotating slideshow? Are you just using the built in slideshow feature of the TV and using JPG files? Or do you use a PDF for that?
Click to expand...
We use .jpg files and the built in slideshow of the TVs. We have 4x32" TVs set up side by side.
Here is a shot for reference Mizzoni Woodfired... - Mizzoni Woodfired Pizza I Pasta I Bar
https://www.facebook.com/MizzoniPiz...29106575549/10155513069710550/?type=3&theater
 
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durbancic said:
I suppose you could do that. The only concern would be if the type is too small to be read on the tvs. We have never tried it like this, we actually make a photoshop file with all text and colors, etc. as our menu boards. But I might try this and see how it turns out!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
You were correct, I scanned the menu and put it on the TV at home (55") It was difficult to read because the type was too small, but the good news is the process of getting it displayed was so easy, now all I have to do is get the jpeg or PDF files made and have it done in such a way as that I can alter the text myself.
 
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We made files in photoshop that have all the text and then we save them as a jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161118/46a3b9ba0665e5f4d7c2c8ca307347c6.jpg

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
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