This is a question I am often asked by our new customers.  So here is a guide to all the possible icons that will appear within your CampaignManager workspace. As always, do feel free to post any comments here, send you enquiries to support@ryarc.com or post on our forum www.ryarc.com/forum   Campaign is scheduled for now or the future but has not been approved or published
	Campaign is scheduled for now or the future and has been approved but not published
	This campaign has been published and is live right now
	This campaign has been published and is scheduled for some point in the future
	This campaign would be playing live now, but it has been pulled
	This published campaign has expired and been pulled
	This published campaign has expired
	This campaign has been approved but its schedule has expired
	This campaign has expired but has not been approved or published
	Tickers are represented by a wavy horizontal red bar towards the bottom of the icon.  The other conventions described above in relation to pulled, expired, live, approved etc. apply to tickers in exactly the same way.
	Remote commands are represented by a power switch symbol in the icon.  The other conventions described above in relation to pulled, expired, live, approved etc. apply to remote commands in exactly the same way.

Post your technical enquiries on our forum http://www.ryarc.com/forum

The set-up of a digital signage network using CampaignManager requires an understanding of webservers.  In the majority of cases this will be Windows IIS.

The Technical Support Team are often asked for their help in a number of areas relating to IIS. 

I have put together a list of resources which provide help and training on the areas of IIS relevant to CampaignManager.

   IIS Site Set-up

   Using Virtual Directories

   Domain Name Resolution

   Working with MIME types

   Changing Default Website Settings

   Restarting IIS

   Security in IIS

   Troubleshooting in IIS

Regards

Ryarc Support Team

Post your technical enquiries on our forum http://www.ryarc.com/forum

Hardware Review - Aopen WT 19P-TA

We have recently tested the Aopen Warm Touch (All-in-one) unit with CampaignManager.  Its a Touch Screen, with a built in PC and includes a DVD Player.

Using our standardised testing we have given the Aopen WT 19P-TA a score of 9.4 / 10.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Unit Specifications:   Processor - Intel Atom 330 1.6 Ghz CPU

                               Memory - 1 Gb

                               Graphics Card - On board - Intel 82945GL Chipset

The Player scored 84 out of a possible 90 for playback performance.  

Points were lost when testing in Portrait mode, the directx ticker did not run as smoothly as in Landscape mode.

When transitioning between HD video there was a visible black screen between clips. This would have been 0.25 - 0.5 of a second but visible all the same.

The Player scored 17 out of a possible 18 for phsyical properties.  

The fact that it combines a touch screen, PC, DVD player, Webcam, flash memory slot, card reader and more in this compact unit is the reason for this great score.

The one point was lost here was the lack of either DVI or HDMI output.

The full testing details are included in the following document:  Aopen WT19P-TA Playback Performance.pdf (51.09 KB)

The scoring is defined in this document:  Scoring Definitions.pdf (35.82 KB)

The full unit specifications are included in this document: Aopen WT19P-TA.pdf (361.44 KB)

Post your technical enquiries on our forum http://www.ryarc.com/forum

One of the really useful features in CampaignManager is the publishable Commands.  In earlier versions, this allowed administrators to change basic settings such as call interval, logging options and RS232 interfaces.  However, there were still a lot of options one could not change without being front and center on the machine itself, thereby incuring time and money in making changes.  Since version 2009, CampaignManager has included the option of attaching an executable to run utility tasks on remote players.  This is an awesome feature provided that you were in a position to write your own code to do whatever it was you needed to do on the player. 

Despite the fact that you can now run any executable code (Windows PowerShell, Batch files, EXEs etc.) remotely according to schedule, we realise that a lot of users don't have the time or access to the skills to create such scripts.  So, we've created a little app that you can use in conjuntion with CampaignManager Commands to help make changes on remote Digital Signage players that much easier.  The tool, (imaginatively) named the "Player Settings Console Utility" is a windows executable that takes a number of switches, allowing you to make complex changes to the player remotely.  When you run the app without any switches, you see the following help window which describes the functionality and syntax in detail:

So, for example If you were swapping over to a new server and needed to change the remote IPs, you could run the command

RyarcSettingsUtil /SA:192.168.100.100

The application will change the setting in the registry and restart the player which will from that moment, point to your New Server.  Needless to say, it makes sense to test your syntax out locally first!  You can also run several changes simultaneously like this:

The app will also helpfuly hightlight what it was able to do and not do.  (In this case the NodeServer URL was provided without the http:// at the front and the .asmx file at the end).  Once you're ready to publish, create the command with the appropriate switches like this:

This utility is still not 'officially' released but a version with possible bugs is attached here RyarcSettingsUtil.zip (15.84 KB) if you want to check it out.  Feedback most welcome!

Setting up a video streaming session through CampaignManager is a pretty straight forward. However if it is something you have not tried before, I hope that this article will save you some time:

There are 3 main steps to getting video streaming to display in Campaign.

1. Set up the streaming session in Windows Media Encoder.

•    Click file and New session
•    Select Broadcast a live event
•    Select the video device to be used
•    Select Pull from the encoder

• select a free port on which to broadcast e.g 8080 above.
• Click Next and then Finish to start Encoding. (for more detailed information on this setup, see the Windows Media Encoder help files).

2. Create an asx file in notepad with the IP and port details as configured above. For example: 

3. Add the file to CampaignManager

• In CampaignManager ScreenDesigner, click on Add, then file
• Change the files of type to all files and select the asx file you have just created

Hardware Review – Aopen DE 965-HG

We have recently tested an Aopen mini PC  ( DE965-HG ) with the CampaignManager software.

Using our standardized testing we gave the Aopen unit a score of 9.6 / 10

Unit specifications:         Processor – Core Duo CPU T5800 2GHZ

                                         Memory – 1 Gb

                                         Graphics Card – On-board - Intel 965 Express chipset

The player scored the maximum possible for playback performance.

It is a compact player which will easily fit behind a Digital signage screen. 

The full testing details have been included in the following document:    Aopen DE965hg- Playback Performance.pdf (42.39 KB)

The scoring is defined in this document:    Scoring Definitions.docx (11.46 KB)

Remote Command - Get Device Metrics

With a large digital signage network, it can be difficult to monitor all the remote players. The Remote command 'Get Device Metrics' in CampaignManager makes this an easy task, sending back valuable information to the CM Service allowing you to prevent problems before they occur.  For example if a player is running low on disk space it may prevent a new camapign being published to it.  The 'Get Device Metrics' command will let you know the 'Available Hard Drive' and you can decide if action is required before this causes an issue.

Here is a full list of the information sent from the player to the CM Service on recieving the 'Get Device Metrics' command:   

Step 1: Create a new command in CampaignManager. Select the 'Get Device Metrics' command, schedule to run at intervals, perhaps once a month or to run 'as soon as possible'. Target to all or some of the players.

Step 2: Open CM Service, once you can see that the command has reached the players and is at 100% the metrics will start to return from the players. The length of time taken for all the information to return will depend on the call interval setting. Go to the  'Remote Display Devices' tab to view the information.

Hope you have found this a useful article.

Post your technical enquiries on our forum http://www.ryarc.com/forum