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Connecting a screen to Foro

A screen earns nothing until something is playing on it. So the first practical question for any network is a plain one: how does the loop Foro has scheduled actually reach the glass?

There are three answers, from the most integrated to the most improvised. A content system that takes Foro's loop and publishes it to your players. A player that opens a web address Foro gives each screen. Or a player that reads one of the common playlist formats.

All three play the same loop. They differ in how much they can be trusted to keep playing it.

The tightest path: Ryarc CampaignManager

Ryarc CampaignManager is a content system and player network, and today it is the closest partner Foro has. It doesn't point a screen at Foro and hope the connection holds. It does the work a content system is meant to do.

Once a part of the day is decided, Foro has an exact loop for every screen: every paid slot, your house content, filler for anything unsold, and the timed gaps in between. CampaignManager collects that loop, builds it into a playlist in its own system, and publishes the playlist to the players.

The players then hold the content themselves. If the network drops, the screen keeps playing what was published. Nothing has to be fetched from Foro at the moment a slot comes round.

Your own content stays where it has always been, scheduled in CampaignManager the way you already work. Foro only supplies the loop it has sold, already booked and priced.

To connect it, create a set of credentials for CampaignManager under Foro Consumers. Those credentials belong to your network alone: CampaignManager sees your screens and your loops, and nothing of anyone else's.

The simplest path: a web browser

If your screens don't run CampaignManager, almost any player that can open a web page can still show a Foro loop.

In Foro, open Inventory → Players. Find the screen, press Create address, and Foro shows a private web address for that screen alone. Copy it straight away; it is shown once. If a player is lost or replaced, create a new address and the old one stops working immediately.

Paste the address into the player. That makes a wide range of hardware usable today:

• a BrightSign player, using an HTML zone;
• a Fire TV stick or an Android media player with a kiosk browser;
• a small PC or Raspberry Pi running a browser in kiosk mode;
• a professional display with its own browser built in. Many Samsung and LG signage displays can open a web address when they start up. Samsung calls the setting URL Launcher on many models, and LG's webOS signage displays have an equivalent. The wording varies with the model and its firmware, so check the display's manual.

The browser address plays every slot in order, holds the timed gaps, rotates creative the way the booking says, and uses the player's own clock to know which part of the day it is in.

It also reports back. After each paid slot plays, the player tells Foro, and that report is the proof of play your advertiser sees. If the connection drops, the player keeps the reports and sends them when it comes back, even after a restart. A report sent twice is still counted once.

The trade-off is the connection itself. Pictures and videos are fetched from Foro as they play, so the screen needs a steady connection: if the network goes down, the screen goes dark until it returns. That is the gap a content system like CampaignManager closes. Video also plays without sound, which suits most public spaces.

When the player wants a different format

Some players don't open web pages. They expect a playlist in a format of their own. Foro offers the same loop in several of the common ones, listed beside the browser address on the Players page.

One difference matters when you set these up. A browser knows the time on the box it runs on. A SMIL, VAST or Media RSS player asks Foro for the loop without saying where it is, so give the screen a time zone on the Players page. Otherwise a lunchtime booking can play at the wrong lunchtime.

If another content system runs your screens

Plenty of networks schedule their screens in another content system, such as MagicInfo. You don't have to replace it to sell through Foro.

The simplest arrangement is to give Foro a zone, or a share of the schedule, and point that zone at the screen's browser address. Most content systems can show a web page as an item. Your own content keeps running where it always has, and the advertising slots come from Foro.

That zone behaves like the browser path above, connection and all. The deeper arrangement, where the content system takes Foro's loop and publishes it to the players itself, is what CampaignManager does today. Other systems can be connected the same way, one at a time.

Which should you choose?

If your screens run Ryarc CampaignManager, use it. The loop is published to the players, and the screen doesn't depend on a live connection to keep playing.

Otherwise, if the player can open a web page, use the browser address. It is the complete loop, it keeps its own clock, and of the direct paths it is the one where every paid play is reported back to Foro, even through a shaky connection.

Use another format only when the player can't open a web page, and know what that format leaves out. Proof of play is what your advertisers are paying to see, so it is worth choosing a path that reports it reliably.

Then stand in front of the screen for a few minutes, watch the loop go round, and check the plays arriving in Foro. That is the real test of any player.