Content Orientation

The default orientation for all content in Cisco Vision Director is landscape mode.

In Release 4.1 and earlier releases, you can manually create content in vertical format (static graphics only) and rotate it. Release 5.0 supports auto-rotation of content in portrait mode set in the TV display specification.

Guidelines for Portrait Mode Auto-Rotation

■Supported in Release 5.0 and later releases.

■Allows DMPs to automatically rotate content for proper orientation on vertically- positioned displays.

■Supported for all content sources for a single TV display.

■Scaling of content across multiple display screens in portrait mode is only supported for multicast streaming video.

■Enabled using the "dmp.Portrait=true" display parameter when configuring TV display specifications in the Control Panel.

HDMI-CEC

Support for HDMI Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is introduced in Release 5.0. It allows you to control the following three TV functions:

■Power On

■Standby (Power Off)

■Power Status

When HDMI CEC TV control is enabled, HDMI CEC is used instead of RS-232 for TV control functions. To control TVs, you can run the TV On and TV Off from the DMP and TV Controls > TV Commands menu in the Management Dashboard.

You can configure a TV display for HDMI-CEC TV control using one of two methods:

■Apply the HDMI/CEC Standard display specification for new TVs, where the HDMI-CEC display parameters are automatically enabled and set to default values.

■Modify an existing display specification to set the HDMI-CEC display parameters manually.

The following commands are used HDMI/CEC TV control:

■dmp.powerQueryByCEC—(New in Release 5.0) Enables powerQuery to get TV Power status using HDMI/CEC instead of RS-232.

■dmp.TVControlbyCEC—(New in Release 5.0) Enables TV control using HDMI/CEC instead of RS-232.

■dmp.monitorAPIDelay—Frequency of power query command sent by Dynamic Signage Director over HDMI CEC to the TV. The default is 120000 ms (2 minutes). This command is also supported when using TV control with RS-232.

■dmp.monitorPower—Enables Dynamic Signage Director to run a power query to the TV using the Get Status command from the Management Dashboard. This command is also supported when using TV control with RS-232.

TV Qualification for HDMI-CEC Support

Note: Not all TVs support the standard HDMI-CEC commands. Test the TV models that you plan to install fir support of HDMI CEC. Turn on HDMI-CEC. TV manufacturers refer to CEC by different trade names. For example, Anynet+ (Samsung), BRAVIALink (Sony), EasyLink (Phillips), and SimpLink (LG).

For more information about the successfully tested TV for HDMI CEC, see Release Notes for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director Release 6.0.

Serial Commands for RS-232 Communication

RS-232 commands can be used to control TV functions such as On/Off, mute, volume and external input. In more specialized scenarios they might also be used to configure TV tile matrix capabilities.

RS-232 responses are used to retrieve the current status of a TV. Currently Cisco Vision Director uses responses only when querying a TV for its current power on/off status.

For situations where a TV cannot be controlled via RS-232 or otherwise, volume and mute can be controlled by the media player instead. This is behavior is indicated by configuring volume and mute commands that start with sigma=.

Serial Commands for RS-232 TV Control

Table 1 shows a summary of the display parameters and RS-232 commands for the SV-4K and DMP-2K with their default values. The table shows command names and values for an LG 19LH20 TV display only.

Note : Different TV display models may support only certain RS-232 commands.

Table 1 SV-4K and DMP 2K Serial Commands

Volume Control

When properly configured in Cisco Vision Director, volume changes can be made from methods such as the IP phone, IR remote, Management Dashboard, or event script state change.

Volume changes for the primary video audio can be controlled for the SPDIF (on the SV-4K only), analog audio, and HDMI out ports only when the TV display specification volume strategy is set to internal.

Volume Strategy Option

Cisco Vision Director supports three Volume Strategy settings, see Figure 2.

Figure 2 Control Panel Display Specifications—Volume Strategy Option

Internal—Internal allows volume change control of the audio feed by Cisco Vision Director (such as by the IP phone, IR remote, Management Dashboard, or event script state).

External—External allows volume change control by sending serial commands from the media player to the TV (via RS-232).

Note: We recommend external volume strategy because most TVs have better audio range than the DMP and many TVs show a visual indicator of the volume as it changes. This strategy also avoids problems if someone changes the volume using the TV panel buttons or the TV remote.

None—The volume cannot be adjusted. This is useful for TVs that are used for video only where audio (if any) is provided separately (such as in a bar where an overhead system provides the audio).

How to Configure TV Display Specifications

This section includes the following topics:

■Guidelines for RS-232 Command Configuration

■Configuring Basic Information for TV Display Specifications,

■Configuring Portrait Mode in TV Display Specifications

■Configuring Touchscreen Support

■Configuring Touchscreen Support

Guidelines for RS-232 Command Configuration

Consider the following guidelines when configuring RS-232 commands in TV display specifications:

■Cisco Vision Director supports only one RS-232 command per event state.

■All RS-232 commands configured in Cisco Vision Director must use the prefix rs232.tx_hex=.

■RS-232 responses are used to retrieve the current status of a TV.

■RS-232 responses are always configured without a prefix.

■Cisco Vision Director uses responses only when querying a TV for its current power on/off status.

■For situations where a TV cannot be controlled via RS-232 or otherwise, volume and mute can be controlled by the media player instead.

Configuring Basic Information for TV Display Specifications

User Role: Administrator

To configure basic information for TV display specifications:

1. Go to Control Panel > Setup > Devices > Display Specifications.

2. Do one of the following:

■Select an existing display specification.

■Click the + icon to add a new display specification.

3. Refer to Table 2 to specify the options in the Basic Info panel.

Table 2 Basic TV Display Specification Options

4. Click Save.

5. Apply configuration to the DMPs:

■ SV-4K and DMP-2K —Reboot the DMP(s).

Configuring HDMI-CEC TV Control in TV Display Specifications

User Role: Administrator, Venue Administrator

You can apply the HDMI/CEC Standard display specification for new TVs, or you can modify an existing display specification to add the display parameters commands independently.

If you use the HDMI/CEC Standard display specification, the four related HDMI-CEC commands for TV control are enabled and set to any corresponding default value.

To configure HDMI-CEC display parameters:

1. Go to Control Panel > Setup > Devices > Display Specifications

2. Select an existing display specification or add a new one.

3. Click Display Parameters.

4. Find and set the following parameters:

Note : You can run the Get Status command from the Management Dashboard to get the latest TV health status known to the DMP. This information can be up to two minutes old, or a few seconds depending on when the power query last ran.

If the “dmp.monitorPower” parameter is set to false then you will not get the correct TV health status.

5. Click Save.

6. Reboot the DMPs.

Configuring Portrait Mode in TV Display Specifications

User Role: Administrator, Venue Administrator

Portrait rendering mode allows the DMPs to automatically rotate content for proper orientation on vertically-positioned displays.

To configure the portrait mode display parameter:

1. Go to: Control Panel > Setup > Devices > Display Specifications

2. Select an existing display specification or add a new one.

3. Click Display Parameters.

4. Click the + icon to add a new display parameter.

5. Where prompted to enter a new command, type dmp.Portrait in the box.

6. In the Configured Status box, type true. See Figure 3.

Figure 3 Setting Portrait Display Parameter

7. Click Save.

8. Reboot the DMPs.

Configuring Touchscreen Support

For proper touchscreen operation with HTML5 pages, be sure that your touchscreen devices are human interface device (HID)-compliant and are using standard HID drivers.

Note: Some manufacturers claim support for HID while using custom drivers. Verify that standard HID drivers are used.

By default the display parameter is set to false for Cisco Vision Director. To enable touchscreen capability between your device and the DMP, you must change that.

To enable touchscreen capabilities for your specific device:

1. In Cisco Vision Director, go to Control Panel > Setup > Devices > Display Specifications (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Setting Display Specifications

2. Create a display specification for your device screen. See the device specifications for this information. Use the green plus icon to create a new spec.

3. Choose Elo for Touch Screen Type from the Basic Info tab (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Touch Screen Type

4. Or, scroll down the list of devices. Find your Make and Model and select it.

5. Click the Display Parameters tab.

6. Scroll down to dmp.SupportsTouchScreen and select it (Figure 6).

Figure 6 Setting.DMPSupportsTouchScreen Parameter

7. In the Display Parameter Configuration box, change false to “ true ” for your device (Figure 6).

8. Click Save.

By enabling this feature, you are giving touch screen support to a state or a channel to your content (generally an HTML page).

To connect the DMP to your device, use a USB A to B-type cable that connects from the DMP USB port to your device.

Configuring Serial Commands for External Volume Support

User Role: Administrator

When using the external volume strategy, you must configure RS-232 commands to send to the TV to change the volume.

Note : When using internal volume strategy, volume commands do not need to be configured.

Cisco Vision Director allows you to configure two types of volume controls:

■Relative—Depends on the volume increments set in the TV, which vary from model to model.

■Absolute—Preferred method. Defines a number of increments that are used to control the volume between the minimum and maximum volume levels.

–For the SV-4K—Absolute volume is configured only by the series of Volumen commands only.

Table 3 provides information about the serial commands used to configure the Relative and Absolute types of external volume control.

Table 3 Serial Commands for External Volume Support

Table 4 shows an example of RS-232 command strings defined for Absolute volume control using 12 increments.

Table 4 Volume Count Command Example for an LG TV Display

Modifying the TV Banner Duration

The TV display banner is a graphical banner that temporarily appears at the top of the display to provide information about the TV that received a TV command (Figure 7). The display banner is enabled by default with a duration of 5 seconds.

Figure 7 TV Display Banner and Screen Identification

To configure the TV display banner:

1. From the Management Dashboard, go to: DMP and TV Controls > TV Commands> Set Display Banner.

2. In the Duration box, set the duration in milliseconds.

3. Select the devices to which you want to apply the command.

4. Click the play button to run the command on those devices.

Figure 8 Set Display Banner—Common Panel

Disabling the TV Display Banner

User Roles: Administrator

For a better visual experience for video wall displays, disable the TV display banner. The TV display banner is enabled by default for all TV displays.

To disable the TV display banner globally:

1. From the Management Dashboard, go to: Tools > Advanced> Registry

2. In the Registry Data box, click Add Row.

3. In the key field, type localControl.banner.disable.

4. In the value field, type true.

5. Click Apply.