Video Kiosk Guides and Tutorials

These tutorials cover many of the features of Video Kiosk.

Contents

How to Install Video Kiosk

Video Kiosk is designed to be a reliable, video kiosk playing media content in a loop without any configuration. To use Video Kiosk, follow these steps:

  1. Create a folder in one of the following locations and put your media in the folder:
    • /sdcard/<android id>
    • /sdcard/Movies/<android id>
    • /sdcard/Video Kiosk
    • /sdcard/Movies/Video Kiosk
  2. Launch Video Kiosk.
  3. There is no Step 3.

Video Kiosk will now play the contents of the media folder, in a loop, in Full Screen, unattended. The only thing staff needs to know how to do is turn the TV on – Video Kiosk takes care of the rest.

Video Kiosk offers many additional features which you can use to enhance the reliability, usability and management of your Video Kiosk.


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Supported Media Types

Video Kiosk will display videos, images or URL bookmarks on an Android TV, tablet or phone.

Displaying Video

To play videos, put the video files in the media folder. The video formats that a given Android device supports is determined by the device manufacturer.

Displaying Images

To play images, put the image files in the media folder.

Using URL Bookmarks to display Web Content

Video Kiosk supports .url files (web shortcuts). This feature is typically used to display live web content, like an Instagram feed, but you can reference any URL on the web.

To play web content, create a .url file and put the .url files in the media folder.

  • If your media folder includes .url files, the web content will be displayed as specified in the .url file. (The default is to display the specified web content for 30 seconds.)
  • To create a .url file:
    • In a Text Editor, create a URL file, with the extension “.url”.
      For file contents requirements, refer to the URL file Syntax Guide.
    • Place the .url files in your media folder.

For more information, refer to the Video Kiosk User’s Manual.


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Display Modes

Video Kiosk’s playback screen supports three different modes in which to display media:

  • Full Screen Mode, which is the default
  • Interactive Kiosk Mode, where the content is selected by the user touching the tablet screen
  • Digital Signage widget Mode, where the screen is divided into areas, each displaying different content.
    • Area A displays the contents of your media folder (Video, Images, Web Content)
    • Areas B, C and D display widgets and/or web content.
      • Configure Areas B, C and D to either display one widget, etc continuously or to scroll through any number of widgets or URLs
      • Change the padding between the widgets (more, less, none), change the size of the widget areas
        Video Kiosk Android Weather Widget ScreenshotVideo Kiosk Android - Digital Signage Screen

For more information about display modes, refer to the Video Kiosk User’s Manual.


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Controlling Playback

You can control playback using three methods: the Default Playback Behavior, Control Playback Order, and Using a Schedule.

Use the Default Playback Behavior

If you have not configured a Playback Order, Video Kiosk will play the contents of the Media Folder in the order of either the first playlist it finds in the Media Folder or, if a playlist is not found, the media folder contents in alphabetical order by full path name.

Control Playback Order using a pickone folder, a playlist or the file and path order

For more information about using a pickone folder, a playlist or the file and path order to control playback order, refer to the Video Kiosk User’s Manual.

Use a Schedule to Control Playback

You can control playback by implementing a schedule. There are four methods you can use;

  • Create the schedule on the Android Calendar on the device
  • Create an XML schedule file and put it on the device
  • Control it remotely by creating the schedule on Google Calendar and the device access the schedule over the internet (Requires Internet access for the device)
  • Control it remotely by creating an XML schedule file and then download to the device using a cloud service. (Requires Internet access and cloud service access for the device)

Resources:



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Controlling the Display

Display features control how your content looks on the device.

  • Digital Signage Widgets features are used to configure and customize the screen when using Digital Signage Widget Mode.
  • Overlays and backgrounds are used to display backgrounds behind media files and overlays in front.
  • Overlays with hotspots are used to allow users of an interactive kiosk to view the pages associated with the URLs using the integrated kiosk web view.
  • You can also customize timers to control the time images are displayed and configure timers to fade between media files
  • You can customize the screen orientation.

Overlays and Backgrounds

Video Kiosk supports backgrounds to be displayed behind your media as it is playing and behind digital signage. You can use no background (the default), one background, or to cycle between a number of backgrounds.

Video Kiosk also supports overlays files, with or without hotspots. An Overlay without hotspots is often used to overlay video with a graphic over part of the screen and is often used to overly a company logo in the corner of the screen.

Resources:

Overlays with Hotspots

Whereas overlays without hotspots are used to overlay video with a company logo in the corner of the screen, an Overlay with hotspots is used to create an interactive video kiosk that allows users to click on the screen to link to content on the web, using the integrated kiosk web view.

Resources:



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Remote Management and Update

Remote Update

Using a Cloud Service, you can remotely change the media, the schedule file and overlay files on Video Kiosk.

Here’s an example of how to do this:

  1. Create a media folder for Video Kiosk on your device(s).
  2. Set up a Cloud Service such as Google Drive or Dropbox.
    How to set up Dropbox for use with Video Kiosk
  3. Create a media folder for Video Kiosk on your Cloud Service.
  4. Sync the media folder on the device with the media folder on your Cloud Service. If you are synching more than one device to this media folder, sync each device to your Cloud Service.
    How to Install Dropsync on Android device for use with Video Kiosk
    How to Link Dropsync to Dropbox for use with Video Kiosk
  5. Move your content files into the media folder on your Cloud Service. The new media will be downloaded to all the devices that are synched to that media folder.
    How to Update your video kiosk media remotely using Dropbox

Remote Device Status Reporting

Because Video Kiosk was designed to be remotely managed, it supports both sending status reports to a URL and receiving responses so you can integrate Video Kiosk remote devices into a management system. Video Kiosk Android examines the response to the HTTP/HTTPS POST for key value pairs that it will use to update the management interface settings.

  • Remote Management Reference Guide  This Reference Guide explains the Remote Management Status Tracking interface which supports both sending status reports to a URL and receiving responses so you can integrate Video Kiosk remote devices into a management system.

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