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mikldt edited this page Sep 16, 2014 · 4 revisions

Overview

Concerto Hardware is a plugin to Concerto 2 that enables command and control of Concerto client computers. It works hand-in-hand with the Bandshell Player management software running on the client.

An example of what we mean by control of a player is screen on/off control. Once a player has been set up, the screen's owner can log into Concerto, and from the Screen page access settings including what time of day the screen should turn on, and then what time it should turn off (this is a great way to save energy when buildings are closed). Concerto Hardware communicates this information to the PC which controls the screen, which in turn puts it into action.

Status

Concerto Hardware is included by default in new Concerto installations and has been successfully tested in a number of environments. However, there is still much work to do. For an idea of what we plan to accomplish with this system, see our Roadmap in the Bandshell Wiki.

Requirements

Our goal in developing hardware management for Concerto has been to vastly simplify screen deployment. To that end, we aim to develop a single Player image that will be applicable to all screen deployments. However, business requirements and screen hardware and can vary widely. Hardware management exists to manage all the things that make each deployment unique.

Concerto Hardware's mission is to expand the Concerto Web Portal so it can collect all of the configuration that differs from screen to screen within a Concerto network, and transmit that information to client software running behind each Screen. To accomplish this, the plugin needs the following abilities:

  • Uniquely identify each Player
  • Maintain parameters for controlling the physical display
  • Maintain parameters for controlling OS customizations

The goal is to do all this automatically, with simple and intuitive selections for the user to make. File system modification, SSH access, etc., will not be necessary if concerto-hardware, Bandshell, and the Player Image do their jobs correctly.

Documentation

User Documentation

  • Installing the concerto-hardware plugin (TODO)
  • Screen Configuration Process (TODO)
  • Concerto Hardware User's Manual (TODO)

Developer Documentation

  • Player API - Details communication between the server (concerto-hardware) and the screen (Bandshell)
  • Schema - Concerto Hardware's database contributions
  • Plugin Integration Details - Details the boundary between the Concerto Hardware Engine and the Concerto application itself

Important links

For more information about the Concerto project, including installation information, user forums, and more, see http://www.concerto-signage.org.

The following projects give some context when working with Bandshell.

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