Sending content to multiple smart TV's over Wifi

[Crisp image]

Good Morning All,
I would like to send content from a PC to multiple smart TV's located at various areas around the building over WiFi. What are my options to do this. It needs to be easy so non tech staff can update screens as required. I have done a google search but mostly chromecast which is limited to 1 TV at at time.
Located in Australia so if some hardware is needed we will need to factor in the cost of getting that potentially from overseas.

Looking forward to your comments
Regards
Geoff

 

[spiwak2005]

Not easy and not cheap. And what’s the wifi network? Home-grade? Or Enterprise (school)? Slightly easier and cheaper if you can get Cat5 to each display.

 

[Amiers]

Chrome cast does allow for multiple tv casting. Each tv just needs to have the capability or needs to be smart.

 

[Crisp image]

Not easy and not cheap. And what’s the wifi network? Home-grade? Or Enterprise (school)? Slightly easier and cheaper if you can get Cat5 to each displ

Enterprise Wifi (aged care facility) and would love to get cat 6 to each TV however it is a struggle to do that but not impossible.

 

[Crisp image]

Chrome cast does allow for multiple tv casting. Each tv just needs to have the capability or needs to be smart.

View attachment 22205

Have done this before but then we have to send the content on each user which I can handle but the other users will struggle with the concept and If they shut down the system will not be able to get it to go easily.

 

[spiwak2005]

Enterprise Wifi (aged care facility) and would love to get cat 6 to each TV however it is a struggle to do that but not impossible.

Raspberry Pi attached to each display, a little extra work to get them attached to Enterprise wifi, then a paid digital signage subscription to provide an easy backend for content “programmers”. I’ve been using Yodeck for this. Pretty easy to setup.

 

[spiwak2005]

Raspberry Pi attached to each display, a little extra work to get them attached to Enterprise wifi, then a paid digital signage subscription to provide an easy backend for content “programmers”. I’ve been using Yodeck for this. Pretty easy to setup.

I have never had much luck with chromecast or airplay. On the cheap, I’ve had them create a webpage, that would fit the display resolution, that they could edit in WordPress.

 

[sk8rsdad]

https://www.zeevee.com/. They might have a few options in their product line that fit your available infrastructure.

 

[dbaxter]

Did you look into Plex? You could set up a Plex server with your content, add the Plex channel to your smart TV and view your content. I have a dumb TV and a Roku box on my home wi-fi and it works fine. I would think pretty much any non-techie can tune to a channel. Picture quality for multiple users will depend on the horsepower of your server/host computer.

 

[danTt]

Honestly this might be a good application of sneakernet. Most tvs can play back from thumb drives these days, buying a bunch of usb sticks and swapping them out for upgrades might be the KISS solution

 

[jtweigandt]

Is this a program or signage or both? Sneakernet and the raspberry pi running an image of raspberry pi video looper.
Use a pi3 variant so you have nice hdmi out and standard usb ports. The pi is powered on and it searches for valid video files on any
thumb drive you "hot plug" in. I know it does avi.. pretty sure mp4... You can now have powerpoint auto presentations exported as avi.
I use looper to run the slide show projection in our theater lobby. Just swap out the thumb drive as I need to add content.

Raspberry Pi Video Looper

Learn how to install software on a Raspberry Pi to automatically play video files on USB drives. It even does seamless looping with audio support! Your Raspberry Pi can be an awesome little video playback appliance with up to 1080p HDMI playback

learn.adafruit.com

 

[MarshallPope]

Honestly this might be a good application of sneakernet. Most tvs can play back from thumb drives these days, buying a bunch of usb sticks and swapping them out for upgrades might be the KISS solution

Related to this, I've had luck with this type of media server for screens built into wireless props; it might do the trick here as well if local storage is sufficient.

 

[macsound]

When you're casting, is this for a certain event, like you want to show a video to all the tvs in the common space, or is this for things like rotating slides?

 

[MRW Lights]

What are you using to "broadcast" the information? Given "smart tv" and "Chromecast" being mentioned why not use Google's digital signage scheduler for a google slide presentation or similar?

 

[macsound]

What are you using to "broadcast" the information? Given "smart tv" and "Chromecast" being mentioned why not use Google's digital signage scheduler for a google slide presentation or similar?

I have to admit, the idea of Google sign builder looks cool, but when did Google stuff get as complicated and bassakward as Microsoft. The instructions to just install the app is 9 steps!

 

[MRW Lights]

I have to admit, the idea of Google sign builder looks cool, but when did Google stuff get as complicated and bassakward as Microsoft. The instructions to just install the app is 9 steps!

You're not wrong. At my last facility it took myself and my IT manager to use it for our wayfinding screens in our lobby. Overall a pretty cool and dynamic setup. Since it ran off of google slides I gave Marketing access to edit the presentation only from their accounts, so they could make changes and they would appear instantly after saving, but they couldn't change the directory information used for the scheduler.

It also made it fun for marketing takeovers. We would give another template out to visiting companies to edit that rotated in a playlist with a house presentation. Pretty cool stuff, but it takes some dedication to setup and manage.

 

[macsound]

Any idea if it can do vertical fullscreen?

 

[urban79]

It can, but warning - Google Sign Builder is no longer supported, and we had major issues this year with updates to chromeboxes that would break the functionality. It worked well for us for a while, but it was worth it to go to signage software just to keep things running...

 

[dbaxter]

If you are looking at providing content from a Goggle drive, take a look at KODI, which is free, and its Goggle drive add-on. The KODI media server runs on almost any host, Windows, Mac, Linux, Pi and your slides can come from the Goggle drive. I have not set this up myself, being a Plex user, but it reads as it would solve the problem nicely.

 

[rwhealey]

Are you trying to do signage or content like a presentation?

For content, Mersive’s Active Learning Mode in the Solstice product line basically builds a large wireless video matrix:

Active Learning: Software-Based Solution for Multi-Screen Environments

Drag-and-drop room configuration and video switching for multi-screen environments. No hardware switches or controllers required. Set up in minutes!

www.mersive.com