Digital signage solutions for Mac OS?

Posted by GoodCraftDev@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 18 comments

Are there any good digital signage solutions for Mac?

I've got a client with just a Mac Mini on 3 lobby TVs wanting content to span all of them and schedule content basic signage things.

The hardware is overkill but it's the best solution for them assuming there's a good software solution for it.

Thanks!

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ChristmassMoose@reddit

power point. Cheap, easy, reliableish

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GoodCraftDev@reddit (OP)

You can span multiple screens with one presentation with powerpoint?

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ChristmassMoose@reddit

If you mean mirroring each screen yeah, if you need separate content then you need a separate ppt for each screen.

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GoodCraftDev@reddit (OP)

See I need video to span all 3 at the same time

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Frothyleet@reddit

When you say "span" do you mean each monitor has 1/3 of the content? Or do you want each monitor to have the same content?

If the latter, each monitor just needs to be set to mirror, as the guy above says.

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Entegy@reddit

In the Mac's display settings, turn off Displays have separate Spaces. That will allow you to span app windows across all screens.

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Yodeck. Setup 3 screens, open the screen URL on each display. So you'd have 3 browser windows open, one for each display. However, I recommend going with their Yodeck player for this as it requires less maintenance. If client would rather have to "fix" the digital signage once a month due to the browser needing to be refreshed/full screen or spend $300 for 3 raspberry pi-like devices then that is a client I do not want.

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GoodCraftDev@reddit (OP)

So new hardware or not how easy does a Yodeck make it to have these 3 grouped and have one image span all 3 (really video that needs to do this but both are needed). I've not used it but I've heard a lot about it

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New-Seesaw1719@reddit

Macs have a setting for spanning a display over multiple monitors. Deselect "Displays have separate Spaces" in the System Preferences -> Mission Control. Try this with a YouTube video as I've heard the feature doesn't work with full screen video. If it does work then the web browser Yodeck should work.

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Rowerberr@reddit

Kitcast is built natively for Mac OS. I think it's the best solution out there, specifically for Apple hardware

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marvinxtech@reddit

I’d go with Play Digital Signage. It has the clearest Mac support, and the essentials scheduling, syncing, and autostart on boot are solid and ready to go.

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no_need_to_breathe@reddit

Not sure why this is such a weird Mac limitation. You can do this on Windows effortlessly. Just stretch it across the 3 screens, done. That would be my recommendation.

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GoodCraftDev@reddit (OP)

This is interesting. Yes that works with a item spanning the display but it doesn't let something full screen play it just does one screen and the others are black which is an interesting choice.

So while it'd work it'd be a very clunky lobby display

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no_need_to_breathe@reddit

You're not going to get something that's set as full screen to work on anything other than a single display without it being a totally different piece of hardware + software. I'd recommend the following to get something that should be close.

Settings -> Desktop & Dock -> Enable Automatically Hide and Show the Dock
Settings -> Menu Bar -> Automatically hide and show the menu bar -> Always

That should allow you to take up the full screen (or close to it) on all of your displays and have a nearly identical experience. That's the best I think you can do with stock MacOS and I'm not sure there's a piece of software that does exactly what you want for it. Good luck.

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sagiadinos@reddit

Yes, and even Open Source.

https://github.com/garlic-signage https://garlic-signage.com

garlic-player is the media player which runs also on macOS. The corresponding CMS is garlic-hub.

I am the developer.

You need some technical skills to run the solution. I am working on this.

Greetings Niko

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xendr0me@reddit

Amazon Signage Stick, plug into HDMI and move on with life?

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GoodCraftDev@reddit (OP)

What's your go to on software if you needed to do videos that span all 3 screens at once?