On screen (TV overlay) C4 notifications rollout, feedback requested

[videostorm]

11 minutes ago, OceanDad said:

Where is the 'Netplay Cloud Driver' on the Videostorm site ?  I see the 'Full Netplay Pro/Home system driver' if that's the one.  The site is a little jumbled, to say the least.

Sorry, it is actually linked from the SplashTiles documentation  https://splash-tiles.com/help/reference.php

Driver:  https://www.video-storm.com/downloads/npcloud.c4z

[OceanDad]

Got it now, thanks.  Is a 'Netplay Cloud' account the same thing as the account that I'm using to configure Splash Tiles ?  I don't mean to appear snarky, but you seem to have made all of this  a bit more complicated than it should be.

Currently trying to link a NetPlay Cloud Account - I'm assuming that I need to set up a new account, as it's not accepting my credentials from Splash Tiles.

[videostorm]

1 hour ago, OceanDad said:

Got it now, thanks.  Is a 'Netplay Cloud' account the same thing as the account that I'm using to configure Splash Tiles ?  I don't mean to appear snarky, but you seem to have made all of this  a bit more complicated than it should be.

Currently trying to link a NetPlay Cloud Account - I'm assuming that I need to set up a new account, as it's not accepting my credentials from Splash Tiles.

No worries

SplashTiles account:  This is what you log into splash-tiles.com with to create your screens, link your devices, etc.  This is also where you create the "browser id" that you use in the NetPlay Cloud driver   (just follow the tutorial video)

NetPlay Cloud account:  This is only needed it you want to do 2 way control BACK to your C4 system.  It is a different account that you can create inside the account linking section in splash-tiles.com.  It creates a secure, real time firebase cloud control socket between your device and your control4 system.  Once you create this inside Splash-Tiles.com and link it (on the same page), you won't use those credentials anymore (Splash-tiles saves them securely for you).  After the NetPlay Cloud account is linked you just need to set the NetPlay Cloud property to "on" in the same C4 driver to get the 2 way control online.

 

So under the hood there is a lot going on to get the secure real time 2 way control.  But you just need to create & link the NetPlay Cloud account.  Also, if you just want 1 way notifications you don't need the NetPlay Cloud account part at all (just the browser token from SplashTiles).

 

Edit:  I should add that NetPlay Cloud itself is free.  It is the firebase backbone we use to connect all our NetPlay products securely via the cloud (NetPlay Home/Pro, IRUSB, etc).

[OceanDad]

Understood, thanks.  I can get the Sony TV to display a simple announcement that I set up in my Splash Tiles Account, when I open the app on the TV.  That shows me that the TV is correctly linked to my account.  I can't yet seem to get a C4 trigger to display an announcement.

In your video, you show the setup for a tile from within Splash Tile - that piece seems straightforward.  I assumed that what Composer would be doing would be calling that tile from within Splash Tiles.  What's confusing me is that you then show the setup in Composer involving the loading of an image and text separately from the image and text that you have already set up in Splash Tiles.  Can you clarify ?  In your specific example, when the C4 event is triggered which image should display - the wheelchair.png or the C4 logo or both ?

[malelan]

will this feature exist natively for netplaytv customers at some point?

[videostorm]

8 minutes ago, OceanDad said:

Understood, thanks.  I can get the Sony TV to display a simple announcement that I set up in my Splash Tiles Account, when I open the app on the TV.  That shows me that the TV is correctly linked to my account.  I can't yet seem to get a C4 trigger to display an announcement.

In your video, you show the setup for a tile from within Splash Tile - that piece seems straightforward.  I assumed that what Composer would be doing would be calling that tile from within Splash Tiles.  What's confusing me is that you then show the setup in Composer involving the loading of an image and text separately from the image and text that you have already set up in Splash Tiles.  Can you clarify ?  In your specific example, when the C4 event is triggered which image should display - the wheelchair.png or the C4 logo or both ?

In the video, we showed using a "Push data" tile for the announcement.  These tiles will display dynamic data that is "pushed" to our server via the C4 driver.  We also put some test data into the tile via the "Control" page as an example of what it will look like.

In actual use, you typically will use the commands on the c4 driver to push the text and/or images you specifically need dynamically.  In the video, I used commands on the driver to send image to slot 8, text to slot 9, then the command to display that screen as an overlay.    (I actually later took out the command to send image to 8 because I didn't have a c4 logo in the driver, so you never see the wheelchair in the video....)

Think of it as you have 10 storage slots for data in the cloud.  Your SplashTiles screens can be set to display any/all of these slots.  When they do, they display the last thing you put there.  You can put data in the slots either via the C4 driver or manually via SplashTiles "control".

[videostorm]

13 minutes ago, malelan said:

will this feature exist natively for netplaytv customers at some point?

Yes.  Probably mid feb.

[OceanDad]

Browser token continually shows invalid.  I've tried deleting the device and setting up a new token, but still shows invalid.  Any suggestions ?

[videostorm]

54 minutes ago, OceanDad said:

Browser token continually shows invalid.  I've tried deleting the device and setting up a new token, but still shows invalid.  Any suggestions ?

Make sure you have NetPlay Cloud enable set to OFF if not using it.  If that isn't the issue, open a ticket at https://netplay.freshdesk.com/  and include your splash tiles user name, a screen shot of your C4 driver properties page, and cut/paste of the lua output window in the driver (if possible).

[videostorm]

On most devices you will need to set the permission to "display over other apps".  You can find the instructions here https://splash-tiles.com/help/overlaypip.php

Our app is supposed to point you to the appropriate ones based on the platform version (if it detects the permission is not granted).  However, there is a bug currently preventing this (will be fixed soon).  

[OceanDad]

Thanks !  It's working now on two separate Sony Bravia TV's.  One running Android 8, one running Android 9.  Both needed the 'display over other apps' permission enabled for transparent overlay to work.

Small question :  The time and date stamp that appears in every notification isn't very elegant.  Is there any way of disabling it ?

[videostorm]

6 minutes ago, OceanDad said:

Thanks !  It's working now on two separate Sony Bravia TV's.  One running Android 8, one running Android 9.  Both needed the 'display over other apps' permission enabled for transparent overlay to work.

Small question :  The time and date stamp that appears in every notification isn't very elegant.  Is there any way of disabling it ?

Awesome

No, we need to add an option field to remove that.  Just submit a ticket and we can get that added soon.

[OceanDad]

Any chance that you can get RTSP camera streams to display in the PIP while you are at it ?

[videostorm]

1 hour ago, OceanDad said:

Any chance that you can get RTSP camera streams to display in the PIP while you are at it ?

SplashTiles can do jpeg at about 5 fps, or mjpg at around 10 fps

RTSP we can also do (at full resolution / fps), but that requires our NetPlay system.  As mentioned above, NetPlay will get the transparent HDMI overlay feature in about a month.  Can't promise exact capabilities until then of course.

[Bmwbball88]

4 hours ago, videostorm said:

Awesome

No, we need to add an option field to remove that.  Just submit a ticket and we can get that added soon.

Where do we submit a to for this request?

[videostorm]

23 minutes ago, Bmwbball88 said:

Where do we submit a to for this request?

https://netplay.freshdesk.com/

[Baubas Cat]

I have cameras connected to motion detectors that trigger an announcement. If I wanted to have the camera feeds pop-up in overlay mode on my TV what exactly would I need to purchase?

[OceanDad]

Based on my experience, I would check first to see if your cameras are capable of giving you an MJPEG stream that is viewable via an external URL.  Test this first.  If this is possible, then all you need is a Splash Tiles account.  There is a free one, but you should probably stretch to at least the $25/year option or the $75/year option, depending on how many monthly views you think you will need.

I have one particular camera that I want to use for PIP, but it happens to be an analog camera that is running through an analog-IP converter.  I can get the RTSP stream to work via URL, but not MJPEG.  Unfortunately Splash Tiles won't do PIP for RTSP.  As you can see above, that's a Net Play function, which will end up being quite a lot more expensive.

This 'Analog/IP' camera is running into a Hikvision hybrid NVR, so maybe there is a way that I can get an MJPEG URL to work for Splash Tiles from the NVR, but I haven't found it yet.

[videostorm]

Almost all cameras have a method to fetch still images  (http jpeg GET url).   The SplashTiles camera tile can fetch that several times a second, which is functionally equivalent to an actual MJPEG feed at a lower frame rate.

In C4 programming, you would just tie the "Show overlay" command on our NetPlay Cloud driver to the motion trigger event on your Camera driver.

BTW, you can use device "000" to hit ALL your TVs at once if that is most convenient.  

 

For required hardware, see this page:    https://splash-tiles.com/help/hdmioverlay.php

Basically if you have an Android TV or Fire OS TV, none needed.  Otherwise you can use the linked OTT box for HDMI overlay or just an Android streaming device for app/home overlay.

[videostorm]

Hope you have been enjoying the new overlay functions!

We are getting ready to rollout live sports scores tiles next.  These will be available as overlays as well of course.

 

Question:  What data do you want to see?

Currently implementing:

• Ticker tape with team names, current score only   (or scheduled time if not started yet)
• Table format with team names,  score, quarter & time remaining
• Rotating tile format with more information on each game today you are following

We can also do league scorecards, standings, or other historical / statistical data if you would like to see it.

What would you like?

[WhyPhy]

I got this working today, and I'm impressed with the feature. It was a little more complicated of a setup than expected. The biggest issues were:

1. The Netplay Cloud driver was impossible to find. The forum post above is the only place I can find for the link. Google didn't return anything.
2. It wasn't clear that I needed to enable overlays. When an overlay notification was sent, my nVidia Shield switch to the Splash Tiles app and displayed the full-screen editor, which was really confusing. The setup instructions should state that app overlay permission must be granted to the Splash Tiles App.

I tried multiple times, but I could never get image to display from my Control4 DS2 DoorStation. (The URL is not accessible outside of my home network for security reasons - does it need to be?). The format of the URL is

https://root:password@192.168.1.100/api/camera/snapshot?width=640&height=480&source=internal

 

[videostorm]

24 minutes ago, WhyPhy said:

I got this working today, and I'm impressed with the feature. It was a little more complicated of a setup than expected. The biggest issues were:

1. The Netplay Cloud driver was impossible to find. The forum post above is the only place I can find for the link. Google didn't return anything.
2. It wasn't clear that I needed to enable overlays. When an overlay notification was sent, my nVidia Shield switch to the Splash Tiles app and displayed the full-screen editor, which was really confusing. The setup instructions should state that app overlay permission must be granted to the Splash Tiles App.

I tried multiple times, but I could never get image to display from my Control4 DS2 DoorStation. (The URL is not accessible outside of my home network for security reasons - does it need to be?). The format of the URL is

https://root:password@192.168.1.100/api/camera/snapshot?width=640&height=480&source=internal

 

Thanks for the feedback!

1.  You can also get the NetPlay Cloud driver in C4 section of our reference docs  https://splash-tiles.com/help/reference.php

2.  The app is "trying" to load the doc page with instructions on enabling overlay if it detects no permission.  Unfortunately there was a typo in the URL so it just loaded a default page instead which is definitely really confusing....   Sorry about that       Should be fixed now though.  When did you try it?  Which app version?

 

I saw you filed a ticket on the DoorStation issue.  We will help with that issue via the ticket system.

[rocky350z]

On 1/13/2021 at 3:56 PM, Bmwbball88 said:

I have a Samsung tv in c4 So I would be interested 

I also have multiple Samsung TV's and would be interested.

[bdo21]

Yes - a Samsung version would be great! Thanks

[videostorm]

9 hours ago, bdo21 said:

Yes - a Samsung version would be great! Thanks

Ok, I went ahead and did the prelim design work for Samsung (Tizen).

The good news (what would work):

• Full screen Splash-Tiles screens could be remotely triggered and displayed.  Probably will work for TVs as old as 2017.
• Our same NetplayCloud driver should be able to control them (for screen display / dismiss / etc)

The bad new (what can't work):

• Overlay over other applications
• Overlay over HDMI / TV
• Authenticated camera feeds

 

The last two are just not supported in Tizen.  You CAN create a PIP window of HDMI OVER your SplashTiles screen.  However, that isn't really what we want and would be quite disruptive (full screen video closes, full screen notification would load, then video PIP loads on top...... same issue to dismiss...).   Authenticated feeds are more of a "probably" won't work.  Would need to do a full implementation to verify.

Based on these I would say it isn't worth the considerable effort to port to this platform.  Any thoughts?  Would you still really want it given no overlay support?  We could likely accomplish the first bullet just using the Tizen web browser app (probably triggered to display your custom screen via the C4 ethernet driver).