Command Sync command-sync
The following page describes how to use Command Sync. Command Sync allows synchronized playback across different players. The players can play different content but each asset must have the same duration.
Overview overview
Digital signage solutions must support video walls and synchronized playback to support scenarios like New Year countdowns or large video sliced up to play across multiple screens and this is where Command Sync comes into play.
To use Command Sync, one player acts as a primary and sends command and all the other players act as clients and play when they receive the command.
The primary sends a command to all registered clients when it is about to start playback of an item. The payload of this can be the index of the item to be played and/or the outer html of the element to be played.
Implementing Command Sync using-command-sync
The following section describes how you can use Command Sync in an AEM Screens project.
Setting up the Project setting-up
Before you use Command Sync feature, make sure you have a project and a channel with content set up for your project.
-
The following example showcases a demo project named CommandSyncDemo and a sequence channel ChannelLobby.
note note NOTE To learn how to create a channel or add content to a channel, see Creating and Managing Channels The channel contains the following content, as shown in the figure below.
-
Create a location Lobby and then a display titled as LobbyDisplay in the Locations folder, as shown in the figure below.
-
Assign the channel, ChannelLobby to your LobbyDisplay. You can now view the assigned channel to the display from the display dashboard.
note note NOTE To learn how to assign a channel to a display, see Creating and Managing Displays. -
Navigate to Devices folder.
-
Click Device Manager from the action bar.
note note NOTE To learn how to register a device, see Device Registration -
For demo purposes, this example showcases a chrome device and a windows player as two separate devices. Both the devices point to the same display.
Updating Channel Settings
-
Navigate to ChannelLobby.
-
Click Edit from the action bar.
-
Click the entire channel as shown in the figure below.
-
Click the wrench icon.
-
In the Page dialog box, enter the synced keyword in the Strategy field.
Setting up a primary setting-up-primary
-
Navigate to the display dashboard from CommandSyncDemo > Locations > Lobby > LobbyDisplay and click Dashboard from the action bar.
Notice the two devices (chrome and windows player) in DEVICES panel, as see in the following:
-
From the DEVICES panel, click the device you want to set as primary. The following example demonstrates setting up the Chrome device as the primary. Click Set as primary device.
-
Enter the IP address in Set as primary device and click Save.
Syncing up with Primary sync-up-primary
-
After you have set the Chrome device as primary, sync the other device (in this case, the windows player) to sync with the primary.
Click the other device (in this case, windows player) from the DEVICES panel and click Sync to primary device.
-
Click the device from the list and click Save.
[NOTE:]
The Sync to primary device dialog box shows the list of primary devices. Select the one preferred. -
When the device (Windows player) is synced to the primary (Chrome player), you can see the device synced in the DEVICES panel.
De-Syncing with the Primary desync-up-primary
After you have synced a device or devices to a primary, you can de-sync the assignment from that device.
To remove the syncing from the primary device, follow the steps below:
-
Navigate to the DEVICES panel and click the device.
-
Click Desync devices so you can de-sync the client from the primary device.
-
Click Confirm to de-sync the selected device from the primary.
[NOTE:]
If you click the primary device and use the de-sync option, then all the devices connected to the primary are de-synced in one step.