Video Distribution ideas?

[animehero]

Heyo

I've been tasked with looking into getting some sort of system in place to get some internal marketing and HR vids up on some standard TV's(they have hdmi ports at least)

So far we've been trialing 3x Raspberry Pi 3B's running Kodi with a playlist addon (in the event of a power off) the vids would automatically load up and start playing again. The only issue has been getting the new content to them,as this requires physical access to each device and copying the content manually then creating the exact same playlist file name with all new vids included in said playlist.

Like I said,it was a minor issue doing a few of them but it seems like we are going to have to add more TV's and possibly at different branch too. Looking at 8-10 TV's playing the same videos(with audio). Each branch would manage it's own content though so they don't need to be linked

That becomes a bit of a challenge, we unfortunately a small team of IT kind of,so we can't spend most of our time running around updating this stuff everytime marketing or HR has an idea to publish which is surprising often.

Soes anyone have any suggestions or recommendations for something software based or hardware based that can make this thing a bit easier to manage?

If it requires network access then so be it but most likely restricted to it's own segment , but we haven't done this with the Pi's because the transfer rate over WiFi is less than ideal

There's no set budget either, I would present options in the next budgeting meeting and let the powers that be decide if it's worth pursuing or not, as long as I can give them something lol

Thanks in advance

 

[Rickster]

Well its going to have to be connected to the network one way or another.

Wouldn't it be better if you create a SMB network share on the servers at the branches then stream it off there?

All you would have to do is RDP/Teamview into the servers and paste the file in the folder.

 

[animehero]

Well its going to have to be connected to the network one way or another.

Wouldn't it be better if you create a SMB network share on the servers at the branches then stream it off there?

All you would have to do is RDP/Teamview into the servers and paste the file in the folder.

Yeah I realized it would need network access if the intention is to centrally manage it better, thanks for pointing that out. So just point the Pi's to a network share, use rdp(not sure if I can run TeamViewer on kodi on them,perhaps vnc) then create playlists while connected to each device.

Sounds like a good plan

 

["D"]

There's no set budget

Be kind, rewind.

 

[ponder]

If it requires network access then so be it but most likely restricted to it's own segment , but we haven't done this with the Pi's because the transfer rate over WiFi is less than ideal

Network access would be the way to go. Why can't you simply do the transfers overnight if it's that slow?

I would also test how well these devices can stream content off local servers which would further simplify things having a central repository for data.

 

[Mystic Twilight]

Run a media server like plex and stream it.

 

[animehero]

Network access would be the way to go. Why can't you simply do the transfers overnight if it's that slow?

I would also test how well these devices can stream content off local servers which would further simplify things having a central repository for data.

Access restrictions, user permissions and keeping it off the Corp network were the main concerns of request. The idea was for them to manage their own content unless they have issues in which case we would get involved.So in this case simple is better.
Keeping it as simple as possible I would have just used a few hdmi splitters but the distance isn't on my side

I came across https://pisignage.com/ ,will see if it's a viable option and report back

 

[animehero]

Run a media server like plex and stream it.

That was my first thought as well, I know the pi can act as a Plex server but I wasn't able to get it as an automatic player. Power on and go so to speak. That's why we went with Kodi