A glossary of some key terms used across Signagelive and the digital signage industry.

If there's something you're curious about that's not covered here, feel free to message us! We'd be happy to add it to the list!

Two-factor authentication (2FA) enhances digital signage security by requiring users to provide two forms of identification before accessing systems or content. This process typically requires a password and a verification code sent to the user’s smartphone. It safeguards security in the event that your password becomes compromised, protecting your digital signage access points and data.

A set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate and interact with each other, the Application Programming Interface or API facilitates interaction between different systems.

Aspect Ratios help to ensure that content displays properly and optimally on your screens. Referring to the proportional relationship between the width and height of an image, aspect ratios that are most common in digital signage include 16:9 (widescreen) and 4:3 (standard).

The name given to the process of remotely configuring a Brightsign Player via the Signagelive CMS.

A B-frame is a type of frame used in video compression that references previous and future frames to reduce file size while maintaining quality. However, this can increase the complexity of decoding the file.

Bezels are the frames that surround your TV or monitor displays. They vary in width, with some of the most premium designs offering an ultra-thin bezel to maximise the space available for the on-screen picture.

BrightSigns own device management console.

Signagelive's broadcast player allows you to deliver content via URL to be accessed by a web browser

The Browser Player was developed to create a Signagelive Player that can operate within a Browser. Designed to run on hardware that will call the content in a browser via a URL.

BrightSign’s desktop application that provides the same functionality as BSN.cloud

Bubble.io is a programming platform that allows users to create apps. It can be used alongside our web triggers API to initiate a trigger that will cause a player to show a preset-defined piece of content.

A version of ChromeOS that can be installed on a PC or MAC

A content management system or CMS is a software application that is used to create, manage and publish digital signage content. Most CMS solutions come with editing and scheduling tools, enabling content to be delivered on-screen in real-time, or at exactly the time and day you require on one, some or all your digital signage displays. Designed to streamline the content management process, they can often offer enterprise-ready support, making it secure and convenient to create and roll out customised user access for individuals and teams. Some also feature analytics tools to help measure the impact of on-screen digital signage campaigns.

Data Integrations is an add-on feature which enables users to configure and manage the delivery of dashboards from a secured platform, such as Power BI, Tableau, ServiceNow, SharePoint, Monday.com.

Default content in Signagelive is content that has no start or end date. It will play when there is no other content scheduled, however, and scheduled content will take priority.

A device manager ensures that the printers, keyboards, and monitors you connect to your computers work properly. Enabling you to manage and monitor, device managers facilitate tasks, like driver updates, device reconfiguration, diagnosing hardware-related issues, and improving the overall system performance.

A device or player for digital signage is designed to managed and deliver multimedia content to your screens. If required, it can be connected to a network for remote content updates.

A distributor is a company that buys products in large quantities from manufacturers and then sells them to smaller businesses or retailers. They act as a middleman, helping to get products from the maker to the stores or other places where you can buy them. For example, a distributor might buy a big shipment of electronics from a manufacturer and then supply those electronics to various electronics stores.

Digital Out of Home (DOOH) refers to digital advertising that you see outside your home, like on electronic billboards, screens at bus stops, shopping malls, or in airports. Instead of traditional printed ads, DOOH uses digital screens to display dynamic and changing content, such as videos or animations, allowing advertisers to easily update and target their messages in real-time.

Offering one way to determine audience engagement, dwell time describes how long viewers stop to look at your digital signage. With dwell time metrics, you can work out how well your campaigns have been received and the level of brand exposure achieved.

BrightSigns Diagnostic Web Server (DWS) allows you to remotely view and modify various settings on a networked BrightSign player.

Using an encoder, you can convert video or image content from one format to another, in order to optimise the content for storage, transmission or playback on your devices or platforms. Algorithms are able to compress data, reducing the file size and bandwidth requirements, without compromising the visual quality. Encoders ensure compatibility and efficiency across applications, like streaming, broadcasting, video conferencing and digital signage, and they support various codecs or compression-decompression algorithms to do so.

Firmware is a form of microcode or program embedded into hardware devices to help them operate effectively.

The Google Admin console is a cloud-based tool that allows administrators to manage Google Workspace service, Chrome devices, and Chrome Browser users.

GPIO stands for General Purpose Input/Output, and it's a programmable digital pin on an integrated circuit or electronic circuit board. GPIO pins can be configured to be either an input or output, or both, and are often used in embedded systems.

A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is a special part of a computer or device that handles graphics and visuals. It helps create the images, videos, and animations you see on your screen, making them look smoother and more detailed. GPUs are especially important for gaming, video editing, and tasks that require lots of visual processing power.

Grant network access (GNA) The ability to grant or revoke the access of Sigangelive teams to your Sigangelive network

Granular User Permissions (GUP) makes it quick and easy for you to securely assign individuals or groups customised access and management responsibilities for your digital signage. It ensures that you’re able to distribute the workload across larger teams, without permitting any more access than required.

Hardware for digital signage refers to the physical components and devices that you need to create, display and manage digital content on your screens. This includes everything from screens and media players that can be standalone or integrated with your monitors, mounting equipment, cables, routers and network devices.

High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a type of cable and port that allows you to connect devices like TVs, computers, and game consoles to send high-quality video and sound. For example, you can use an HDMI cable to connect your laptop to a TV to watch movies or display presentations in clear, sharp quality with both video and audio traveling through a single cable.

Headless refers to when software operates without a graphical user interface (GUI). It works as the backend of a solution, allowing for the management of content, scheduling, and device management tasks via APIs or command-line interfaces (CLIs). Headless solutions offer greater scalability, as they are easy to integrate into existing infrastructure and can automate content delivery across multiple displays, without any direct user interaction or traditional GUI interface.

An add-on feature that enables the structure of all of the elements of your Signagelive network into levels. This enables you to assign users to specific levels to reduce their access.

An inline frame (iframe) is an HTML element that enables the loading of another HTML element within the current document. Essentially, it allows for the embedding of HTML elements within another, referred to as the parent page.

Internet of Things (IoT) is a key driver of digital transformation, encompassing a network of interconnected devices, embedded with sensors, software and other technologies, that can communicate with each other over the internet. IoT devices include everything from smart lighting and wearable fitness trackers to industrial machinery and vehicles. With IoT, you can automate device operation, improve efficiency and even predict maintenance issues, as well as surface data analytics.

A system through which television services are delivered using the Internet Protocol (IP), IPTV enables you to stream live TV channels, on-demand content, and multimedia over an IP network, like the internet. Offering flexibility, scalability and advanced functionality.

IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television, and it's a way to watch TV and video content over the internet.

Interactive kiosk mode is designed for kiosk applications that display static content when not in use and switch to interactive applications when being used.​

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics that can be used to assess the success of your digital signage performance. Such metrics typically include viewer engagement, based on dwell time and interaction rates, and content effectiveness, based on click-through rates and audience demographics. KPIs enable you to evaluate your digital signage Return on Investment (ROI).

Local Area Network (LAN) uses Ethernet or Wi-Fi to connect all the devices in a specific limited area, such as your home or office. This communication between devices ensures that resources, like printers, files and interconnect connections can be shared between them.

With a layout template, you can arrange your content – that is, your images, videos, text, widgets, playlists and other media to display at the same time, exactly how you want. You can customise layouts, based on screen dimensions, resolution and intended impact.

The Layout is where you will create your multi-zone layouts to be used on your Players.

Designed with polarised liquid crystals, a liquid crystal flat panel display (LCD) uses a backlight to produce vibrant on-screen coloured images.

Long-lasting and energy efficient, LED digital signage displays achieve higher on-screen brightness levels, thanks to their use of tiny light emitting diodes (LEDs) as pixels. They offer higher contrast ratios than traditional projectors and often provide greater on-screen visibility in sunlit or artificially lit environments.

A local playlist is a section of a master playlist that is given to a local user to add or remove content from.

A local trigger is a way to trigger content in real-time without using the Signagelive cloud to validate the trigger message. Instead, the trigger message is sent over a LAN, which can improve a solution's robustness and reduce latency.

A local user is a user who only has access to a specific section of a master playlist and can add or remove content from it.

A media asset is a media object that can be played, such as an image, video, or web page. Other types of media assets include: IPTV stream, Capture cards, Widgets and RSS feeds.

The message manager in Signagelive is a tool that allows users to update content on feeds, such as internal messages, room availability, and price information

Media RSS (MRSS) is an extension of the RSS format that allows users to syndicate multimedia files in RSS feeds

Narrowcasting refers to the process of delivering content that has been tailored to suit a specific audience. It enables you to narrowly focus on and engage a target audience, with content that is more likely to resonate with them.

Native portrait support is a feature that allows a player's settings to automatically rotate portrait content without requiring any rotation before publishing. This feature benefits content creators because it's more natural to encode content in the orientation it will be displayed in.

A nested playlist is a playlist that can be added to another playlist, similar to a folder. This feature allows for a Master/Child Playlist structure, giving users more flexibility in how they schedule content.

A digital signage network is made up of interconnected displays, media players and management servers. It ensures that you can centralise control of your content distribution, scheduling and monitoring across multiple locations. Networks can range from small setups in single venues to extensive deployments spanning regions or countries. They enable administrators to remotely manage and update content.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a wireless technology that allows devices to communicate when they are close together, usually within a few centimeters. It is commonly used for contactless payments, data sharing, and access control, enabling quick and secure interactions by simply tapping or waving devices.

OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. It refers to companies that make products or parts that are used in other companies’ products. For example, if you buy a laptop, the hard drive inside it might be made by an OEM. OEMs provide the original parts or products that other brands use to build their final products.

Widely regarded as the most premium screens to-date, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays are built with self-illuminating pixels that can turn themselves off. This enables them to deliver exceptional on-screen colour, deeper blacks and eye-popping contrast. As each pixel can emit light in all directions, OLED displays can also provide wider viewing angles. Even when they’re switched off, they are instantly recognisable, thanks to their renowned ultra-slim and lightweight panel designs.

Proactive monitoring or PAM refers to the automated surveillance of your digital signage to send alerts via email or text. With PAM, you can minimise downtime, optimise operational performance and ensure that your content runs smoothly 24/7. It’s a feature that network administrators or service providers often use on behalf of their clients.

The Player Dashboard is your "at-a-glance" overview of Player activity within your Signagelive Network. It allows you to monitor performance, connectivity, scheduling, and renewal information.

A playlist is a collection of assets, such as images, videos, web pages, and widgets, that are displayed in a specific order on a screen. Playlists can be published in full-screen mode or as part of a layout.

The “Auto-Playlist Generator” enhances the existing playlist creator by enabling users to specify the total duration of a playlist and automatically generate playlists based on predefined rules.

Proof of Play (PoP) enables you to measure asset playback. With this function, you can track on which screen, at what time and for how long the relevant content is displayed. When measured against other metrics, this information can help you find out what kind of impact your messaging had.

Signagelive's pre-staging feature allows users to add players to their Signagelive network before the hardware is installed and activated on-site.

Real-Time Events (RTEs) allow users to send messages to external devices when a preset event occurs. These messages can be sent to software, hardware, or hardware over a network.

In Signagelive, recurrence is a feature that allows users to specify which days and times an asset will play on. This is done within the boundaries of the playlist's published schedule.

A reseller is a person or company that buys products and then sells them to others. They don’t make the products themselves but instead purchase them from manufacturers or wholesalers and offer them to customers, often adding some extra service or support. For example, a store that sells various brands of electronics is a reseller.

Resolution is essential for the display of your content and refers to the number of pixels (individual colour dots) that make up an image. The higher the resolution, the clearer the on-screen image.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a web feed format used to publish frequently updated content, like blog posts, news headlines, audio and videos. Saving you the trouble of visiting individual sites to find your favourite content, RSS feeds can be subscribed to via RSS reader applications, which automatically collect new content from subscribed sources.

A software distribution model, Software as a Service (SaaS) allows you to use applications that are hosted by third-party providers. You can access SaaS applications via web browsers without needing to install or manage software locally. The benefits of this kind of model are that you can tap into these services from anywhere with an internet connection.

Samsung Smart Signage Platform (SSSP) Orsay is a version of the Samsung Smart Signage Platform (SSSP) that was available from 2008 to 2014. The SSSP is a platform that's built into many Samsung professional displays and is designed for continuous use.

Samsung Smart Signage Platform (SSSP) Tizen took over as the operating system for SSSP displays in 2015. It's an open-source, all-in-one solution that's built into most Samsung professional displays.

A Schedulable zone is an area of a layout that can be scheduled to show content at a specific time.

Screen burn-in (or screen burnout) happens when an image stays on a screen for too long, leaving a faint, ghost-like mark, even when the image changes. This can happen with things like logos or menus that don’t move on the screen. It’s more common with older display types like plasma or OLED, but newer screens have features to help prevent it.

Screen Takeovers allow your Players to synchronize at a specified time or interval while also functioning independently outside of this designated time.

Software Development Kits (SDKs) are designed to help developers make software applications for specific platforms or frameworks. Simplifying the process, they provide pre-written code and APIs for tasks, like user interface design, data management and hardware interaction. SDKs also help ensure compatibility and adherence to platform guidelines, as they are tailored to various languages and platforms, including Android, iOS and web.

Serial commands in Signagelive can be used to trigger interrupts and end interrupts. They can be paired with real-time event triggering to eliminate the need for manual input to interrupt content.

SMIL stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, and it's a markup language used to describe multimedia presentations.

Single-Sign-On (SSO) allows users to access multiple applications or systems using a single set of login credentials. It’s an easy way to centralise access control, improve security, and simplify the user authentication process.

With synchronisation, you can ensure that your videos, images, and messages transition simultaneously across all the screens in a sync group.

A sync group is a number of players with the ability to communicate with each other on a local network to synchronise when their assets start to play and when they will move to the next asset.

Offering a space-saving two-in-one device, a System-on-Chip display is a screen that has been integrated with media player functionality. The System-on-Chip itself is like a minicomputer that’s built into a single chip.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the basic system that makes the internet work. TCP helps break data, like emails or videos, into small pieces (called packets) to send over the internet. IP is responsible for making sure those packets get to the right destination, like the correct website or device. Together, TCP/IP allows computers and devices to communicate with each other and share information reliably over the internet.

In Signagelive, a trigger is a way to activate cached content on Signagelive Players in real-time.

A user is a person who has access to the Signagelive platform. Users can have various roles and access levels.

A user group is a way to segment users and assign them permissions to specific roles. This allows you to limit access to the platform and only give users the permissions they need to do their jobs

A Value-Added Reseller (VAR) is a company that takes a basic product, like computer hardware or software, and adds extra features or services to it before selling it to customers. For example, a VAR might bundle a computer with special software, setup services, or support, making it more useful or tailored to your needs. They help enhance the original product to better fit specific requirements or provide additional benefits.

A video wall is made of multiple screens that are tiled together to deliver a larger-than-life viewing experience. Designed to be arranged in various configurations, they create a unified visual experience, enabling high-resolution images and videos to be featured seamlessly across the entire viewing area.

Referring to the distance between your screens and viewers, viewing distances are an important consideration, as they determine how comfortably and effectively your audience can see your content. To be sure of optimal viewing distances, you need to take into account the screen size, resolution, content layout, and other environmental factors, such as the location and lighting.

A feature that allows users to remotely trigger cached content on Signagelive Players in real-time using a Signagelive API that can be activated over a WAN.

A web asset is an asset that links directly to a URL and will display this content with default properties

The web widget allows you to add a URL to a playlist and edit some of the properties used to display the page, such as the refresh interval and the page's top and left positioning.

A widget or app is a small software application that displays specific content or performs a particular function. Ranging from weather updates, news tickers, social media feeds to interactive surveys and wayfinding apps, widgets are frequently customisable. They can be integrated into digital signage platforms to meet specific communication or engagement objectives.

A zone is a designated area in a screen, where specific content is positioned and displayed. Multi-zone layouts enable you to arrange several different segments of content together on your screens.