The Signagelive Vistar application is an integration with the Vistar Media ad service platform which allows you to serve image and video content from Vistar Media to your Signagelive players.

The Signagelive Vistar application works on players supporting the Signagelive Widget SDK, which are BrightSign, Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, Electron (Windows) and ChromeOS at this stage. Please check the Widget SDk page on build.signagelive.com for detailed and updated supported devices.

The Signagelive Vistar application can serve images and videos with no audio, however LG webOS 1.0, LG webOS 2.0 and Samsung Tizen 2.4 players can only serve images at this stage due to hardware and software restrictions:

Please also note that only MP4 videos using the well known H.264 video codec are supported; unsupported video codecs should still not be used on the Vistar platform as we have no way of excluding these from attempting to play. If it is attempted Signagelive will crash or the player will become unresponsive. Note that audio is not supported, therefore audio in videos can’t be played.

The setup of the Vistar application has two separate components, which are:

This app syncs with the Vistar Platform to dynamically retrieve all valid ads every hour and then cache them to storage. This app will need to run with the contents stored to the cache before starting ad playback; and this then therefore allows seamless transitions on supported media players. The app caches any valid assets for the next 30 hour period.

In Signagelive, the Vistar Caching App needs the following preferences:

These properties can be set by double clicking the Vistar Caching App on your playlist in Signagelive, then clicking the Properties tab. The Venue ID can also be referenced on the media player as reference code 2. To do so open the player details, click on the Player Site and Contact Details tab, enter the Venue ID on the Reference 2 field and save the details.

This handles the visual side of displaying the retrieved ad (video or image) and sending the proof of play or expiry callback depending on whether it has succeeded or failed.

At a high level, the Vistar Caching App must be run before the Vistar Display App. The caching app must have a suitable asset duration to allow the ad media to be downloaded and stored to the player, otherwise this will mean that if the display app tries to play an ad that is not cached, it will send an Expiry response back to Vistar’s API. In that instance, the Caching app will need to be run again and the Display widget will transition to the next asset in the playlist if it does not have a valid asset to play.

If you’re looking to publish Vistar media content in a fullscreen playlist, add the Vistar Caching app to a new playlist with a duration long enough to cache all files from Vistar, specially for the first playlist loop. Then add the Vistar Display App next, it is preferred to set a longer asset duration; as once a Vistar Media ad has finished playing it will automatically transition to the next asset in the playlist.

For more information on fullscreen content, please check our Playlists - Beginner Techniques section.

If you’re looking to publish Vistar Media content in a multi zone layout, our recommendation is to use a layout with two schedulable zones with identical sizes and coordinates within the canvas. One zone will be behind the other as a result.

For more information on layout creation, please check our Layout - Beginner techniques section.

Each schedulable zone will contain a different playlist, which will be assigned on the publishing stage. The first playlist will contain the Vistar Caching App and the second playlist will contain the Vistar Display App.

When publishing, add the playlist containing the Vistar Display App to the schedulable zone on the front, then add the playlist containing the Vistar Caching App to the schedulable zone on the back. This will create the setup required above, running both apps at the same time.

For more information on publishing content, please check our Publishing Content - Beginner Techniques section.