Overview
To synchronize videos across players in BrightAuthor:connected, both the presentation video zones and the player clocks must be synchronized. In that process, a leader/follower relationship will be defined, so that a single leader player controls the playback and sends a synchronize command to one or more follower players.
Synchronization only works between an image and video. Your home screen should be a short image that immediately transitions to the main video. Super states are not currently supported.
Since XC5 players have multiple outputs, the presentation clock does not need to be synchronized unless you are playing a presentation from multiple XC5 players or an XC5 player and another type of BrightSign player. However, you will need to create leader and follower zones by adding a sync command that gets triggered by a keyword.
Synchronizing Presentation Zones
To synchronize video zones in a BrightSign presentation, you must create a message in a leader zone and an event that will listen for that message in follower zones. To do this:
Creating the Leader Zone Message
Create a presentation with content and zones. Make sure to toggle Interactive on the top right.
Select the leader zone in your presentation. It may be helpful to include “Leader” and “Follower” in the zone names.
Add a Timeout event to the content you want to display first, then drag that event to the other content in the presentation.
In Event Properties > Advanced, select Add Command.
Select the Link command and Synchronize.
Toggle the down arrow to enter a Keyword. This will be used to trigger follower players to display content.
Save the presentation.
Creating the Follower Zone Event Listener
Select the follower presentation zone.
Add a Synchronize event to the content you want to display first, then drag that event to the other content in the presentation.
In the Event Properties pane, under Specify synchronization keyword, enter the Keyword you selected in step 5, above. When the follower presentation zone receives this keyword from the leader zone, it will start to play.
Do this for all of the follower zones in the presentation then select Save. You can also select Save as to save the presentation with a different name for additional players (for example “Player 3 follower presentation”).
If you are publishing from a single XC5 player, you can then select Publish to publish the synced presentation. Otherwise, use the following section to synchronize the clocks of the players that will display your presentation.
To synchronize between zones on the same player, use the Link command with the Zone command parameter.
Synchronizing Presentation Clocks
To synchronize clocks in multiple video players on the same local network, the leader presentation must have a presentation setting that defines that player as the leader, and other presentations must be set as followers. To do this:
Select the leader zone.
In Presentation Settings > Interactive > Synchronization (under the Networking tab), select Enable enhanced synchronization and choose Master (note that this language will soon change to Leader).
Select a follower zone in your presentation.
In Presentation Settings > Interactive > Synchronization, select Enable enhanced synchronization and choose Slave.
Do this for all the follower zones in your presentation, then Save and Publish. You can also select Save as and Publish the presentation with a different name for additional players (for example “Player 3 follower presentation”).