Updated: 24th March 2025 for Release 210
Narrowcasting allows venues to display Event details and other information on screens within the venue, such as welcoming messages, videos, and drink prices. This fully automated event feature will make sure your Narrowcasting slideshows are up to date every day.
It comes with unlimited channels for broadcasting specific content in specific locations. The Front-end application is completely built in HTML, responsive, and fits portrait and landscape screens. Each channel is accessible by it’s own url. The entire application is optimized for web and doesn’t require state of the art hardware solutions. Anything that will play HD video smoothly will be suitable. It requires a computer or other device with internet connection and web browser for each channel. Hardware is not included.
What can you display with Narrowcasting?
From completely automated event content to fully curated notices and videos, we have got you covered.
Our Narrowcasting can pull directly from the event database of the Peppered Platform and generate full screen event slides by itself. It will create new “What’s on today” slides every day, and even add suggestions for other events in the future. Your event image crops are already optimized for both portrait and landscape screens. They can be re-cropped if needed, using your familiar crop tool.
Extra slides can be added for text and images, video, a clock, a fully automated “Upcoming events” overview, and iFrames for displaying external web pages.
Example of all available Narrowcasting Slides (Note might not include the new Upcoming events slide)
Narrowcasting structure
Narrowcasting consists of 3 parts:
- Channels
- Broadcasts
- Slideshows
Channels (where)
Channels are used to distinguish which Broadcasts you want to show on a certain screen. In other words, where you want which content to appear. You can use the same channel on multiple screens if you want to show the same content on them, or you can make a different channel for each screen if you want to show a different content on every screen.
Broadcasts (when)
Broadcasts define when your Slideshow will show on the screen. You can add multiple Broadcasts to one channel if you want to change between slideshows, i.e. during the day and at night.
Slideshows (what)
Slideshows determine what you want to show. You can choose between different kinds of slides:
- fully automated slides for “today” events and related suggestions
- curated slides for featured events, a clock, custom slides (for a bar menu, for instance), iFrames.
You can also define how long each Slide is shown before going to the next slide.
How to set up your Narrowcasting in 2 minutes
Watch the video, or follow the steps below.
Step 1: Add a Channel
Go to Dashboard > Digital Signage > Narrowcasting
Click on Add channel to add a channel and fill in the desired name for the channel, click Save.
Top Tip! We advise you to give Channels recognisable names according to the place where the screens will be, for instance, foyer/bar/garderobe/ingang, so you later know where the specific Channel will be shown.
Your Channel is now added to the Channel mixer.
Each Channel comes with its own URL you can directly display on your screens.
Go to [yourdomain]/nc to see a list of all your Channels. When your website has a multilingual setup, Narrowcasting offers a separate overview of channels for each language, e.g. [yourdomain]/en/nc.
You can create as many Channels as you want. There is no limit.
Step 2. Create a fully automated slideshow
Click on Add slideshow below the Channel mixer.
A window opens where you can input details about the content you want to show.
- Slideshow name*: Give your Slideshow a recognisable name
- Default time per slide (sec): Add the time, in seconds you want each slide to remain on screen before moving on the the next. Think about the amount of content on each slide.
- “Today” event slides per day: If you want to fully automate your Narrowcasting slideshow, choose one or more Today slides. This will depend on how many events you expect to be scheduled on any given day.
- “Suggestions” slides per event: Choose a couple Suggestion slides to show alternative events related to the Today events. These slides will use the Suggestions you added to the Production in the Productions module.
- Shuffle sides (slides are played in random order): Check box if you want your slides to display in a random order
- End date (optional): Add a date when you want this Slideshow to no longer be used
Click Save.
The slideshow is now complete and has generated all necessary automated slides. On days when there are no events scheduled, these slides will automatically be hidden.
Top Tip!
When browsing through the days in the Channel mixer, each Slideshow will show you which events will be shown on the selected day.
Step 3. Add a Broadcast for your Slideshow
Click Add Broadcast, either on top of the screen or directly in the Channel.
This opens a new window where you can put in the details of when you want your Slideshow to play on the channels (i.e. screens).
- Available channels: Select your Channel from the drop-down list.
- Available slideshows: Select your Slideshow from the drop-down list.
- Days/Times: Select what days and hours you want your slideshow to play on that Channel. The schedule will repeat for every week.
Click Save.
Now go admire your new Slideshow being Broadcast on your Channel.
Good to know You can always schedule a different Broadcast on top of another Broadcast without having to change the schedule of the original Broadcast. Make sure you plan a default Slideshow for every day of the week. Add others on top for any moment you need to show something different.
Take note! Each Slideshow will be available to you at all times, and can be Broadcast whenever you want, on whatever Channel you want. If you remove a Broadcast, the Slideshow will no longer be shown, it will always be kept in the application for future use.
Step 4. Add curated slides to the slideshow (optional)
You can add extra slides to your current slideshows, or start building new Slideshows for your collection.
Find the Slideshow you want to add slides to. Click Add slide. You will get a window where you can choose the Type of slide you want to add.
Slide Types
- Clock: Displays the current time. Depending on your branding, it can be an analogue clock or a digital clock.
- Featured: Handpick any future event straight from your event database. No further actions required.
- Notice: A title, text and background image in your branding for any notice you may want to communicate. You can leave the background image empty to show your default branded background, or only upload an image and leave title and text empty to display images that include their own text.
- Notice blank: Same as the Notice slide, only without your logo. Very suitable for content around commercial events.
- Upcoming events: Displays the next 7 events in chronological order. New in Release 210.
- Video URL: Youtube or Vimeo video url. Will automatically play until the end of the video.
- iFrame: Any third party web page that allows to be embedded. Great for weather forecasts, public transport itineraries, or to add a Wayfind screen.
More about Narrowcasting module page items
Opening the Narrowcasting module, you can find several overviews. We will discuss how they all work below.
Channel mixer
- Blue box = In the Channel mixer, you can see all planned/active broadcasts sorted by channel.
- Red box = Days of the week, can see the next 7 days. Select the day to see the mixer for that day.
- Yellow box = Slideshows in each Channel. In this example, you can see that there are three slideshows planned for today, starting and ending at different times.
If you want to adjust anything about the Broadcast for a specific day or for the whole series of that Broadcast, please see the chapter How to adjust settings (below).
Slideshows Overview
Below the Channel mixer, there is an overview of all created Slideshows. Every Slideshow has its own box.
- Yellow box = You can see whether there is an end time for this Slideshow.
- Blue box = You can see on what Channel that slideshow is Broadcast.
- Red box = You can expand the box showing all slides by clicking on Show slides.
This will show you what slides are in this Slideshow. Some may be inactive, either because there is no automated content to show or because it was manually disabled. You can see whether a slide is active if the little eye in front of it is red.
How to adjust Narrowcasting settings
Giving a certain Broadcast priority over others
When you have multiple Broadcasts on one Channel (like the example of the channel mixer before), you can arrange what Broadcast has priority over others. For instance, if you have a default Broadcast for welcoming your visitors to the Theatre that plays all day and want to show a Slideshow for a specific event from 8 pm to 11 pm. You will want to give the event Slideshow priority over the default Slideshow. You can do this by changing the ranks of the slideshow.
- Find the Slideshow in the list of slideshows beneath the Channel mixer.
- Click on Manage series.
- Define the rank of that Slideshow. Rank 1 is the highest and will always have priority over lower-ranking Slideshows. This way, you can make a setup for all your Broadcasts.
- If you want to do this a specific day only, select that day in the Channel mixer and click the Broadcast you want to change.
Slide Transition Settings
Slide Transitions are set in System > Control Panel > Core > Digital Signage.
There are two Transition Types:
- Slide - The next slide pushes the previous slide out, right to left
- Fade - The previous slide gradually fades away to reveal the next slide
You can also adjust the Transition speed (ms.). The default is 500 ms. Note: 1000ms is 1 second.
Narrowcasting Technical Requirements
Channels: for every channel, you will need a computer with an internet connection and web browser.
Display: this can be a vertical or horizontal display.
There is no maximum of channels or displays, this is up to you.
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