Provided by Mr. Leigh Preece, Senior Science Technician at Ormiston Horizon Academy The Ormiston Horizon Academy in Stoke on Trent, United Kingdom, was built in 2012 and equipped with information screens and two video walls to pass on information to students and staff throughout the day. An original system, over time,...

Another year has passed and we would like to wish everybody around the world who is using Slideshow app Happy Holidays and only the best in the New Year 2024. In 2023 we added a lot of new advanced features to Slideshow, including communication between devices, screensaver layout, click areas...

Thanks again for your flawless, reliable software, that allows my artwork to be delivered to these unique spaces. James McGrath Artist & Digital creator James McGrath is an Australian architect, artist and digital creator with a diverse range of experience in historical imagery, digital media, and traditional art. With over...

With the recent firmware update on Amazon Fire TV devices (e.g. Amazon Fire TV Stick), you might have noticed a rise in the number of times a popup asking whether you are still watching the TV is displayed. Alternatively, you simply find your screen went blank with the device in...

Each installation of Slideshow app on an Android device is by default independent. As there is no direct cloud dependency (thanks to which you can enjoy Slideshow for free), there is no universal remote or centralized management. However, there are still some very good ways to manage multiple players with...

Recently we received a weird bug report from a user of Slideshow app. They set up files, content, playlist and schedules in Slideshow, all correctly, but somehow the app wasn’t displaying the files they uploaded. The files were visible in Slideshow’s File manager, but not on the device’s screen. After...

In the last couple of releases of Slideshow, we have been slowly rolling out a new feature: communication between multiple devices. Using this feature it is possible to do light management and monitoring of multiple devices running Slideshow app, even if they are not on the same local network. But...

When accessing Slideshow’s web interface using a web browser on your computer, you might get a screen like this: HTTPS certificate error in Firefox HTTPS certificate error in Edge HTTPS certificate error in Chrome If you would like to know what this screen means, whether there is any security risk...

What is Arduino? Arduino is a small hardware board with a microcontroller, essentially an entire small computer on a board. It has a processor, small memory and many low-level inputs and outputs, such as serial port, I2C and pins for LEDs and buttons. There are many variants of the board...

We wish all our clients, supporters and users of Slideshow app Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the best to the New Year 2023! During the year 2022 we released a new major version Slideshow 4.0. Over this year, we added a new screen layout builder, new dashboard, support for...

Recently I received a very interesting Android box for testing Slideshow app – Mekotronics R58X. At the first moment I noticed a number of ports, which are not very usual on Android boxes, mainly DisplayPort, HDMI input, USB-C, analog audio in/out and RS232. I decided to test this device a...

While testing an Android box with Android 12 (model Mekotronics R58X, you can expect a review in the future), I came across two minor issues with Slideshow app that were connected to recent updates in Android 11 and 12. Below is a short, but quite technical summary of what caused...

After more than 3 years of development of Slideshow 3.x the time has come to release a new major version of the app. Slideshow 4.0 is more an evolution than a revolution, you will still get the familiar interface, but with huge changes underneath. You will get a large amount...

In February I published a review of Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max from the point of view of regular usage, promising a second part aimed at digital signage usage of the stick. Little bit later than originally planned, I looked closely at the combination of the stick and Slideshow...

There are many Android emulators for Windows and Linux, which can run Slideshow app. It has been successfully tested on Genymotion, Nox player, Bluestacks and others, but none of the emulators could be fully recommended for real-world digital signage usage. I recently found two similar pieces of software for Linux,...

If you have ever powered on an Android box or stick without a working internet connection, you might have noticed that some devices don’t show the correct date and time after startup. The date can be a couple years or couple hours in the past and it suddenly updates once...

Slideshow app supports integration with other systems via MQTT protocol. It can receive commands from remote systems and report its status and statistics back (full documentation is available on https://slideshow.digital/documentation/mqtt-integration/). The main advantage of this integration is that you can control multiple instances of Slideshow at the same time, even...

In Slideshow 3.23.0 a new feature was added: hardware benchmarking. You can find it via web interface, menu Information – Benchmark. The usage is pretty simple, just click on the Run benchmark button, wait for a few tenths of seconds (depending on your device performance) and you will get a...

Over the past year we have received multiple questions regarding compatibility of Slideshow with various Amazon Fire TV products. I knew it works together, as Slideshow app was approved on Amazon Appstore, but I was curious how good the compatibility is, whether there are any features that could be enhanced...

We wish all our clients, supporters and users of Slideshow app Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! During 2021 we managed to add several new features to Slideshow, most notably support for Camera and HDMI input and integration with WebDAV server and MQTT broker. Thanks to our contributors, French, Croatian,...

Almost since the beginning of the development, Slideshow app supported versions of Android operating system all the way back to 4.0.3, which was released by Google on 16 December 2011. Although the devices with Android 4 have not been sold for many years, some of them still work fine and...

Since couple of months ago, we started providing various APK files of Slideshow app for each version release. These files are in addition to the regular universal APK file and can be found on our Version history page. This article aims to explain the difference between these APK files and...

In the first part of this review, I introduced Android box Zidoo Z9X, benchmarked it and covered its general features. Afterwards, I installed Slideshow app on the box and checked how the box and app performed together. During the testing, I updated some features of Slideshow for better compatibility with...

Zidoo is a manufacturer of Android boxes from China, founded in 2014. They focus on the higher end of the market. They sell their boxes either directly to the end-users, or offer their services as OEM. Zidoo Z9X is an Android box released in Q3 2020 as a successor to...

Introduction Local Business Patriots is a digital signage provider based in Augusta, Missouri, USA. They are aiming at non-technical small business owners who don’t have the time or money to set up and operate complicated systems, but want a simple solution for displaying some images and messages, preferable using the already...

To all supporters, enthusiasts and users of Slideshow: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Although year 2020 was hard in many aspects, we have managed to release 19 new versions of Slideshow, with interesting features such as synchronization of files with Dropbox, remote configuration and application update, Portuguese and German...

Picking the right Android device for your digital signage usage is very important, because you usually want it to work properly for a longer time without any necessary maintenance. I prepared a short walk-through, which contains some general recommendations for choosing a good device from the point of view of...

Slideshow is free for non-commercial as well as commercial usage and we are aiming to keep it this way. We believe in free software, especially in a competitive field like a digital signage. If you like Slideshow app, there are several ways how you can personally contribute to making it...

What is boot animation? During the time when Android device is starting (“booting”), it displays simple animation on the screen – this is called boot animation (sometimes written together as “bootanimation”). On the background, Android is loading everything needed for the proper functioning and once everything is loaded, it will...

If you want to display live feed from a camera or play live TV, you can use Slideshow to display video streams. This post guides you through some options how to setup the streaming. Source of the stream If you want to stream video in your local network, we suggest...

One of the new features added in Slideshow version 3.10.0 is WebDAV server, which offers yet another way how to access files displayed on screen and upload new ones. This post aims to explain little little bit about this feature from the technological point of view. More information for Slideshow’s...

If your device running Slideshow is connected to the internet, you can also display entire web pages on the screen, among pictures and videos. This can be used for displaying various informational pages and dashboards. If you are an IT specialist, you can use this functionality also for displaying Zabbix...

During the past couple of weeks, we prepared first set of tutorial videos, covering basic functionality of Slideshow. You can learn how to install Slideshow, use it’s web interface and display images, current time, RSS news and weather on the screen. You can find all three videos bellow. In each...

Since publishing the previous Inspiration for layouts almost a year ago, Slideshow received many new features, some of which brings new interesting possibilities for screen layouts. I prepared couple of examples, to illustrate what you can achieve with Slideshow software. All examples are prepared on resolution 1920 × 1080, they should...

If you are running Slideshow on non-rooted device, you might wonder why you have to enter also port number 8080 in the URL to access the web interface. This post explains the technical background behind port numbers used by Slideshow for web and FTP interface. What are network ports? On...

Introduction Art Hotel Kaštieľ is a small luxury hotel in Slovakia. Management of the hotel were thinking about displaying advertisement for their services in the reception area and in the courtyard, but were missing simple digital signage solution. They already had regular 50″ Samsung TV near the reception for playing...

After testing Slideshow and Android on Intel Compute Stick, I decided to have a look at another device sitting on my desk – Raspberry Pi – and analyze it from the point of usability for digital signage with Slideshow software. What is Raspberry Pi? Raspberry Pi (official webpage, Wikipedia) is...

There are currently many Android boxes on the market advertising 4K display support. But how good is this support in reality? Quick recap about resolutions In this article, I am using several abbreviation for various screen resolutions: 4K – usually resolution 3840 × 2160 pixels is used, also known as 2160p....

While testing Slideshow on various devices, I recently remembered that I have an older Intel Compute Stick and thought “Why shouldn’t it run Slideshow?”. So I prepared a tutorial for those of you wanting to try it as well, or simply wanting to try:– Android on your PC or laptop...

If you got excited after reading the title, I have a bad news for you – Slideshow isn’t going open source (but remains free for personal as well as commercial usage). Starting today, there are two pages on GitHub regarding Slideshow software available for public: Slideshow support – https://github.com/milan-fabian/slideshow-support This...

Slideshow software can be used as a replacement for build-in X-Sign software used on BenQ Smart Signage displays ST550K / ST650K / ST750K. X-Sign is cloud-based digital signage software by BenQ, which is preinstalled on these screens. However, if you prefer or need non-cloud software, or just feel like experimenting,...

Slideshow software offers you limitless possibilities for various screen layouts. Here are some examples for your inspiration, together with screenshot of the Screen layout configuration from web interface for each example. With side panels This layout is accessible as a sample directly in Slideshow web interface. You can select it...

Version 3.1.0 of Slideshow for Android contains new interesting feature: possibility to setup RSS news as horizontal moving text. This post will guide you through the setup. 1. Login to Slideshow’s web interface and through menu Items, create new item with following settings:Name: RSS newsType: Panel with RSS messagesURL for...