Review of Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max – part I

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...

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PF 2022

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,...

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Upcoming end of support for Android 4.x

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...

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Various APK files

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...

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Review of Zidoo Z9X – part II

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...

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Review of Zidoo Z9X – part I

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...

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Case study: Slideshow for digital signage provider

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...

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PF 2021

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...

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How to pick the right device for Slideshow

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...

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Help us make Slideshow better

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...

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Android boot animation

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...

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Video streaming from VLC to Slideshow

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...

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WebDAV protocol explained

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...

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How to display web page on the screen

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...

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Tutorial videos

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...

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Inspiration for layouts II

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...

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Network port numbers on Android

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...

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Case study: Slideshow in hotel

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...

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Android and Slideshow on Raspberry Pi

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...

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4K resolution on Android boxes

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....

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Slideshow + Android-x86 + Intel Compute Stick

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...

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Screen rotation possibilities

In Digital Signage you sometimes want to display your images and videos vertically. Most monitors, displays and TVs are quite easy to rotate physically, but how about the software part? Since Slideshow version 3.5.0, there are two ways how to rotate the content on the screen. The table bellow explains...

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GitHub pages for support and localization

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...

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Slideshow on Benq Smart Signage displays

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,...

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Internet radio playback

In version 3.2.0, there has been significant change (and improvement) how Slideshow handles background music playback. This article will guide you through the setup of internet radio playback through the Slideshow’s web interface. Thanks to this new improvements, Slideshow can be used also as a headless music player. Just install...

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Inspiration for layouts

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...

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How to setup moving text

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...

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(Some of the posts have been moved to the Documentation)