Video Distribution & Digital Signage
Is your school still fighting for video resources? Do you need to schedule which DVDs or videos are available? Want to have your choice of video streamed directly to your classroom monitor or overhead projector, in your timeframes? Interested in displaying digital signs throughout your campus with current information, class schedules, web feeds or custom content? Introducing Cisco Systems Digital Media Suite (DMS). Say goodbye to coaxial cable forever!
Cisco Digital Media Suite (DMS)
The Cisco® Digital Media Suite (DMS) is a comprehensive offering of social video, digital signage, and IPTV systems that can help transform how organizations learn, grow, communicate, and collaborate. Support from the broad Cisco partner ecosystem of deployment, solution-development, and content-creation partners help ensure a successful digital media implementation.
The Cisco Digital Media Manager is the central management application for all Cisco Digital Media Suite products:
- Cisco Digital Media Encoders (DMEs): The studio-level (Cisco Digital Media Encoder 2200 [DME 2200]) and portable (Cisco DME 1100) encoders provide live and on-demand streaming digital media across an IP network with a variety of encoding formats, inputs, and monitoring functions.
- Cisco Digital Media Player (DMP): The Cisco DMP is a highly reliable IP-based hardware endpoint for video decoding and playback of digital media content-including high-definition live broadcasts or on-demand video, Flash animations, text tickers, and other web content-across digital displays; this critical component of the Cisco Digital Signs and Cisco Cast applications allows for the networking of digital displays and the broadcasting of live and on-demand media.
- Cisco Show and Share: Cisco Show and Share is a social video system that helps organizations create secure video communities to share ideas and expertise; optimize global video collaboration; and personalize the connections among customers, employees, and students with user-generated content.
- Cisco Show and Share Reports: This web-based reporting tool allows you to view real-time traffic reports of Cisco Show and Share content. Used by administrators and content authors, this tool is ordered with and integrated in Cisco Show and Share.
Together, these products span the entire digital media value chain, allowing organizations to reach customers, partners, employees, and students over IP networks with real-time, compelling digital media content and communications.
Cisco Digital Media Manager: Managing and Publishing Digital Media
The Cisco Digital Media Manager facilitates daily operations of media management by allowing you to upload, catalogue, edit, package, and publish all video content and playlists to the Cisco Digital Media Player through the pervasive, secure reach of a Cisco IP network. The Cisco Digital Media Manager also provides configuration and management services for Cisco Show and Share.
Cisco Digital Media Manager: Management Modules
Cisco Digital Media Manager provides software module options that allow you to manage content for Cisco Digital Signs, Cisco Cast, and Cisco Show and Share:
- Cisco Digital Signs Module: Manages digital signage content and a network of connected Cisco Digital Media Player endpoints
- Cisco Show and Share Module: Configures and manages the Cisco Show and Share for desktop viewing
- Cisco Live Event Module: An add-on to the Cisco Show and Share Module that provides live webcasting, slide graphics synchronization, management of viewer questions, and publishing of viewer polling questions during live events
- Cisco Cast Module: Manages on-demand IPTV content for a network of connected Cisco Digital Media Player endpoints
- Cisco SNMP Notification Module: Provides the ability for Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)-based network management applications to access a variety of Cisco DMS configuration and status information as well as accept various Cisco Digital Media Player status alert messages through the SNMP protocol.
For each management module, the Cisco Digital Media Manager interface reflects the available features for the relevant endpoint.
- Discover, configure, manage, categorize and group, and monitor Cisco Digital Media Players on the network
- Control playback of content and playlists on digital signage displays, including instant updates or scheduling of content frequency and duration (day-parting)
- Create and design screen layouts, divide screen real estate into regions, and populate content into these regions using a drag-and-drop web interface
- Create and manage playlists and configure on-screen Really Simple Syndication (RSS) or static text tickers
- Remotely control and manage digital display properties such as on/off, contrast, brightness, and volume
- Add and archive digital signage content and assign metadata to assets
- View reports for content scheduled for playback on digital signage displays
The Cisco Show and Share Module for social video allows you to:
- Easily customize the Cisco Show and Share user interface by allowing you to define background images, logos, and text colors
- Define content storage and access locations for content published and viewed with Cisco Show and Share
- Provide user management and secure access services to Cisco Show and Share with optional login and authentication through a Microsoft Active Directory Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server or embedded DMM user database
The add-on Cisco Live Event Module allows you to:
- Import graphics derived from Microsoft PowerPoint files as a set of Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) images
- Synchronize these graphic images with the video and audio streams produced during a live webcast event in combination with a Cisco Digital Media Encoder
- Save the combined, live event stream as a video-on-demand (VoD) session for post-event viewing
- Allow Cisco Show and Share viewers to submit text-based questions to the event producers and presenters during a live webcast event
- Publish polling questions and results to viewers at any time during a live webcast event
The Cisco Cast Module allows you to:
- Expand the use of your digital signage network to support IP-based broadcast television (IPTV) through an on-screen program guide
- Enable the Cisco Digital Media Player units to become receivers of live and on-demand broadcast video content
- Provide additional functions to viewers through a remote control or Cisco IP Phone that can navigate and select the channel or VoD content that the user wants to view
Adding another management module is simple: the flexible architecture of the Cisco Digital Media Manager allows for the addition and activation of each module without requiring new hardware or a complete equipment upgrade.
Cisco Digital Media Manager 5.2 provides a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and software developer kits (SDKs) that allow independent software and IT developers to integrate the Cisco Digital Media Suite with a wide variety of other custom-developed applications and systems that extend the overall feature set of the Cisco Digital Media Suite into new application areas, including:
- Conference-room management
- Line queuing
- Radio frequency identification (RFID) and smart signage
- Call center
- Customized content management
- Touchscreen and kiosks
- Video analytics
- Point of sale
- Integration with other web-based portals such as Microsoft SharePoint and learning management systems