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YouTube plugin for Digital Signage

YouTube

Youtube for Digital Signage is a great way to display videos directly from Youtube.

Youtube for Digital Signage is a great way to display videos directly from Youtube.

  • Video URL – This is where you paste the URL you got from YouTube.
  • Set slide duration to – Use this to set the slide duration to the length of the YouTube video.
  • Repeat video – Video will play in a loop if the slide duration exceeds the video duration.
  • Show video controls – If turned on, traditional YouTube video control buttons (play, pause, etc..) are shown.
  • Muted – Plays video without sound
  • Captions – If the video has captions available, you’ll be able to select closed captions for the video.
  • Start playing video at – With this option you can skip to a certain position in a video
Tip: You can also embed Vimeo!

What happens when the Internet connection is lost?

If your player does not have an Internet connection while Youtube for Digital Signage starts, it will not be visible on the slide. If your connection drops while a video is playing, it will display the buffering icon. Being that YouTube content is streamed, we don’t recommend using this plugin if your connection is unstable, instead, you can upload the video to our portal. Videos uploaded to our portal will be downloaded by the players and played locally, so the Internet connection is not relevant.

How can I set the video quality?

YouTube iFrame API does not expose functionality for our app to set the video quality programatically. YouTube defaults to the 'auto' quality and it will set the quality based on network conditions. Sometimes, however even with a good Internet condition, YouTube may serve the video at a lower quality than possible. It is possible to set the quality manually, by enabling "Show video controls" option in the YouTube plugin settings in our editor, then when the video starts playing on the device, click on the gear icon and set the quality as you would normally on youtube.com. This approach however requires using a mouse or touchscreen and it is not possible on other devices.

Alternatively you can upload the video to our library and the device will download the video and play it locally with the original quality.

Are playlists supported?

Yes, the URL will have a parameter &list=<list id> present.

Are live streams supported?

Yes, you can paste the live stream URL as well.

YouTube for Digital Signage says Video unavailable?

Certain channels can restrict the videos, so they can be only viewed on YouTube. We’ve observed this restriction with some music videos and it seems to be related to how different channels author/license/copyright the content. Our Windows, Linux, and Mac players can work around the issue, however, if you’re using Android or Extension, our hands are tied. You can try finding another source for the video or uploading the video to our portal altogether.

YouTube for Digital Signage doesn’t autostart

Update August 2019:
Google removed the flag from Chrome version 76, on newer versions, it is only possible to enable auto-play by starting Chrome with a command-line flag:  --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required

In April 2018 Chrome changed their auto-play policy, unfortunately, this directly affects our Chrome extension player (including ChromeOS devices). Our Android, FireOS, Windows, and macOS players are not affected, however. To fix the auto-play issue on the Chrome player, you need to change a setting in the Chrome browser.

ChromeOS device owners: If you already have set up your ChromeOS device in kiosk mode, you can exit the player by moving the mouse to top-right corner and then pressing Ctrl + Alt + S to exit kiosk mode and log in with your google account

Type in the following address in the address bar: chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy and set the value to “No user gesture is required“. Then our player has sufficient permissions to play YouTube videos. 

After changing the setting Chrome prompts you to restart it. Once restarted, you can launch Play Digital Signage player extension again and videos should start playing automatically!

Capterra at Play Digital SignageGetAPP at Play Digital Signagesoftware-advice at Play Digital Signage

Get started designing your content

Most people think designing content for digital signage is super difficult, but if you can use Powerpoint, you can also create and design your own content in our editor.

Play Digital Signage, Inc., 2035 Sunset Lake Road, Newark, DE, 19702, USA
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