Digital Signage
General Questions
FuneralScreen can display videos, images, documents, online web pages and apps. Or you can combine these media files to create Playlists or Screen Layouts.
You can upload whatever media files you want to FuneralScreen, and use them. We also support YouTube videos, Live Streaming Videos (YouTube, Ustream, and custom streams) and PowerPoint files (converted to videos, while keeping all animations). All Document types are supported and shown as slides, including PDF, PowerPoint, Word and Excel files. Our App collection, including Scrolling Text (ticker), Rich Text and RSS Feed, is now available to use and we are working on adding more.
Because it will let you down and make your job so much harder. Really.
Most TVs with a USB port allow you to load some media files on a USB drive and then you select to play them back sequentially. That’s it.
If the TV turns off, you will have to restart the playback. Some TVs show annoying progress indicators on screen. Others, stop when the full list of media is completed. Generally, it is a nice free way to do stuff, but it isn’t suitable for businesses and organizations.
FuneralScreen automates the process of playback. It can turn the TV on and off, change the channel to the proper HDMI input and make sure everything goes smoothly without glitches even after a power failure. And, of course, you can continuously update the content over the Internet without using USB sticks or DVD discs, and do so to 1 or 10,000 screens. Also, FuneralScreen provides a scheduling feature. You can setup your screens to show different things at different hours of the day, or even power off your monitor to save electricity.
And all of that without even touching upon how FuneralScreen can composite screens with multiple content, using YouTube videos, PPTs, live streaming videos, etc.
You need Internet access and a FuneralScreen-supported playback device.
FuneralScreen is an online service, so you need an Internet connection for signing in and managing your monitors and content. A FuneralScreen-supported playback device is required for each screen. Internet connectivity is also required for installed FuneralScreen Players, either wireless (WiFi), wired (LAN) or mobile (using a 3G/4G/LTE USB dongle).
Absolutely not! FuneralScreen was designed for funeral homes by funeral directors. Anyone can use it.
Forget about mumbo-jumbo tech-stuff. The service is really easy to use and our FuneralScreen Players are really plug-and-play. Really.
We understand the funeral business is not a 9-5 job. As such, we have support staff available to help you should you have an issue. Our email is monitored 24/7/365. We can help solve an issue with our remote monitoring capability.
Hardware (Player & Screens)
FuneralScreen supports the Raspberry Pi and our very own FuneralScreen Player (based on the Raspberry Pi). The Raspberry Pi is a very low-cost but quite capable mini-computer. The FunerlScreen Players you get from us are shipped ready-to-use, with everything pre-configured. See the FuneralScreen Player section below for more details.
FuneralScreen software supports any type of monitor or TV, of any resolution.
Our service was designed based on the primary resolution of 1920×1080 (dubbed “Full HD” or “1080p” in the TV industry). With the Raspberry Pi 4, FuneralScreen also supports 4K resolution. The content is automatically adapted for any resolution and any monitor or TV, even non-widescreen monitors.
FuneralScreen supports multiple ratios and orientations, making it possible to customize and optimize your content by ratio and orientation (portrait or landscape). For resolutions supported by our FuneralScreen Player, check out the hardware specs of the FuneralScreen Player.
FuneralScreen Player
Order a FuneralScreen Player and select a service plan and billing cycle.
Any FuneralScreen Player you order will be preconfigured with your account details so that you can simply plug it in and start “funeralscreening”!
There is a limited worldwide warranty of 1 year on the FunerlScreen Player.
But first, you should follow the FuneralScreen Player troubleshooting guide. It might save you precious time and money.
If your FuneralScreen Player is eligible for replacement, you can ship the faulty FuneralScreen Player back to us and we will send you the replacement unit within 2-3 days of receipt. Shipping costs for returning FuneralScreen Players are covered by you, whereas we will cover for the shipping costs of the replacement unit.
In order for you not to incur unnecessary shipping costs, make sure you go through the troubleshooting guide.
FuneralScreen Player Specs
The latest version of the FuneralScreen Player, featuring a 4 × Cortex-A72, 1.5 GHz CPU.
- Broadcom BCM2711 SoC, with ARM v8 64-bit quad-core processor with 4 x Cortex-A72 cores running @ 1.5GHz and a Broadcom VideoCore VI GPU
- GPU provides OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics, H.265 (4kp60 decode) and H264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode), supported resolution up to 4K@60Hz
- Up to 4GB LPDDR4- 3200 SDRAM
- 4K video and stereo audio output
- MicroSD card slot
Ports:
- BLE Gigabit Ethernet
- 2 × micro-HDMI ports (up to 4kp60 supported)*
- 2-lane MIPI DSI display port
- 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port
- 2 USB 3.0 ports; 2 USB 2.0 ports
- 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port
- Composite video (PAL/NTSC) output
- 15-way MPI CSI-2 connector for Raspberry Pi HD video camera*
- 15-way Display Serial Interface connector*
- 40-pin header for GPIO and serial buses*
- Required power supply: 5V DC via USB-C connector (minimum 3A*), 5V DC via GPIO header (minimum 3A*) A good quality 2.5A power supply can be used if downstream USB peripherals consume less than 500mA in total
- Power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled (requires separate PoE HAT)
- Dimensions: 88 x 58 x 19.5mm
* These ports are not yet usable through the FuneralScreen software, but some will soon be supported!
We provide a 32GB card, of which around 24GB is usable media storage space, suitable for heavy video use (up to 24 hours of video files).
All SD Cards come with software pre-installed and pre-configured with your FuneralScreen account.
We include the Official Raspberry Pi power supply, with plugs suitable for worldwide use.
We include a 3ft (1m) micro-HDMI to HDMI cable (male-to-male), tested for 4K 60 Hz resolution.
Features
- Media, which is content that you create or upload to FuneralScreen, which then get displayed, like image files, video files, documents or web sites.
- Playlists, which are a collection of media that gets displayed one after the other, with a duration that you specify
- Apps, which are drop-in, small integrations displaying useful info, like RSS feeds, Tickers, Rich Text, Analog/Digital Clocks etc.
- Screen Layouts, which are a composition of playlists, media and apps, placed on a virtual monitor, e.g. a full-screen image slideshow with a video playing on one corner.
After you create your screen layouts or playlists, or upload your media files, you just assign default content to each of your monitors.
Beyond the default content assigned to each Player, you can also assign a single Schedule.
The Schedule determines the exact time different screen layouts, playlists or media files get displayed. So, for example, you can setup a different playlist for different hours or days, or schedule to display a specific screen layout during a given time-frame. It is very easy, but very powerful.
By using a Schedule, you can also set the hours that you want to power-off your screens in order to cut your electric bill.
In the event of an Internet outage, Yodeck-enabled screens will continue to work fine, for up to a full month.
Content displayed on your monitors is downloaded and played locally. But you won’t be able to change what gets displayed until Internet access is back. Of course, content that loads from the Internet, like Web Pages and Live Streaming Videos (except simple YouTube videos, which are downloaded locally), is not available when your devices go offline.
Yes. FuneralScreen fully supports screens mounted vertically.
You can design many layouts for your screens, for different resolutions, orientations and ratios. So, you can have a Screen Layout in 2 formats, one 16:9 horizontal and one 16:9 vertical. When you assign this Screen Layout for playback, each Player selects the appropriate format depending on its ratio and its configured orientation.
Advanced Features (tech stuff)
Yes. You can set HTTP Proxy and Username/Password through the configuration file. You can edit this configuration file through your PC and an SD card reader.
For our FuneralScreen Players, all Network Settings can be configured during ordering, so it works great as soon as you plug it in!
Yes. Simply scan the QR code displayed on the screen with your mobile phone or tablet. The WiFi Wizard does the rest!
For our FuneralScreen Players, all settings can be configured during ordering, so it works great as soon as you plug it in!
Yes, you can set the static network information through the configuration file. All of the settings are configurable through the online FuneralScreen Portal. You can edit this configuration file through your PC and an SD card reader.
For our FuneralScreen Players, all Network Settings can be configured during ordering, so it works great as soon as you plug it in!
Yes. You can set the static network information through the configuration file. All of the settings are configurable through the online FuneralScreen Portal. You can edit this configuration file through your PC and an SD card reader.
Very. We designed FuneralScreen from the ground up with security in mind.
The FuneralScreen service uses bank-grade security encryption, while FuneralScreen software is always firewalled, even within your network. Nobody will ever be able to mess with your screens. You can also fully customize the security features provided.
Very. Nothing can ever affect your screens.
Even in the remote case that our servers go down, your monitors will continue to work for up to 1 month with the schedule or content you have already provided.
Note though that FuneralScreen is not a file storage service. You should always keep copies of the content you create outside of FuneralScreen. Always.
Any types of images that can be displayed in a modern browser can by displayed by FuneralScreen.
These include JPEG, PNG and GIF (incl. animations). Images are resized upon display, so no preprocessing is performed. It is better not to use images of extremely high resolution, because this will slow down your Player. If you have images with a resolution significantly higher than 1920×1080, try resizing them before you upload them to FuneralScreen.
FuneralScreen supports a wide variety of video formats.
Videos that you upload on FuneralScreen are automatically converted to industry-standard formats (H.264 with AAC audio).
YouTube videos are supported out-of-the-box, so they just get downloaded in the best possible quality (up to 1080p right now). FuneralScreenk also supports Live Streaming Videos (YouTube, UStream, or custom HLS or RTMP/RTSP streams). These will have to be delivered by the stream in H.264 format to make sure they will be played back on FuneralScreen Players. We also support multicast LAN video streams.
FuneralScreen also allows you to upload a PowerPoint file and get it converted to video on our servers, retaining all transitions and animations.
Finally, Yodeck offers the option to select if you want to “crop” (completely fill the region by cropping edges) or “fit” (black borders are added to compensate for the aspect ratio) content.
FuneralScreen supports a wide variety of video formats.
We support PDF, PowerPoint (PPT/PPTX), Word (DOC/DOCX), as well as Excel(XLS/XLSX) files.
These Documents are displayed as slideshows, one page at a time, and you can set individual display durations for each page through the FuneralScreen Portal.
Remember: FuneralScreen already allows you to upload a PowerPoint file in the “Videos” section and get it converted to video on our servers, retaining all transitions and animations.
You can display any number of image slideshows, webpages and apps at the same time, within reason of course.
If the apps require a lot of processing and the hardware is not up to it, you might notice some sluggish animations depending on the type and content of the webpages and apps.
Note that you can display only one video playlist at any given time. This is a restriction imposed by the hardware of the Raspberry Pi, which cannot playback more than one video simultaneously. In most cases, you should not need it. We are planning to provide an advanced option for removing this restriction soon.
FuneralScreen requires a substantial amount of bandwidth. Really.
Make sure you use the FuneralScreen service over a non-metered/unlimited Internet access. Same applies for the FuneralScreen players. Huge video files may be transferred through the Internet and constant communication of the players with the service may skyrocket your bill.
If you are on a metered/limited Internet connection (e.g. mobile carrier, or per-traffic / per-hour access), please contact us to ensure that you can use our service over those Internet connections.
Internet access is not smooth everywhere. And we want you to have the best experience possible.
We could stream content, but that would mean that your Internet connection must be stable. Same goes for your WiFi network. If anything between your monitor and our server is a bit slow, it would not work properly. That is why almost everything is downloaded locally on the SD card and played from there.
FuneralScreen software supports any resolution, thus any screen size.
From 640×480 VGA monitors, up to the latest 4K TVs, all monitors will work fine. It is best to choose a widescreen monitor with an aspect ratio of 16:9 (like “HD Ready”, “Full HD” or “4K” monitors and TVs).
The FuneralScreen Player (or the Raspberry Pi in general) should also work fine with 99% of all monitors and TVs out there, so there’s no need to worry much.
Yes.
We do have detailed instruction on creating a video-wall using Yodeck using 1 FuneralScreen Player for each screen, plus one “master” Player. You can create really inexpensive video-wall setups that can be matrix-like (2×2, 3×3) or can even be asymmetric, with any layout you can imagine.
Alternatively, you can use an HDMI video wall controller and use a single FuneralScreen player to drive a large video wall as a single screen.
Currently, we do not provide an app, but there is no need to.
FuneralScreen was built on a mobile-compatible platform, so it is quite easy to use it through a mobile web browser.
In the future, we will be providing a mobile application mainly for push notifications on the status of your monitors.
We use the HDMI standard called CEC. Almost all TVs support it.
The FuneralScreen Player (or Raspberry Pi in general) includes a CEC adapter on its HDMI monitor port. CEC is a standard communication protocol supported by most major TV manufacturers. It allows for a playback device (the FuneralScreen Player in this case) to power on, power off, and switch video inputs on a CEC-enabled TV. Check out the CEC compatibility chart.
If your monitor does not support CEC (e.g. you have a computer monitor), the FuneralScreen Player turns off the HDMI port to allow the monitor to power-down by itself. This function is supported by all current monitors, even TVs.
In the future, we will provide support for using infrared LEDs to signal the monitor to turn on or off through IR. For large installations, we can support custom solutions, like the above, or use custom serial connections to monitors.
No, there is no limit whatsoever. You can upload as many videos and images as you want.
FuneralScreen provides support through phone, email and chat. For phone support, call us at 1-800-270-1237. For email support, submit a ticket
