Preparing a single Macintosh as a playout computer takes less than 20 steps and should take less than 30 minutes from taking the system out of the box, with the majority of that time being the initial installation of Apple software updates.
In fact, a customer with minimal technical skills following the steps in the manual could probably set up several systems concurrently with a three-screen network for a school or small retail outlet taking around an hour.
If your entire digital signage network operates on the same local-area network (LAN), ~sedna presenter will auto-configure using Apple's Bonjour technology - the same technology that enables you to share iTunes music libraries amongst multiple computers or facilitates the installation of many modern printers from manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard.
There's no need for you to fill in network names or TCP/IP addresses or other settings: each playout system advertises its presence on the network automatically both to all other playout systems, but also to systems running Presenter Scheduler.
And there's another advantage: because ~sedna presenter uses Bonjour, you can use a conventional DHCP dynamic IP address regime as opposed to manually configuring each playout system with static addresses.
As a Macintosh application, ~sedna presenter works in conjunction with any mainstream video workflow that delivers QuickTime-based output, such as Final Cut Studio or Premiere. Additionally, PNG, JPG and GIF file formats delivered by Adobe CS also integrate seamlessly into ~sedna presenter's scheduling function.
By supporting Apple's Quartz Composer, ~sedna presenter allows you to create new and unique solutions to answer your creative needs or those of your customers.
And even if Quartz Composer's rich array of built-in patches and functions don't answer your precise needs, it's possible to develop custom patches that extend the creative options even further by creating new visual effects, new interactions between human-interface devices or by enabling access to corporate data.
~sedna presenter also supports both AppleScript and UNIX shellscripts allowing the advanced user to create highly customised digital signage networks utilising the power of other applications.
~sedna presenter permits the network owner or integrator to create digital playback networks of any size either on a single site or across several hundred sites within a country or around the world.
As can be seen in the References section, ~sedna presenter can drive displays of any size and resolution.
The solution delivers resolution-independent scaling permitting schedules to be easily re-purposed down to standard-definiton for smaller displays as well as massively expanded to span multiple giant Full HD (1920 x 1080) display arrays.
Because of the high specification of Macintosh computers, ~sedna presenter can also support displays up to 2560 x 1600 pixels.
As can again be seen in the References section, ~sedna presenter can deliver content on anything from a single screen to diverse networks combining dozens of portrait and landscape screens.
When combined with the external control functionality, ~sedna presenter can also integrate a full range of audio/visual communication and ancilliary hardware including LED matrix displays, lighting, professional audio and video playback as well as show and event hardware like turntables, lifts, curtains, smoke machines and much more besides.
Being based on Apple's critically-acclaimed Mac OS X — which is itself based on a standards-based implementation of UNIX — ~sedna presenter can deliver extraordinary 24/7 reliability for months at a time with restarts only required after major system updates, security updates (delivered by Apple Inc.) or updates to ~sedna presenter itself.
Again, Mac OS X delivers a great foundation for digital signage because of a highly secure architecture: there's a minimal risk of malware like viruses, spyware or adware which means that you don't need to give up valuable computing cycles to run software which doesn't add any "front-line" value and can cost many thousands to implement across larger networks.
In the unlikely event of any of the Presenter Player variants encountering a problem and quitting, the software has an option to automatically restart without operator intervention.
No blank screens, no blue screens of death: just your content playing reliably 24/7.
When using Presenter Scheduler, you'll be struck by the clean, elegant interface: the main window exists in four panes — one for asset organisation, one for playlist organisation, one for day templates and a multi-function pane that changes depending on whether you're creating playlists or manipulating schedules.
Modifying the way an asset behaves is executed through a content-sensitive inspector, whilst ~sedna composer and a live preview function both start as separate mini-applications.
Some people will organise their video content by aspect ratio, some will organise by content type and others will prefer to organise by target displays.
In ~sedna presenter, you organise your content the way you want: use as many folder levels as you need to make your project make sense to you. Have a folder just for network commands for NEC screens and another for DMX lighting rigs. It's always your choice.
And you can do the same for playlists and day templates: Have a playlist folder specifically for stores in a particular TV region. Have a day template folder to match the academic timetable in your school or university — one for the autumn term, one for spring, etc. Again it's your choice.