- All
- 2theSpot Playbox
- 2theSpot Playbox Specs
- Advanced Features (tech-stuff)
- Features
- General Questions
- Hardware (Players and Monitors)
- Pricing
2theSpot is a cloud based software application which is offered to you as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution.
You need to get a paid subscription (monthly or annually) in order to use 2thespot services.
You can also ask for a subscription plan that fits your needs (for 3 months or 6 months for example)
You can use either debit cards or Paypal to pay for the subscription.
You can contact us for further information
It is a monitor that you can use.
Each monitor under your 2theSpot account can either be “registered” or “unregistered”.
Registered monitors are monitors that have been paired with a 2theSpot account.
Unregistered monitors in your account do not have a real-world counterpart, and are waiting for a player (such as 2theSpot Playbox) to register.
Both registered and unregistered monitors can be managed the same way under your 2theSpot account, so you can configure settings, assign schedules, etc. But unregistered monitors cannot be actually used to display stuff, until they get registered by a player (such as 2theSpot Playbox).
2theSpot is priced based on the maximum number of monitors you can have under your account.
If you want to register more than 20 monitors, contact our sales team in order to provide you a better solution.
There are 2 main plans. Monthly plan or Annual plan. We can also adapt pricing to your needs (like 3 month plan or other)
Yes, you can! Just select the Annual Plan. You can also have a custom pricing plan if you need it
You can create an account for free but you need a Player to see it working.
We recommend that you buy a single 2theSpot Playbox and test out the real thing! If you do not like it, you can turn the 2theSpot Playbox into a full-fledged Media Center with RaspBMC for free!
If you insist in a “no-cost” route, you can ask our Support Team to provide you with a demo, including a video capture of the output you create, so that you can be sure it does what you need it to do.
No, there is no limit whatsoever.
You can upload as much content as you want and do as many changes as you want. The only limit imposed is the number of registered monitors. As long as you subscribe for the number of registered monitors you want to operate, everything else is unlimited!
Online support service is included in your Plan, but support is limited on how to use poperly the online portal.
If you need a layout design for your monitor or photoshop editing, you should contact our team to get an offer based on your needs.
You can add as many monitors as you want and can use them as soon as they get connected.
New monitors will appear as unregistered in your account until the player gets connected for the first time and registers successfully. You can manage unregistered monitors just like registered ones, they just have not been paired with an actual player.
Your subscription includes a limit on registered monitors. If you have reached your limit of registered monitors, then you will not be able to register any new ones. In case you want to increase this limit, just update your subscription with the new number of monitors you want to operate.
If you want us to completely remove your account and media, drop us and email and we will do so.
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 2theSpot Playboxes, all Network Settings can be configured during ordering, so it works great as soon as you plug it in!
Yes.
You can set the WiFi network name and key through the configuration file and 2theSpot will try to connect. All of the settings are configurable through the online 2theSpot Portal. You also can edit this configuration file through your PC and an SD card reader.
For our 2theSpot Playboxes, all settings can be configured during ordering, so it works great as soon as you plug it in!
Yes, by using a USB dongle.
You just need to connect a 3G/4G/LTE USB dongle to the Player. All settings, like APN, Username, Password, PIN, etc, are configurable through the online 2theSpot Portal. You also can edit this configuration through your PC and an SD card reader directly on the SD card.
For our 2theSpot Playboxes, 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 2theSpot Portal. You can edit this configuration file through your PC and an SD card reader.
For our 2theSpot Playboxes, all Network Settings can be configured during ordering, so it works great as soon as you plug it in!
Very. We designed 2theSpot from the ground up with security in mind.
The 2theSpot service uses bank-grade security encryption, while 2theSpot software is always firewalled, even within your network. Nobody will ever be able to mess with your monitors. 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 up to 1 month with the schedule you have already provided.
Note though that 2theSpot is not a file storage service. You should always keep copies of the content you create outside of 2theSpot. Always.
Any types of images that can be displayed in a modern browser.
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 resolution significantly higher than 1920×1080, try resizing them before you upload them to 2theSpot.
2theSpot supports a wide variety of video formats.
Videos that you upload on 2theSpot 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 720p right now). 2theSpot 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 2theSpot Players. We also support multicast LAN video streams.
2theSpot also allows you to upload a PowerPoint file and get it converted to video on our servers, retaining all transitions and animations.
Finally, 2theSpot offers the option to select if you want to use “crop” (completely fill the region by cropping edges) or “fit” (black borders are added to compensate for the aspect ratio).
We support PDF, PowerPoint (PPT/PPTX), Word (DOC/DOCX), Excel(XLS/XLSX) files.
These Documents are displayed as slideshows, one page at a time, and you can set individual timings for each page through the 2theSpot Portal.
Remember: 2theSpot 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 widgets at the same time, within reason of course.
If the widgets 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 widgets.
Note that you can display only one video playlist at any given time. This is a restriction imposed by the hardware of 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.
2theSpot requires a substantial amount of bandwidth. Really.
Make sure you use the 2theSpot service over a non-metered/unlimited Internet access. Same applies for the 2theSpot 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. We want you to have the best experience possible.
We could stream content, but that would mean that your Internet connection should 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 everything is downloaded locally on the SD card (or hard drive, in case of a PC) and played from there.
Currently, no. You can upgrade your SD card though.
As soon as you set a schedule, that schedule should use at most 4GB of media. You can upgrade the SD card to a 32GB one and allow for 24 hours of high-resolution video.
Do not worry though! We will soon be supporting USB storage extension, allowing you to add additional media storage capacity using USB memory sticks or USB hard drives.
2theSpot software supports any resolution, thus any monitor 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 TV).
2theSpot Playbox (or Raspberry Pi in general) should also work fine with 99% of all monitors and TVs out there, so do not worry much.
Yes.
You should contact our team in order to provide you with the exact procedure that you have to follow. 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 2theSpot player to drive a large video wall as a single screen.
Currently, we do not provide an app, but there is no need to.
We do not provide a mobile application for managing 2theSpot. 2theSpot 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.
2theSpot Playbox (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 (2theSpot Playbox) 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), 2theSpot Playbox turns off the HDMI port to allow for 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 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.
Within 2theSpot, there are 4 simple concepts: Media, Playlists, Widgets and Shows.
Media, which are things that you create or upload to 2theSpot and get displayed, like image files, video files, documents or web site addresses
Playlists, which are a collection of media that gets displayed one after the other, with a duration that you specify (to create an image slideshow or video playlist)
Widgets, which are drop-in, small apps displaying useful info, like RSS feed, Ticker, Rich Text, Analog/Digital Clock etc.
Shows, which are a composition of playlists, media and widgets, placed on a virtual monitor, e.g. a full-screen image slideshow with a video playing on one corner.
After you create your shows, you just assign a default show to each of your monitors.
Beyond the default show assigned to each device, you can also assign it a single Schedule.
The Schedule determines the exact time different shows get displayed. So, for example, you can setup a different show for different hours or days, or schedule to display a specific show at a given time-frame. It is very easy, but very powerful.
By using a Schedule, you can also setup the hours that you want to power-off your monitors in order to cut on electricity bill.
In an event of Internet outage, 2theSpot-enabled screens will continue to work fine, 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. 2theSpot fully supports monitors mounted vertically.
“Shows” can have many layouts, for different resolutions, orientations and ratios. So, you can have a Show with 2 layouts, one 16:9 horizontal and one 16:9 vertical. When you assign this Show for playback, each Player selects the appropriate layout depending on its ratio and its configured orientation.
The latest version of the Raspberry Pi, featuring a quad-core 1.2GHz ARMv8 CPU.
Broadcom BCM2837 1.2GHz ARMv8 quad-core processor with VideoCore IV dual-core GPU
GPU provides Open GL ES 2.0, hardware-accelerated OpenVG, and 1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode, supported resolution up to 1920×1200 or even 4K@24Hz (see here more specs)
1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM
HD 1080p video and stereo audio output
MicroSD card socket
Ports:
10/100 BaseT RJ45 Ethernet socket
HDMI 1.3 & 1.4 video/audio socket, with CEC support
4 x USB 2.0 sockets
3.5mm 4-pole audio/composite video out jack socket
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 @ 2.5A via microUSB socket
Dimensions: 86 x 56 x 20mm
* These ports not yet usable through 2theSpot software, but some will soon be supported! Check out our roadmap!
We provide an 8GB Class 10 SD card, ready to boot.
This provides around 4GiB of usable media storage space, suitable for normal use (up to 4 hours of video files). You can use up to 32GB, from which around 24GB of usable media storage space, suitable for heavy video use (up to 24 hours of video files).
The SD Card comes with software preinstalled and preconfigured with your 2theSpot account.
We include a Raspberry Pi-compatible power supply, with a suitable plug for your region.
We include a standard HDMI cable (male-to-male), rated for 1920×1080 resolution. It also works for 4K@24Hz.
The 2theSpot Playbox is our own plug-and-play Player, based on the popular Raspberry Pi 3 computer.
2theSpot needs a device that will handle playback of your media onto your monitor or TV. To make things easier for you, we created our own consumer device.
With “2theSpot Playbox” you get:
A Raspberry Pi 3 (Model B) mini computer, including a plastic case and mains power supply.
A 3ft-long HDMI cable, for connecting the 2theSpot Playbox to your TV/monitor.
An 8GB SD-card, preloaded with 2theSpot software and preconfigured to be plug-and-play.
Sounds complicated? It is not. As soon as you plug your Playbox on your monitor and then on your broadband router, it will start playback from your account. Immediately.
You can order 2thebox Playbox online but also you can send us your request via email
No. But why not?
You have the option to buy a Raspberry Pi yourself, with a case, power adapter, HDMI cable and an SD card, then download our Raspberry Pi image, write it to the SD card and assemble everything together. But why?
2theSpot Playbox is probably cheaper than assembling a Raspberry Pi player yourself.
On the other hand, you can just use a PC you already have with some other software. But PCs use a lot of power, something like 3x-15x the power 2theSpot Playbox uses. So, you will end up paying more through your electricity bill than if you had bought 2theSpot Playbox!
2theSpot supports the Raspberry Pi and our very own 2theSpot Playbox (based on Raspberry Pi).
The Raspberry Pi is a very low cost but quite capable mini-computer which you can buy yourself from vendors worldwide, no matter where you are located. In the past, we did support using regular PCs, but we have dropped support as nobody was actually using it on a PC.
We have our very own 2theSpot Playbox, based on Raspberry Pi 3. 2theSpot Playboxes you get are shipped ready-to-use. See the 2theSpot Playbox section below for details.
2theSpot was built for Raspberry Pi 3, and also works fine on Pi 2. Even Pi 1 or Pi Zero (and Pi Zero W) will work for simple cases.
The experience has been optimized for the Raspberry Pi 3, and our own 2theSpot Playboxes are based on Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
2theSpot has been tested to work on:
- Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (4 cores, 1GB RAM) – Will provide you with the best experience possible
- Raspberry Pi 2 Model B (4 cores, 1GB RAM) – Will provide you with a great experience.
- Raspberry Pi Model B, Rev 2 (1 core, 512MB RAM) – Significantly slower, can handle most cases but changes take longer.
- Raspberry Pi Zero (1 core, 512MB RAM) – Significantly slower, can handle most cases but changes take longer. Needs an Ethernet or WiFi adapter.
- Raspberry Pi Zero W (1 core, 512MB RAM) – Significantly slower, can handle most cases but changes take longer. Has a WiFi adapter. Supported using a special image.
- Raspberry Pi Model B (1 core, 256MB RAM) – Dramatically slower, can handle a single playlist only, may wear out SD card due to swapping under load.
- NEC Vxx4 and Pxx5 series displays, with Raspberry Pi 3 Compute Module – NEC Edition
We also support all Raspberry Pi Compute Modules according to their respective generation as above. We do not support Raspberry Pi models with less than 1GB RAM for new production-grade installations.
2theSpot software supports any type of monitor, of any resolution.
The service was designed based on the primary resolution of 1920×1080 (dubbed “Full HD” or “1080p” in the TV industry). The content is automatically adapted for any resolution and any monitor, even non-widescreen monitors.
2theSpot 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 2theSpot Playbox, check out the hardware specs of 2theSpot Playbox.
You can have any number of monitors you need.
2theSpot uses scalable technologies that can support tens of thousands of monitors under a single 2theSpot account. We provide mass management of multiple monitors, along with tag-based searches, making 2theSpot an easy solution for handling thousands of units.
You need Internet access and a 2theSpot-supported playback device.
2theSpot is an online service, so you need an Internet connection for signing in and managing your monitors. A 2theSpot-supported playback device is required for each monitor (either a Raspberry Pi you build yourself, or our very own 2theSpot Playbox). Internet connectivity is also required for the 2theSpot Player devices installed, either wireless (WiFi), wired (LAN) or mobile (using a 3G/4G/LTE USB dongle).
Because it sucks. Really.
Most TVs with a USB port allow you to load some media files on a USB drive and 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 really sucks.
2theSpot 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 smooth 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, 2theSpot provides a scheduling feature. You can setup your monitors to show different things on different hours, or even power off your monitor to save power.
And all of that without discussing about 2theSpot being able to composite screens with multiple content, using YouTube videos, PPTs, live streaming videos, etc.
2theSpot can display a composition of videos, images, documents, online web pages and widgets.
You can upload whatever media files you want to 2theSpot and use them. We also support YouTube videos, Live Streaming Videos (YouTube, Ustream, and custom streams) and PowerPoint files (converted to videos, keeping all animations). All Document types are supported and shown as slides, including PDF, PowerPoint, Word and Excel files. Our Widget collection, including Scrolling Text (ticker), Rich Text, RSS Feed, is now available to use and we are working on adding more.