Just got mine setup, loving it so far.

Is there a way to make a secondary zone transparent, but the scrolling text in that zone overlay live video?

[quote="MrMxyzptlk69"]Ohh, I do use Indigo, but my main system is HomeSeer 3.

I have a feeling I will be buying these for all of my TV's...don't tell my wife! ; )[/quote]

Ditch homeseer and we won't tell your wife! [emoji83][emoji83][emoji83]

Thanks for the link! I have been looking for this type of device, that doesn't cost thousands for years.
I too have a NeTV, but like you said it was basically just a developers prototype, 720P doesn't cut it nowadays and it was SLOW.

I just ordered an XT1134, can't wait to test it out.

Ohh, I do use Indigo, but my main system is HomeSeer 3.

I have a feeling I will be buying these for all of my TV's...don't tell my wife! ; )

No degradation in PQ that I can tell.

I chose this route because while I do have a Sharp brand TV which has an excellent Indigo Plugin... I found the network interface on the TV has completely died and it's not worth fixing... The RasPi was one of my first choices, but not ideal, as I would be limited by the TV's PIP location and settings and I'm sort of a control freak.

ThisBrightSign device is fairly easy to use (WYSIWIG editing, etc) and I feel as if it has many features I'll probably want to play with down the road. It definitely allows for PiP (network source, or HTML5 Widget on top of, or next to the main signal.) It's almost like a dedicated window processor.

Yes, it was pricy... Their site is filled with poorly documented "instructions" which often conflict with later firmware versions, but I took that chance. I ended up with this particular model because of the HDMI Pass-thru. I ended up spending about $550 on it via amazon. It was well worth the investment for me. Yet still cheaper than the alternatives I was looking at (BlackMagic ATEM).

I'm not using a COM port to communicate with it, but sending a network packet: Essentially in Bright Author, I've created 2 "Zones"

Zone 1 is Full Screen HDMI Video from the "HDMI in" port of the Bright Sign. The second zone is a "Live Text" zone placed about where you would see the CNN Ticker (but slightly lower as to not cover the TiVo status bar). I've set Zone 2 so that Any UDP input sent to it is displayed in the Zone2 and centered.

There is actually the ability to set up multiple live text zones and send commands to each zone, but I'm just starting out and wanted things to be fairly simple on the BrightSign side; and keep the complications on the indigo side. This makes me happy as the BrightSign can only be configured on Windows and I had to borrow a PC from work to get it configured. I played with the RSS and Twitter data source options, but they tend to play the last X messages over and over and over despite the settings telling them to only display once.

I wish I were better at coding because I'm sure an indigo plugin for this would be pretty epic.

I agree with Jay - if it were not so pricey I would be potentially interested down the road... could think of a TON of possibilities there. This has the markings of a feature where the wife would roll her eyes, but then 3 months later be complaining when it didn't work one time for 5 minutes during a reboot.

The model you link to is pretty pricey, but I see there are cheaper options. Looking at the comparison chart, it's a bit dense and it's not clear exactly which feature(s) you're using (the comm options that is - the various video/display/resolution options are clear enough). Can you shed some light on that?

PiP text will not look at good as overlay text. I think the PiP goes well with security cams though. Can the BrightSign do it's own PiP or does it depend on the TVs PiP?

I was thinking of getting messages onto the TV by plugging in a Raspberry PI into an unused input, switching to a Picture-In-Picture showing the Rpi, and using the Rpi to show a "full-screen" message in the PiP window... With Indigo-control of the TV and some scripts it should be pretty simple, and less than $50 USD in costs...

Nice integration. Do you see any quality degradation by running the HDMI cable via the BrightSign? I read a few reviews about similar devices such as HDMI splitters in that they can affect image quality.

Hey all!

I thought I may share one of my recent successes here with Indigo. In doing some research at work I ran across a device called NEtv ( [url]https://www.adafruit.com/products/609[/url] ) and ordered one to play with it. I really like the ticker options, but the unit itself was a bit flaky and would lock up every few hours, additionally it maxes out at only 720p. That being said, once I had a taste for Text Alerts on my TV, I just HAD to find a solution!

Fast forward a few weeks, and I ran across the BrightSign XD1132 [url]https://www.brightsign.biz/digital-signage-products/xd-product-line/xd1132/[/url] It allows for full 1080p/60fps; and for Live Text placed on top of an HDMI input, maintaining HDCP. There are other options too including HTML and RTSP streaming... (They also have 4K units available, but I have not taken that plunge yet)

I was able to create a project in BrightSign Author with a full screen HDMI input from my AV Stack and output that to my TV full-screen with a Live text overlay using a UDP Packet for the message.



To accomplish this I created the following items in indigo:

Devices:
[list]Timer called OSDText (5 seconds) [/list]

Variables:
[list]TVMessage[/list]

Triggers:
[list]When Var "TVMessage" changes - restart timer, and send TVMessage string as UDP Packet to BrightSign
When Timer Expires- Set var "TVMessage" to blank (effectively clearing the display)
[/list]
The python code I used to send the UDP Packet is here:

[code]import socket

UDP_IP = "10x.x.x" #this is the IP of the BrightSign
UDP_PORT = 5000 #BrightSign UDP Receive port.


MESSAGE = indigo.variables[925098441] #IndigoVariable TVMessage

sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
sock.sendto(MESSAGE.value, (UDP_IP, UDP_PORT))

[/code]

This works fantastically! It's super fast to respond, and I have complete control of text position, font, color, delay time, position, etc. I even have the ability to send UDP Commands which will load different projects of layouts based on what activity I'm doing.

Currently I have it alert me to the following:
[list]Hourly updates containing of inside/outside/and set-point temperatures (Nest AND Netatmo plugins)
Volume level of Sonos Sound Bar (sonos plugin)
Mute Status of Living Room Sonos (sonos plugin)
Security/motion events related to outside motion sensors (any motion sensor that works with indigo)
When the dishwasher or clothes washer completes (Aeotec Z-Wave modules with load sensing)
Remote client has connected to Plex Server and what they are watching (Plex Plugin)
Alert when the garage opens or closes
Alert when garage door open longer than x minutes
Alert when HVAC set point changes, or state changes. (Nest plugin)
Alert when someone leaves a Voicemail (Ooma VM to Email/Indigo Email scanning)
front door motion detected [/list]

Next time I get a chance, I'm going to play with a transparent video zone in the layout, so that if motion is detected at the front door, the camera's RTSP stream will display it on the Television PiP style and optionally pause the TiVo.

I'd be interested to see if anyone else is using a device like this... I'm also open to suggestions to make it cooler/more functional.

JT