Data Feeds

4 min

This page / section pertains to BrightAuthor Classic, our legacy app. BrightSign Author is our latest app for managing content and players.

Development of BrightAuthor Classic has largely ceased and the app will eventually be deprecated and replaced with BrightSign Author.

Use this tab to create and edit data feeds, which you can use to populate Live TextLive Text, RSSRSS, and Media RSS / Dynamic PlaylistMedia RSS / Dynamic Playlist states. Data feeds can also be used to generate Networked User VariablesNetworked User Variables.

Add Data Feed(s)

To add a new data feed, click Add Live Data Feed and specify the following:

Feed Name: Specify a name for the data feed. You will be able to locate the data feed by this name when you are creating a Live Text element, specifying an RSS, MRSS, or Dynamic Playlist feed state, or creating a Networked User Variable.
Feed Specification: Select a source for the data feed:
- Url: If you have an RSS or MRSS feed hosted on a third-party server, enter the web address of the feed into this field. If you want the presentation to retrieve a feed from an RSS .xml file on the SD card, use the “file:///path” URL format (e.g. “file:///filename.xml”). You cannot currently use a URL that contains spaces as a Live Data feed. Please replace any spaces in the file or folder names with "%20". For example, change http://www.myserver.com/New Updates.xml to http://www.myserver.com/New Updates.xml
- Live Data Feed: If you have a BrightSign Network subscription, you can host RSS feeds on the BSN servers using the Live Data Feed feature. See this FAQ for more information.
- Live Media Feed: If you have a BrightSign Network subscription, you can host MRSS feeds on the BSN servers using the Live Media Feed feature.
- Dynamic Playlist: If you have a BrightSign Network subscription, you can use Dynamic PlaylistsDynamic Playlists as media feeds.
- Tagged Playlist: If you have a BrightSign Network subscription, you can use Tagged PlaylistsTagged Playlists as media feeds. Use the first dropdown list to select a Tagged Playlist. If you plan to use player tagsplayer tags, use the second dropdown list to specify the player-tag matching behavior for the Tagged Playlist:
  - Match Player Tags Disabled: All media in the Tagged Playlist will be played, regardless of player tags assigned to a player.
  - Match ALL Player Tags to Media Tags: Media tags in the Tagged Playlist will be matched against all player tags assigned to a player: A media file must have all tag names and values that a player has; otherwise, that media file will not be played.
  - Match ALL Media Tags to Player Tags: Player tags assigned to a player will be matched against all media tags assigned to a media file. A player must have all tag names and values that a media file has; otherwise, that media file will not be played. Note that the Match ALL Media Tags to Player Tags option is not supported by BSNEE 4.4. This option will be supported in the next version of BSNEE.
  - Match ANY Player Tags: Media tags in the Tagged Playlist will be matched against any player tag: As long as a media file has one tag name and value in common with the player, it will be played.
Refresh: Click this button to update the content of the Live Data Feed, Live Media Feed, and Dynamic Playlist dropdown lists.
Data feed content usage: Determine how you wish to utilize the data downloaded from the feed:
- Text: The feed will be displayed as text in a Ticker zone or Live Text feed.
- MRSS Feed: The feed will be used to download and play media in a Media RSS or Live Text state.
  - Support 4K images: Check this box if you wish to use the MRSS feed to download and display 4K images. This feature is only supported on 4Kx42 players. Displaying 4K images will use the 4K video decoder on the device (i.e. you cannot display a 4K image and a 4K video at the same time).
- Content for Image List, Video List, Audio List, or Play File: The player will download and store media files specified in the Data Feed. You can then play back the media files using a Media ListMedia List or Play FilePlay File state. Each media file must be specified as a download URL in a field of the RSS feed. Note that this mechanism is not compatible with the download and playback features of MRSS feeds and Dynamic Playlists.
Validate: Click this button to ping the feed you specified in the Url, Live Data Feed, Live Media Feed, or Dynamic Playlist field. Use this feature to check whether you entered the URL correctly, or whether the selected BSN feed still exists.
Update Interval: Specify how often you want the player to check the feed URL to determine if there are any updates.

If the amount of time it takes to cycle through all the entries in the Data Feed is longer than the Update Interval, the presentation will never display all items in the feed. Make sure to specify an Update Interval that is long enough to display the entire feed.

Plugin Script: Use the dropdown list to select a plugin script–you can add plugin scripts to your presentation using the Add Parser Plugin button (see below).
Optimize Feed Updates: Check this box to have the player make an HTTP HEAD request before retrieving the contents of a feed (unless it's the first time a feed is downloaded). This option will reduce network traffic related to feed downloads as long as the feed host has implemented the HTTP header functionality.
- If the Last-Modified value has changed, or the server does not respond to the HTTP HEAD request, the player will make an HTTP GET request to download the feed.
- If the Last-Modified value in the HTTP header has not changed since the last time the player checked in, the player will not attempt to download the feed. Note that the player ignores milliseconds when comparing the Last-Modified values.
Automatically generate User Variables from Data Feed: You can use Data Feeds to populate a set of User Variables for HTML5 pages. The User Variables can then be retrieved using JavaScript. Use the <title> tag of the Data Feed to specify the Name of a variable and the <description> tag to specify its default value.
- Access: Select Shared to make the User Variable accessible to other presentations scheduled on the player. If two presentations use a variable with the same name, the value of the variable with the Shared attribute will be used for the variable with the Private attribute.

Parser Plugins

This is an advanced feature: You may optionally choose to have an RSS or MRSS feed parsed by custom BrightScript code. This occurs after the feed is retrieved from the network and before it is provided to Live Text states, Media RSS Feed states, and other presentation features.

Click the Add Parser Plugin button to add a parser plugin to your presentation.

Parser Script: Click Browse to locate and select the BrightScript (.brs) parser file.
Feed Parser: Enter the name of the feed-parser function in the script.
User Agent String: Enter the name of the parser function for user-agent strings.
User Variable Parser: Enter the name of the user-variable parser function in the script.