User guide

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aspect ratio. What this means from a practical point of view is that you should author the content
for 16x9 if you intend to use a 16x9 display mode (any component mode). If you intend to use a
4x3 display mode (any VGA mode, for example 1024x768), then you should author the content
for 4x3. If you author your video for widescreen, but play it back at 1024x768 or 640x480, it will
look squashed. It isn’t automatically letter-boxed like when played on a DVD player. For example,
the aquarium video that is included in the BrightSign demo (that you can download from the
BrightSign web site) is widescreen video. When you view the demo on a VGA display, it appears
squashed, but it appears correct when you view it on a 720p display.
Using a custom script or modified AUTORUN.BRS, you can force a 16x9 video to be letter-boxed.
Using ViewMode 1 sets the video to be letter-boxed and centered while maintaining aspect ratio.
You can read more about ViewMode in the Object Reference Manual . The following example
assumes you have a roVideoPlayer object called video :
video.SetViewMode(1)
video.PlayFile(“\Aq.ts”)
Displaying images
When displaying images, BrightSign is smarter about the way the images display. It knows the
image resolution, and it assumes that all VGA resolutions are in 4x3 mode, and that all
component resolutions (except 480p) are widescreen. BrightSign then scales the image
according to the imagemode setting. However, if you connect a widescreen VGA monitor to the
VGA port, you can expect to see distorted images. This is because 1024x768 is a 4x3 mode, and
your widescreen monitor stretches it. To avoid this confusion, for widescreen modes, it is best to
use a component input monitor.
Connecting BrightSign to your network
The HD210, HD1010, and HD2000 include a built-in 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, and support
DHCP for automatic network configuration. BrightSign uses http protocol to communicate over
your network using port 80—the same way you browse the web. You don’t need to open any
special ports in your firewall.