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FAQ

Find useful information about Spectro:o and answers to frequently asked questions

General questions

What can I display on my screens when I use Spectro:o?

You can display videos and images or a combination of the two. Also, you can combine different types of files to create Playlists. Or you can  broadcast radio channels just as easy.

Why not use USB to display content on my screens?

You can use USB if you choose, but it makes your work difficult and it is not business reliable. Imagine you have to go with the USB stick to each and every screen and repeat the same settings: copy the content on the USBs, go to each and every screen, attach the USB, upload the content.

If you want to make changes, you have to do it all over again. If the TV turns off, you will have to restart the playback.

Meanwhile, Spectro:o players automates the end-to-end process and allows you to display synchronized content on as may screen as you need and even schedule content at different hours on desired days. With Spectro:o you are relieved from a lot of stress and human error. You can even rely on Spectro:o doing all the job for you while you are on holiday 😏.

What technical requirements do I have to meet to use Spectro:o?

All you need is Internet access and screens that support HDMI input.

Spectro:o is a web platform, so you need Internet access to login and manage your screens and content. You need to have a Spectro:o player installed on every screen. The player is connected to the platform via wireless (WiFi), wired (LAN) or mobile (using a 3G/4G/LTE USB dongle). the player is connected to the screen via an HDMI cable.

Do I need technical skills to use Spectro:o or install the Spectro:o player?

Absolutely none! We designed Spectro:o so that anyone can use.
The web platform is easy to use and the players are plug-and-play. See it for yourself in our documentation.

How many monitors does Spectro:o support per account?

Spectro:o supports an unlimited number of screens, regardless the number of your or the country you are situated. To get a custom enterprise offer, please contact us.

Hardware: Players and Screens

What hardware does Spectro:o support for playback?

Spectro:o uses Rasperrry Pi and we added some other electronic improvements for increased robustness.

We are happy to announce that there is work in progress to develop software players on Android, Windows, Tizen.

Which Raspberry Pi does Spectro:o support?

Spectro:o works with Rasperberry PI 3B+. If you are a DIY fan and wish to assemble the player yourself, we recommend: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and B+ (4 cores, 1GB RAM) to benefit of an amazing experience on 1080p.

What TVs or screens does Spectro:o support?

Spectro:o software supports any type of screen or TV, regardless the resolution. The service is designed for a primary resolution of 1920×1080 (dubbed “Full HD” or “1080p” in the TV industry). However, our technology supports multiple ratios and orientations. This way your content is automatically adapted for any resolution and any monitor or TV, even non-widescreen monitors.

Can I use vertically oriented displays?

Yes, of course. No worries about it.

Spectro:o supports multiple ratios and orientations, making it possible to customize and optimize your content by ratio and orientation (portrait or landscape). You set the orientation of the image in the web platform.

There are no limitations on sizes and resolutions.

Spectro:o Player

What exactly is a Spectro:o Player?

The Spectro:o Player is our own plug-and-play player, built with Raspberry Pi 3B+.

Spectro:o needs a device that plays multimedia content on monitors or TV screens. To make things easier for you, we’ve created our own consumer device.

In the installation package you will receive:

  • a Raspberry Pi 3B+ mini computer, and a UPS.
  • a standard HDMI cable to connect the Spectro:o player to the screen.
  • a 32GB SD card, pre-loaded with Spectro software: and pre-configured to make sure you can plug-and-play it.

It seems complicated but it is not. As soon as you connect the player to your monitor or TV and then to the internet, it will instantly play the content uploaded to your account in the Spectro:o application.

How do I order a Spectro:o player?

For an Enterprise plan, contact us, sign the contract and we ship the player kit. Soon you will be able to buy your suitable Spectro:o cloud plan on the website

Does Spectro:o ship internationally?

Yes! Spectro:o ships worldwide. We cover the costs for Romania, outside the country you will cover the shipping costs.

Do I need to get a Spectro:o player to use Spectro:o services?

It is up to you to decide. You can get the plug-and-play Spectro:o player with the plan (link la pagina de preturi) that best suits your needs or you can buy a Raspberry Pi and make the setting yourself. You need a case, power adapter, HDMI cable and an SD card, and assemble everything together.

But why go with the latter when Spectro:o player is probably an all-in-one solution, with a a UPS included that ensures a longer lifespan of the device?

Is there a warranty policy for the Spectro:o player?

The Spectro:o Player comes with a 1-year warranty.

Before spending valuable time and money, you should follow the Spectro:o troubleshooting guide. If in the end Spectro:o Player needs to be replaced, you will ship the faulty Spectro:o player back to us and we will send you a replacement unit within 2-3 days of receipt. You will cover the returning costs, we will cover for the shipping costs of the replacement unit.

However, if you can save the shipping costs by replacing a component yourself, we encourage you to do it.

Spectro:o Player Kit Specifications

What are the technical specifications of the player?

Spectro:o uses the latest Raspberry PI 3 Model B+ single-board computer.

Specifications include: 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core processor, dual-band wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.2/BLE, faster Ethernet, and Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT).

If you want to configure the player yourself using this Rasperberry PI 3 Model B+ single-board computer, check the configuration guide: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-b-plus/

What are the technical specifications of the SD card in the Spectro:o player kit?

We provide a 32GB SD Card (Class 10), of which approx. 27GB is usable for media storage space. This equals more than 24 hours of video files in Full HD.

All SD Cards come with software pre-installed and pre-configured in your Spectro:o player kit.

What are the technical specifications of the UPS in the Spectro:o player kit?

The Spectro:o player kit includes a UPS designed for the Raspberry Pi computer.

What are the technical specifications of the HDMI Cable in the Spectro:o player kit?

We include a 1.5m HDMI to HDMI cable (male-to-male) in the Spectro:o player kit.

Features

What are the content components that Spectro:o solution offers?

Spectro:o platform supports media content (photo, video, radio, video webstreams experimental) and allows you to manage it in playlists, to auto-sync and/or integrate it with third-party content injection applications.

Can I schedule my content to appear on different days and at different hours?

Beside assigning default content to each player, you can also schedule a playlist to be played at the dates and times of your choosing.

The Schedule is a very powerful feature of Spectroo platform that helps you set a different time for different positions in the same playlist, or for different screens or locations. For example, you can assign a content file for the morning and a different content file for the afternoon. It’s that easy.

As added value, we designed the schedule feature to allow you to set the hours that you want to power-off your monitors in order to cut your electric bill.

What happens to my screens and content in case of Internet outage?

In the event of an Internet outage, the Spectro:o player will continue to display content on the screens until the Internet connection is restaured.

How is this possible? Content displayed on your monitors is downloaded and played locally. This means, you won’t be able to change the content during the Internet outage. Also, content that loads from the Internet, like YouTube videos and radio streaming, is not available until Internet access is back.

Does Spectro:o support screens that are mounted vertically?

Yes, Spectro:o fully supports screens mounted vertically.

We recommend you create portrait-orientated content for these screens.

However, you are free to create your content at different resolutions, orientations and ratios. So, you can have a Screen Layout in 2 formats: horizontal, and vertical. When you assign this Screen Layout for playback, each Player selects the appropriate format depending on its ratio and its configured orientation.

Can I integrate Spectro:o with third parties?

Yes, Spectro:o allows integration with third parties applications from where our players automatically takes over content.

The synchronization feature allows scheduling and rendering both your own content and third-party content.

Do you offer support in case I'm having hard times using Spectro:o application?

We offer a rapid helpdesk procedure using tickets. Check it out here!

Three categories of support: business, premium, corporate.

Is data I upload in Spectro:o secured?

Spectro:o secures all data uploaded.

Can I schedule ad campaigns?

Yes, Spectro:o sync algorythms allow injecting third party content along with your own content. This way you can monetize your screens while communicating your own content to your audience.

Advanced features

Does the Spectro:o player support connecting through a WiFi network?

Yes, you can connect the Spectro:o player to an internet network distributed via WiFi, LAN or USB stick. At the first registration of the player in the client network, we offer a new process with which you can configure the connection type yourself, WiFi, LAN or USB stick, and enter all the details.

How? When connecting the Spectro:o player to the screen, it will display its name and password that you need to connect to the player via WiFi using your phone or laptop.

After connecting, you will be able to access the player’s IP address through the browser (10.0.0.1:10) where the process of configuring the player’s connectivity to WiFi / LAN / Stick will be displayed.

Does Spectro:o Player support connecting through a cellular/mobile network?

Yes, you can connect the Spectro:o player to an internet network distributed via WiFi, LAN or USB stick. At the first registration of the player in the client network, we offer a new process with which you can configure the connection type yourself, WiFi, LAN or USB stick, and enter all the details.

How? When connecting the Spectro:o player to the screen, it will display its name and password that you need to connect to the player via WiFi using your phone or laptop.

After connecting, you will be able to access the player’s IP address through the browser (10.0.0.1:10) where the process of configuring the player’s connectivity to WiFi / LAN / Stick will be displayed.

Does Spectro:o support using a static IP?

Yes, you can connect the Spectro:o player to an internet network distributed via WiFi, LAN (DHCP/FixedIP) or USB stick. At the first registration of the player in the client network, we offer a new process with which you can configure the connection type yourself, WiFi, LAN or USB stick, and enter all the details.

How? When connecting the Spectro:o player to the screen, it will display its name and password that you need to connect to the player via WiFi using your phone or laptop.

After connecting, you will be able to access the player’s IP address through the browser (10.0.0.1:10) where the process of configuring the player’s connectivity to WiFi / LAN / Stick will be displayed.

How secure is Spectro:o?

All Spectro: o products are designed with security in mind. We apply the latest industry practices and encrypt the communication between our players and the content management platform. We assumed, from the design phase, that our players run in a hostile environment (zero trust network), so communication with the platform is done in an isolated environment.

Even if we do everything we can to protect the players, we recommend that customers apply best practices for the physical protection of equipment and for securing their network. We recommend that players be isolated in separate VLANs and allowed to communicate strictly with the servers they need.

How reliable is Spectro:o?

Spectro:o is a very reliable solution. There will be no down times on your screens, even when the internet connection is lost or the servers go down. In such case, the content already downloaded by the player will continue to be displayed until connections are restored.

Please note that Spectro:o is not a file storage solution. We recommend you keep copies of your content outside of Spectro:o web platform.

What types of images does Spectro:o support?

Spectro:o technology allows any modern image file to be displayed: JPG, JPEG, PNG. Images are automatically resized per screen, so there is no need for you to do any previous processing or adaptation. Still, we recommend a resolution of 1920×1080 for the best performance of the player.

Significantly higher resolution can slow it down that is why it is better to resize them before uploading them in the player through the Spectro:o web platform.

What types of video does Spectro:o support?

Spectro:o player supports mp4 video format.

When you upload videos in the Spectro:o web platform, they are automatically converted to industry-standard formats (H.264 with AAC audio).

If you have a PowerPoint file that you want to display on your screens, make sure you convert it to a mp4 file before uploading it in the web platform.

How much bandwidth does Spectro:o use?

The bandwidth used by the Spectro:o web platform is directly proportional with the amount of content that you want to add or transfer to the players.

However, we have a solution if you have multiple screens in one location; we can add a local cache server in your network in order to transfer on WAN the content one time only, and the players download on LAN bandwidth the content in playlists.

Why do you download content locally?

It’s simple, we don’t want down times in our service delivery.

We built Spectro:o keeping quality in mind and this is what we want to offer. If it happens for your Internet connection to be lost or weak, we will not be able to offer you the best experience possible.

That is why we designed Spectro:o to download the content locally on the SD card and play it from there instead of streaming the content.

I need to show a huge collection of videos, more than 4GB, and want to use the Spectro:o Player! Is this possible?

Yes, it is possible with Spectro:o. The standard storage allocated in your Spectro:o account is 5 GB. If you need more storage, you can add it with extra cost 1.5 euro/GB, and then you will be able to download up to 85% of your memory card memory from your player.

Can I manage the Spectro:o web application/ platform from a smartphone?

Spectro:o was built using web-responsive technology, so it is very easy to use it through a mobile web browser.

How does Spectro:o support powering on and off monitors/TVs? Are all monitors/TVs compatible with this feature?

Spectro:o uses the HDMI standard called CEC supported by almost all TVs.

Raspberry Pi in general, also used by the Spectro:o player, 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 (the Spectro:o player in this case) to power on and 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), the Spectro:o player turns off the HDMI port to allow the monitor to power-down by itself. This function is supported by all current monitors, even TVs.

Is there a storage limit for media uploaded on Spectro:o?

We offer a standard up to 5 GB, but you can add how much storage you want with extra cost of 1.5 euro/GB.

Do you offer support in case I'm having hard times using Spectro:o solution?

We offer a rapid helpdesk procedure using tickets. We offer three categories of support: business, premium, corporate.

Pricing

Is Spectro:o free?

You can start with an absolutely 30-day fee trial, no credit card required.

Ready to start your free trial?

Will I be charged for the free trial period?

No, but to benefit from the trial period you need to create an account. Ready to start for free?

What is a registered monitor or screen?

Registered monitors are monitors that have been paired with a Spectro:o player and that you can use to display multimedia content.

You can also have unregistered screens in your Spectro:o account but they are not connected to a player so any content allocated to those unregistered screens will not be displayed anywhere.

What is the pricing range for Spectro:o?

We built pricing plans to meet every unique need. The standard plan is for crystal clear needs of up to 29 screens and benefit of well-explained documentation.

If you think you need more or have more complex requirements, our sales team will happily give consultancy. Check our pricing plans for more details.

Can I have an annual plan with Spectro:o?

Yes, you have the possibility to pay for an annual plan, with a cost of 150 euro payable one time.

Can I test Spectro:o before buying a Spectro:o player and a plan?

Our pricing plans come with a 30-day free trial. If you decide not to buy a player and a plan after this period, your account will be suspended. We also offer demo sessions online or at our premises in Sibiu. Contact our sales team or schedule a demo.

Do I have to pay extra for support?

No. Online ticketing support is included in your Plan, even during the 30-day free trial.

Still, for complex projects that need frequent assistance, we offer a custom support with monthly costs calculated based on your requirements.

What happens if I want to add more monitors?

Well, that’s pretty easy. Please contact us and we’ll help you with this one.

What happens if I want to reduce my active monitors?

All you have to do is terminate the contract for those players under the termination clause and we will deactivate them.

What happens if I fail to pay my subscription ?

In case the payment deadline is exceeded, Spectro:o reserves the right to charge late payment penalties in the amount of 0.5% per day of delay, calculated at the value of the overdue debt, but not before notifying the customer hereof. In case the Client does not fulfill its payment obligations, we will totally or partially suspend the access to the services.

What happens if I cancel my subscription?

First of all, we hope we can help with any issues you may have.

Still, if you wish to cancel the subsription, you should know that cancellation is possible under the submission of a notice which can be of 90, 60 or 30 days depending on the duration of your contract, 12, 24 or respectively 36 months.

From attention to revenue with Spectro:o

Spectro:o drives all the visual communication efforts in your organization, with both your customers and employees. Unlimited number of screens and locations | 30-day free trial | No credit card required

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