Digital Signage Platform

From Empty Screen to Playing Content

Six steps that take you from your first sign-in to a screen playing your own playlist. Do them in order the first time. After that you only ever repeat steps three and four.

Video still: a laptop on a desk showing a scheduling panel with duration and day-of-week controls, under the headline "Discover easy and powerful digital signage software".
The whole workflow in one picture: you schedule and change content from a browser, and the screen follows.

01What You Need

Gather these four things before you open the platform. Missing any one of them stops the setup halfway.

Note You do not need design software. Content can be built inside the platform from templates and widgets. Files you already have are optional extras, not a requirement.

02Sign In

The platform is the one place where creatives, playlists, and screens are managed. Nothing is stored on the screen itself.

  1. Open the sign-in address from your welcome email in Google Chrome. Chrome is the browser we recommend for the platform.
  2. Enter your username and password.
  3. Bookmark the page once you are in. You will come back to it every time you change content.
The SeenLabs sign-in page: a white card with the SeenLabs logo, a Username field, a Password field, a ticked Remember me checkbox, a red Sign In button, and a Forgot Password link.
This is the page your welcome email points to. Leave Remember me ticked on your own computer so you are not typing the password every time.

After sign-in you land on a dashboard with a top bar. The three tabs you will use are Creatives, Playlists, and Screens. They map directly to the next three steps: make the content, decide the order, send it to a screen.

Different product? Rooftop LED screens mounted on vehicles run on Rooftop Hub, a separate platform with its own vehicle groups and geofenced ads. Nothing on this page applies to them. If that is what you have, use the Rooftop CMS Manual instead — it has the sign-in address and the full workflow.

03Make a Creative

A creative is one piece of content — a promotion, a menu board, a welcome message. It is the smallest unit the screen can play.

Start from a template

  1. Open the Creatives tab.
  2. Click Create from Template. Pick a template that is close to what you want, or start from a blank one.
  3. Give the creative a name and a short description. Use a name you will still recognize in three months — Lobby — Summer Hours beats new1.
  4. Set the orientation and aspect ratio. The default is 16:9. Change it to 9:16 if the display is mounted in portrait.
  5. Click through to the composer.
The Creatives tab of the dashboard. An arrow points at Creatives in the top bar. Below it a highlighted toolbar holds the blue Create From Template button, Media Center, New Folder, and icons for edit, delete, copy, sort, filter and view. Underneath sit folders named SeenLabs - testing and Triggred videos and a creative called test #1.
Everything in step three starts from this toolbar. Create From Template is the blue button; New Folder and the sort, filter and view icons on the right are what keep the library tidy later.
The Compose from Template screen. A blue Start Fresh with Blank Page tile sits first, followed by a grid of ready-made 16:9 templates including 5 Days Forecast, Automotive, Bar, Beauty Salon, Burgers Restaurant, Coffee Shop, Daily Meetings and Facebook. A 16:9 dropdown and a category filter sit at the top right.
The template picker. Set the ratio dropdown at the top right before you choose — it filters the grid, so you only ever see templates built at the shape of your screen.
Keep in mind Set the aspect ratio to match the physical screen before you design anything. A 16:9 creative on a portrait screen gives you black bars or cropped text, and fixing it later means re-laying out every element.

Work in the composer

The composer has four parts:

The creative composer with four areas marked. One is the widget column down the left side, holding text, image, video, RSS, YouTube, clock, weather and table widgets. Two is the empty white canvas in the middle labelled Drop widgets here. Three is the properties panel on the right showing Name, Description, Aspect Ratio 16:9, Editor Resolution 1920x1080 and Editor Orientation Landscape. Four is the Preview button next to the red Save button at the top.
The four numbered areas match the list below. Note that Aspect Ratio and Editor Orientation live in panel 3 — that is where you correct the shape if you got it wrong on the way in.
1Widget list — the elements on the left. Drag one onto the canvas to add it.
2Canvas — the screen itself. Position and resize elements here.
3Properties — the panel on the right. It changes to match whatever you have selected.
4Preview — renders the creative as it will play. Use it before you save, every time.

To place an image or a video, drag the matching widget onto the canvas, then pick the file from the Media Library. Upload the file first if it is not there yet. Check the file format rules before uploading anything.

Keep the library tidy

04Build a Playlist

A playlist is the running order. A screen plays a playlist, never a single creative, so you need at least one even if it holds one item.

  1. Open the Playlists tab and click New Playlist.
  2. Add your creatives to it.
  3. Drag the rows to set the order. The playlist loops from the top when it reaches the end.
  4. Set a duration for each item. Ten to fifteen seconds suits most static creatives. Video runs for its own length.
  5. Add a schedule if the content is time-bound — a start date, an end date, or a time of day. A lunch menu that stops at 15:00 is a schedule, not a separate playlist.
  6. Save the playlist.
The Playlists tab of the dashboard. An arrow points at Playlists in the top bar and a highlighted box surrounds the My Playlists heading and the blue New Playlist button. Four saved playlists are shown as cards, each with its name, total running time and creative count.
Saved playlists show their total running time and how many creatives they hold — the quickest way to spot a playlist that is longer or emptier than you expected.
Recommended Put an expiry date on anything with a date in it. An event promotion still running two weeks after the event does more damage than an empty screen.

Schedules run on the timezone set for the screen, not on the timezone of the browser you are working in. If you manage screens in more than one region, check that field before you trust the timing.

05Add the Screen

A screen in the platform is the record that represents one physical display. Creating it is what gives you something to assign a playlist to.

  1. Open the Screens tab and click New Screen.
  2. Name it after its physical location — Store 14 — Front Window, not Screen 3. You will be reading this name from a support ticket one day.
  3. Set the orientation to match how the display is mounted.
  4. Assign the playlist you built in step four.
  5. Click Create.
The Screens tab of the dashboard. An arrow points at Screens in the top bar and a highlighted box surrounds the My Screens heading and its toolbar, which ends in a blue New Screen button. One screen card is below, named SeenLabs Office Use, showing a portrait thumbnail and the line Updated a few seconds ago, 1 playlists.
A screen card carries its name, its assigned playlist count and when it last checked in. The thumbnail is the shape you chose — this one is mounted in portrait.

The screen will show as offline until a media player is bound to it. That happens in the next step.

06Connect the Media Player

The player is the box that pulls content down and drives the HDMI input. This is the only step that involves hardware.

A small flat black media player box with a single cable running to two displays — one mounted landscape, one mounted portrait — both playing the same social media post creative.
The player is the small box, not the screen. One cable out of it feeds the HDMI input, and the same player drives a landscape or a portrait display equally well.
  1. Plug the player into the display's HDMI input and into power. Switch the display to that HDMI source.
  2. Connect the player to the network. Ethernet if you can, Wi-Fi otherwise.
  3. Install the SeenLabs player app on the device if it did not ship with it.
  4. Open the app and sign in with your platform credentials.
  5. Bind the device to the screen record you created in step five. The device ID is printed on the device label and also shown on screen by the app.
  6. Wait for the screen entry in the Screens tab to go online, then confirm the playlist is playing on the actual display.
Keep in mind On a corporate or guest network, outbound HTTPS is often filtered. The player needs to reach the platform on ports 80 and 443. If it stays offline on the office network but works on a phone hotspot, the network is the problem, not the player — send your IT team the platform domain from your welcome email and ask them to allow it.

Once the player is bound, everything else happens from the browser. You never need to touch the hardware again to change content.

File Formats That Work

Most "the file won't play" tickets are a format problem, and every one of them is avoidable before upload.

ItemRule
Image formatsPNG, JPG, GIF.
Video formatMP4 encoded with H.264. This is the combination to use unless we have told you otherwise — other containers and codecs may fail to play, so convert before uploading.
Video resolutionMatch the resolution of the display. Video larger than the screen gains you nothing and can cause playback errors on lower-powered players.
Color modeRGB only. A CMYK image plays as a black screen. Re-export it from your design tool as RGB.
File sizeSmaller is better. Large files slow the composer down and take longer to reach the screen.
Keep in mind A CMYK file is the trap that catches most people. It uploads without an error, shows a correct thumbnail in the library, and then plays as pure black on the screen. If a picture is black and everything else looks fine, check its color mode first.

If a video was exported with the wrong codec or at the wrong size, you do not need to re-shoot it — see Video Format Conversion for how to convert it.

Troubleshooting

Work top to bottom. The first two rows account for most cases.

SymptomWhat to do
Screen shows nothing after setup Check the player is powered on, the display is on the right HDMI source, and the player has network. Then check the Screens tab — the entry should read online. If it does not, restart the player and give it two to three minutes to reconnect.
Screen is online but the old content is still playing Confirm you saved and published both the creative and the playlist, and that the right playlist is assigned to that screen. Updates are not instant — the player fetches them on its own schedule. Wait a couple of minutes, then force a refresh from the screen entry.
Player will not bind to the account Re-check the device ID against the device label, character by character. If it is right, the network is blocking the connection — see the network note in step six.
Uploaded video will not play Play the file locally to confirm it is not corrupt. Then check it against the format table above — MP4 with H.264, sized to the display.
Picture plays as a black screen The image is CMYK. Re-export it as RGB and upload it again.
Black bars, or content cut off at the edges The creative's aspect ratio does not match the display. Rebuild it at the correct ratio — 16:9 for landscape, 9:16 for portrait — and preview before deploying.
Composer is slow Large media is the usual cause. Compress your images and export video no larger than the display needs. Several small files perform better than one huge one.
Scheduled content not appearing Check the screen's timezone and confirm the schedule dates have not already expired.

Common Questions

How long does the first setup take?

Around 20 to 30 minutes if the hardware is already mounted and you have your login. That covers signing in, one creative, one playlist, and getting the player online. Designing content you are happy with takes as long as it takes.

Do I need technical skills?

No. The composer is drag and drop, and the templates cover most cases. If you can edit a presentation, you can build a creative. Step six is the only part that touches hardware, and it is one cable and one sign-in.

Can I update content remotely?

Yes. Once a player is bound, you change content from the browser, anywhere. The screen picks up the change on its next check-in — quick, but not instantaneous. Verify on the actual screen before you walk away.

What happens if the internet drops?

The player keeps playing the content it has already downloaded, so a short outage does not blank the screen. It cannot receive new content until the connection is back.

How many screens can one account manage?

One dashboard covers a single screen or a large estate across many sites. Tell us before you add locations so we can check your account is set up for them.

Who manages this if we would rather not?

We do. Content, scheduling, and monitoring can be run for you as a managed service.

Stuck? We'll sort it out.

Email us a photo or short video of what the screen is doing — it's usually all we need to diagnose the issue on the first reply.

[email protected] All guides
Questions about your hardware? [email protected] All guides · SeenLabs · Managed signage