Tutorial - Dise Demystified
If you are not familiar with DISE, this is a short tutorial to get you up to speed with how a DISE system works, and an overview of the system components.
We are also going to explain some of the basic concepts and an explanation of DISE specific terms. If you don’t understand some of the terms, a dictionary is provided at the end of this tutorial.
A typical DISE system
A DISE system is composed of a network of computers.
It has a central point, which controls a network of connected player computers.
At the central point, you have full control over the players, what content they should play, and when.
The player computers will play the content 24/7 (24 hours per day, 7 days per week). Once they have received their instructions, they will continue to play, even if the connection with the central is interrupted.
The players can be programmed months in advance and will play out the content according to your schedule, completely unattended.
The DISE applications
There are 4 main applications in DISE, Composer, Bridge, Probe and Replay.
Composer and Bridge are located on the Central. Probe and Replay are located on the player computers.
The Probe and Replay applications are both fully automatic, so once you have set them up, you don’t need to work with them again.
The Composer is the application where you decide what to display.
The Bridge is the application where you decide when and where to display it.
The Replay application displays the content on the screens. This is the most important task in the system, and Replay needs to focus on it, so Replay has got an assistant, Probe.
Probe acts as the secretary for Replay, checking for new, updated content to show, downloads the content, monitors the player system and reports status back to the central.
Around these main applications, there are lots of small programs and tools that can be used for specific tasks, such as the RSS Reader, which downloads news feeds directly to a player, and Database Access, which can extract data from a database to be displayed on the players.
Content creation
With DISE Composer, you create the content that you want to display by combining different data together into a DISE Movie.
Within a DISE Movie, the content can be grouped together into Scenes. It is a convenient and logical way to divide different messages.
The scenes are built up from different objects.
To build a scene in the Composer, you just select the objects you want on the left side and drag them onto the scene.
You can mix video, images and text together with eye-catching movements.
The objects on a scene can appear and disappear at different times, and each scene has its own timeline to allow you to easily edit the timings for each object.
Content scheduling
Now we have decided what to display in a DISE movie, it is time to decide when to display it. This is done with scheduling.
Scheduling is usually done in DISE Bridge.
You can schedule the content in many different ways. Date and time intervals and/or weekdays are common.
You can also use the calendar view in DISE Bridge to schedule individual spots to be played at an exact time and duration.
Defining where to play the content
In DISE Bridge you work with destinations. A destination is defined as a source of data for one or more player computers. When you distribute your content with Bridge, you send it to a destination.
All destinations have a name, which you can select to properly describe where the content will be played, for example “Region North” or “Store X”.
On each destination you can specify one or more channels. A channel is defined as an area of a display where the content is played.
Multiple channels can overlap each other to create “layers” which are played on top of each other, thus enabling multiple and complex messages on the same display.
Display schemes
In each channel, you can place as many DISE Movies as you want, and schedule each one of them individually.
It is possible to schedule movies months and even years in advance.
The complete description of all movies and schedules for all channels on a destination is called a display scheme.
The display scheme contains the complete instruction for a player on what, when and where to play the data.
Dependencies
The DISE Movies you create does not contain the actual data files. It is just a description on how to combine them.
The advantage of this is that you can change the individual content files later, without the need of re-creating the complete DISE movie.
Let’s say that you have a video file, featuring today’s news. Each day you just change the video file. Your DISE movie stays the same, but the video file inside it changes.
All the individual files that make up a DISE movie are called dependencies.
In order to play correctly, the player does not only need the display scheme and all the DISE movies, but also all the individual dependency files.
That is quite a lot of files and information, but don’t worry, the DISE system takes care of everything for you automatically.
Just press the Send button 
in Bridge and your display network is up and running.
Dictionary
Here is short reference list of DISE specific terms that is commonly used in the tutorials.
Capture devices Hardware that might be installed in the players to receive video, for example from a camera or a live TV broadcast.
Channels (explained above) An area of the display where to display a list of DISE Movies. Channels can be placed side by side or transparent on top of each other.
Content Everything that is going to be played on the displays. Video files, images, texts etc.
Data Connections Many objects can be connected to external data sources. This is done with the help of Data Connections. The Data Connection specifies where the required data is and how it is going to be formatted. A common example of a Data Connection is to connect the Ticker to a live RSS news feed.
Dependencies (explained above) All the files that are needed in order to display a DISE movie, for example videos, flash files, images etc.
Destinations (explained above) A source of data for one or more player computers. When you distribute your content with Bridge, you send it to a destination.
Display schemes (explained above) The complete instruction for a player on channels, scheduling and all the DISE movies.
Dynamic Content Content that change during playback. This can be “live” web pages, Images retrieved from the internet during display, or something as easy as the current date and time. See also Data Connections above.
DISE Display Evolution
Editor Often used as the name for the computer at the Central location, where the Composer and sometimes Bridge are installed.
FTP Server A computer connected to the internet which stores all the content files during distribution. Using an FTP server is the most common way to distribute files, but it is not necessary if all your players are connected within the same network.
File Browser A tool located on a tab to the left in both Composer and Bridge. It allows you to browse through your files on the hard drive and easily select and use them with drag-and-drop.
Library A file structure to help organize your files. You don’t need to use the library, but it is a good help, especially if you are managing several projects from the same computer. The library can be found on a tab to the left in the Composer.
Movie (explained above) A collection of scenes. When you create content in the Composer, you will end up with one or more DISE movies.
Movements Movements can be added to any object. There are many types of movements, such as rotations and zooms, in and out movements etc. Movements can be combined to create very complex movement patterns for your objects.
Object Settings Some of the settings for objects I DISE can be set on any object. Timing, angle, position and transparency for example. All these “common” settings are collected on an easy-to-use palette called “object settings”
Objects (explained above) The individual items on a scene. Each object can have a multitude of different settings. Examples of objects are Videos, Images, Texts, Web Pages, Flash and Shapes.
Output Device The hardware where you want to display your content. DISE lets you specify almost anything you want. You can select which graphics card, which output and which resolution you want.
Players Often used as the name for the computer that displays the output on the screens. Probe and Replay are installed on the player computer.
Presets Groups of objects with complex settings can be saved as presets in the library. When you want to use them again, just locate them in the library and drag them onto the scene.
Preview Many of the objects in DISE have their own dialogs with preview windows. In the preview you can directly see how the different settings will affect your object.
Projects If you manage more than one display network, you can divide your work into different projects. Each project can have its own library and settings.
Resources Some of the more complex content in DISE requires its own “engines” to run in the background so that playback will be as smooth as possible. The content that is processed by these engines is called resources.
There are currently four resource types in DISE; Video, Image, Web and Flash.
Scene (explained above) A DISE Movie is divided into sections called Scenes. Each scene has its own timeline and objects.
Scheduling (explained above) A set of rules that define when the content should be displayed. The most common is date and/or time, but more complex scheduling is also possible, for example scheduling on location and with file logic.
Transitions The scenes in a DISE movie can have effects between them, called transitions. DISE is capable of playing the transitions at the same time as something is playing on the scenes. It is fore example possible to play a movie on scene 1 and another movie on scene 2 and make a transition between them while both the movies is playing.
Ticker A crawling text that scrolls from right to left. The ticker is often used to display news or other dynamic information on top of more common information.
Timeline (explained above) A special tool located at the bottom in the composer, which lets you specify timing of the objects in an easy way.
Time locks The timing of objects can be locked to each other. You can for example specify that one object should start 5 seconds before another ends. Time locks are very powerful when the content is dynamic so you don’t know the exact timing at the time you edit the DISE Movie.
Thumbnail A common name for a miniature. DISE often uses thumbnails to illustrate which object, scene or DISE Movie that are selected. A thumbnail often gives better information that a filename or text.
Video streams A video stream is a video that is distributed “live” over the network, in opposite of videos that are saved as files on your hard drive.