We just released a major upgrade to FireCast OS, our playback software for kiosks and digital signs. FireCast OS 4.0 introduces new playback features, multi-channel video output, and support for lots of newer hardware. Overall, it's our highest-performance release yet, with a focus on delivering both speed and usability. Thank you to all our customers who provided the feedback and feature requests that helped shape this new release!
WHERE TO GET IT:
To download the new version, go to ClientCenter and choose "Useful Files" on the left side of the screen. This upgrade is NOT applied automatically to your existing units, but you will be able to request a remote upgrade in a few weeks. We'll post details about remote upgrades in ClientCenter when the time comes.
NEW FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS:
- Easier install process
- Redesigned Local Control Panel with faster access to common tasks, ability to copy files from USB storage keys, and a mini-browser for accessing other sites
- Simplified touchscreen setup and calibration, using the same process for all models
- Support for touchscreens placed on rotated displays
- Multi-channel video output for Nvidia and Matrox video cards (drive up to four separate screens from a single player, with a multi-zone layout on each screen). To use this feature, contact us for pricing and supported video cards.
- Vastly improved detection of widescreen displays. Widescreen is supported with Nvidia, Matrox, ATI, and Intel video cards, while Nvidia and Matrox can be rotated too. Instructions for this feature can be found in the online help.
- Live TV/video now works with rotated displays and can show closed captions
- Screen layouts can contain animated backgrounds
- Screen layouts can have overlapping or layered content playback zones (just use a floating DIV and the Z-Index in your HTML)
- Content playback zones can be added and removed from your screen layout on-the-fly using DHTML and EMBED tags
- Auto duration for content files now works with multi-frame playback and supports all content types (including compressed Flash files)
- Ability to choose “Days of the Week”, Start/End Date, and Start/End Time for all types of playlist content
- Display multiple tickers on the screen at once
- Ticker source can be controlled from the playlist editor
- Ticker can show a custom background color and background image (use the .background class and background-image property)
- Built-in support for dynamic content templates (SmartPages) without having to request that the feature be enabled
- Optimized video codecs for smoother playback of various formats, including Windows Media video files (WMV)
- More options for scaling video to fill the playback area (with or without preserving the aspect ratio)
- OCR driver license templates updated to support new formats
- Improved WiFi performance when using 802.11b/g wireless PCI adapters
FOR MORE INFO:
If you'd like to view all the details about FireCast OS 4.0, including a list of bugs that we fixed and tips on using the new features, see the article on the ClientCenter summary page.
We're very proud of this new release, and we hope you enjoy it! If you have any questions or concerns, please visit www.frontcast.se and click on "Kontakt".
2010-01-12
