What is STQRY Signage?

STQRY Signage turns any screen into a managed digital display. You build the content once in STQRY Builder — images, video and audio, arranged into playlists — and it plays on as many screens as you like, in lobbies, galleries, retail floors, entrances and waiting areas, or on board boats, buses and trains.

This article explains how the pieces fit together, so the rest of the documentation makes sense.

The two halves

STQRY Builder is the web app you log into. It is where you upload media, build playlists and schedules, and tell each screen what to play.

STQRY Signage is the app that runs on the screen itself. You install it once, connect it to your account, and after that it takes its instructions from Builder. Nobody needs to touch the screen again.

The two talk over the internet. A change you make in Builder reaches a screen within a few minutes — usually much faster if the screen is currently waiting for content.

The building blocks

Five things make up a Signage setup. Your Signage project's sidebar has a tab for most of them — Playlists, Schedule, Locations, Displays and Settings — while media lives at account level in the Content Library.

Media items live in your account's Content Library. An image, a video or an audio file, uploaded once and reusable everywhere. Media items belong to the account, not to a single project, so you can use the same logo or promo clip across several projects.

Playlists are ordered lists of media items with a duration for each one. A playlist loops continuously: it plays top to bottom, then starts again. See Create a playlist.

Schedules decide when playlists play. A schedule is a set of time blocks on a calendar — a welcome loop in the morning, a promotional playlist over lunch, a holding screen overnight. See Create a schedule.

Location programs decide where content plays. Instead of a clock, they use the display's position: content changes as a vehicle moves between zones, and point-of-interest triggers fire as it passes them. This is what powers on-board signage and audio commentary on tour boats and buses. See Location programs: an overview.

Displays are the screens themselves — one record per physical device. A display record carries the screen's name, its timezone, its license, and exactly one piece of content.

A Signage project in STQRY Builder.

One display shows one thing

This is the single most useful rule to hold in your head. A display is assigned one piece of content at a time, and it can be any of four kinds:

• a playlist — plays that loop, always
• a schedule — plays whatever the calendar says is active right now
• a media item — a single image or video on its own
• a location program — plays according to where the display is

You don't layer these. If you want a screen to show different things at different times, you give it a schedule, not several playlists.

How a screen gets connected

A brand-new install shows a STQRY-branded screen with a short screen code on it, something like S-K4M2XP. In Builder you go to Displays → Adopt display, type that code, and the screen connects itself to your account within a few seconds.

There is also a manual route for screens you can't easily read a code off: pick the region and type the display's six-character activation key directly on the device. Both routes are covered in Connect a display to your account.

What runs it

Signage runs on a wide range of hardware — Amazon Fire TV Sticks, Android TV boxes and tablets, Windows PCs, iPads and Macs, or just a web browser. Every platform supports both landscape and portrait mounting.

Supported platforms, devices and requirements has the full list with minimum versions and where to get each app.

What Signage deliberately does not do

Worth knowing up front, so you don't go looking:

• No transitions. Items cut straight from one to the next. There are no fades, wipes or crossfades.
• No display groups. Displays are organised by project and found by name.
• No per-item volume or mute. A video's sound comes from the video's own audio track.

Next steps

• Quick start: from zero to content on screen — the fastest path to a working display.
• Supported platforms, devices and requirements — pick your hardware.
• Create a playlist — build your first piece of content.