Power management

From SpinetiX Support Wiki

(Redirected from Power saving)
Jump to: navigation, search

Introduction

Power Management is a feature that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power state when inactive, in order to reduce overall energy consumption.

Within a digital signage setup featuring SpinetiX devices, the biggest part of the power consumption is actually taken by the screens. For this purpose, the player supports different methods for turning off (and turning back on) the screen connected to it. The display power saving can be done according to a predefined schedule, or even automatically when the player is managed through SpinetiX ARYA and there's no content scheduled.

The power consumption of the player itself is very low and it should be left in running mode all the time. See player power saving section for more details.

Display power saving

The following protocols are available to automatically turn on / off the screen connected to a player:

Configuration

Display power saving per weekday

To enable the display power saving on the player side, follow these steps:

  1. Open Control Center and go to Display & Audio > Power page.
  2. Click to activate "Enable display power management" setting.
  3. From the "Schedule" dropdown, select:
    • "Fixed" → turn ON / OFF the screen, every day, at the same time
    • "Daily" → turn ON / OFF the screen at different times, each weekday
    • "None" → do not use a predefined schedule, as other methods are employed.
  4. Click the "Apply" button.
Note Notes:
  • If the player is managed through SpinetiX ARYA, the screen is automatically turned off when there's no content scheduled and turned back on when something should be displayed, so there's no need to make any changes on the player side.
  • Custom power saving commands can be entered from Peripherals > Automation page.

HDMI CEC

Note  
Applies to all players, except iBX440/iBX410.

Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is an HDMI feature designed to allow controlling devices that are connected through HDMI.

If the screen supports CEC, then power saving control is possible and the player can turn on, switch to the correct input, or put on standby the screen according to the display power saving policy. Otherwise, power saving control is not available – when enabling the power saving in Control Center, but the connected screen does not support it or CEC is disabled, a warning is provided on the Display Settings page.

Other CEC features implemented on SpinetiX players:

  • Monitoring and reporting of the “power status” of the screen;
  • Monitoring for changes of the source being displayed via CEC and reports if the player is not the one.
  • Interacting with CEC enabled HDMI switches for proper routing (e.g., routes the player output to the displayed input on the screen when turning on the screen or connecting the player to the HDMI display or switch).
Note Notes:
  • Manufacturers might use a different name for the "CEC" functionality, such as: AnyNet+ (Samsung), VieraLink (Panasonic), SIMPLink (LG), etc. See more common trade names for CEC.
  • Some HDMI screens will disconnect and reconnect the HDMI connection when changing power state, if this is the case the player will resend the CEC commands to comply with the requested display state. This means that after a player puts the screen to on, or standby, a user may not be able to switch it back to standby, or on, via the remote or TV's control panel.
  • Some screens have HDMI CEC disabled by default, or adjusting certain settings can turn off CEC automatically. If the player reports that the display does not support CEC, try to enable it in the screen’s configuration menu via its remote control or contact the screen manufacturer for assistance.
  • The support for HDMI CEC has been added in firmware 4.0.2 for HMP350, HMP300, DiVA, and firmware 4.6.0 for HMP400 and HMP400W.

DVI DPMS

Note  
Applies to all players.

The DVI DPMS is a standard for reducing power consumption (similar to the analog VESA Display Power Management Signaling), meaning that a connected device can turn the display off/on by setting the H-sync and V-sync pins signals accordingly. A player, connected to a screen via an HDMI ⇾ DVI cable, will use DVI DPMS to put the screen to standby according to the display power saving policy.

Computer and display manufacturers stopped supporting the Digital Visual Interface a while back, so screens that have a DVI video input connector are rare nowadays, nevertheless, since HDMI is compatible with DVI, some screens might still support the DVI DPMS feature. That's why, for screens connected via HDMI, but not supporting HDMI CEC, the player will try to use the DVI DPMS to turn the screen off/on. Note that screens not supporting this will probably show a "signal not found" message instead.

The support for DVI DPMS has been added in firmware 4.0.2 for HMP350/HMP300/DiVA, firmware 4.7.0 for HMP400/HMP400W/third-party players, respectively firmware 4.8.0 for iBX410/iBX440.

RS-232

Note  
Applies to all players, except DiVA.

Power on/off commands can be sent via RS-232 to a (professional) screen supporting serial communication. These commands are supplied by the device manufacturer.

To enable this feature, follow these steps:

  1. Open HMP Control Center.
  2. Go to the "Peripherals" page.
  3. Enable the serial port usage and configure the communication parameters.
  4. From the "Serial Port Automation" section, select "Simple" or "Advanced" from the drop-down box labeled "Settings".
    The former allows entering one or more simple commands for screen control, while the latter enables the usage of serial port protocol files for more complex usage.
On HMP350 and HMP400/W (SYSTEMS), it is possible to send serial commands using the JavaScript COM API.

Custom schedule

It is possible to set up a display power saving schedule that is more complex than the one above.

Using ARYA

Note  
Applies to all players.

If the player is managed through SpinetiX ARYA, the screen is automatically turned off when there's no content scheduled and turned back on when something should be displayed.

If needed, a custom "Screen ON" schedule can be defined within the paid plans, as follows:

  1. Open the PLAYER page in ARYA and click on the player you wish to set a screen-on schedule.
  2. On the right side, click on the plus (+) sign under SCREEN ON section.
  3. Schedule when the screen-on feature should be effective.

ARYA Screen-on schedule

Using the player web interface

Note  
Applies to HMP350, HMP300, and DiVA.

Starting with 4.1.0 firmware for HMP350 and 4.1.1 firmware for HMP300, and DiVA, it is possible to have the player turning off the screen (via HDMI CEC) whenever there is no content specified in the schedule panel - for that follow these steps:

  1. Open the player web interface.
  2. Click the Gear icon on the top bar menu to open the Control Center home page.
  3. On the left-side menu, click on "Display & Audio > Power".
  4. Make sure that "Enable display power management" option is active; otherwise, enable it and restart the player.
  5. Click the "SCHEDULE" link on the top bar menu to open the Content scheduling tool.
  6. Schedule your content at will within the Schedule panel.
  7. Click the "Default" box on the left side to open it.
  8. Enable the "Turn monitor OFF" option.
  9. Click the "Save" button.

Using an Elementi project

To set up a complex display power saving schedule, you need to use a schedule inside your Elementi project that includes either the power.svg widget or some custom JavaScript code (making use of the JavaScript COM API or the sendComPort function).

  • The power.svg widget is usually used with devices connected via the serial port to the HMP, in which case you need to use a protocol file.
  • You can also use the power.svg widget with screens connected via VGA (or VGA to DVI), in which case you don't need a protocol file, but ensure that on the Display Settings page > Power Save tab the "Enable display power saving" setting is enabled and the "Use fixed schedule for display power" setting is disabled.
Note Note:
For a sample project that sets the screen ON during the working hours and OFF otherwise (including the weekend), see the Project:Power Saving page.

Player power saving

Within a digital signage setup featuring SpinetiX devices, the biggest part of the power consumption is actually taken by the screens, which can be turned off through different display power saving methods. The power consumption of the SpinetiX devices is very small (maximum is 14W), so that they can be left in running mode all the time - this is actually recommended because there are different internal operations that are performed during the night.

Nevertheless, if you want to save up even more power, you can shut down or even completely power off the device; for more details, see how to:

Note Notes:
  • Unplugging the player from the power network without a prior shutdown, especially in a repetitive manner, could cause content loss and / or hardware problems!
  • After the player has been shut down, it can be restarted by briefly pressing its blue button or by physically reconnecting it to the electrical network.

Troubleshooting

Known issues

  • Pixelated output
    In some cases when the player is configured for display power saving, but the screen doesn't support HDMI CEC functionality (this information can be found in the player.log), the screen might try to turn itself back on in a loop - that could have a result a pixelated output when the payer is actually turning the screen on.
    The solution is to disable the display power saving on the player side or use the RS-232 method instead.

Extended logging

SpinetiX Support might require you to enable extended logging of events in case the display power management fails. In order to instruct the HMP to log more details regarding the input events, follow the procedure detailed below.

  1. Open the Control Center interface of the player.
  2. Enable the "Advanced" menu by applying a special configuration file - contact SpinetiX Support for details.
  3. Configure the player to log extended information for specific events as detailed below:
    1. Click on "Advanced" > "Log".
    2. Enable "Custom" option and click the "Apply" button.
    3. Go to "Appender" section and find "debugfile" entry.
    4. Enable "Subscribe to all loggers" option and set the "Max Size" to 50000KB .
    5. Click the "Update" button at the bottom of the "Appender" section (and not the one at the bottom of the page!).
    6. Go to "Logger" section and set the "Priority" option (drop-down list) to "Info".
    7. Scroll down and find the "hdmicec" row (under "display"); select "Trace" on the drop-down list on the right-most column and make sure that no checkbox are enabled for that row.
    8. Make sure that no other checkboxes are enabled on the debugfile column.
    9. Click the "Update" button at the bottom.
  4. Restart the player.
  5. Leave the player running until the display power management failure occurs again.
  6. Generate a new report.
  7. Once done, revert to the default configuration - enable the "Default configuration" option and click the "Update" button.
This page was last modified on 23 October 2023, at 10:58.