Multi-purpose media servier
DHawthorne
Posts: 4,584
Most of my work is residential, but I have a fairly ambitious commercial job coming up that I could use some input on. It's a cosmetic surgeon's office, the full monte; including offices, conference room, consulting rooms and an OR. I'm going to be distributing video throughout various portions of the office, and I want to be able to provide both live video for places like the waiting and recovery rooms, and the ability for the doctor to call up informational videos to show clients in a more private setting, as well as go over still images from the customer file, etc.
What I'm looking for is ideas on a media server that can accommodate the informational videos and client file images. I'm trying to stay away from something PC based if I can, as it really ought to be centralized and available in various locations, and PC control in that kind of scenario can be problematic. But it also needs to have some means of locking out various content, as some of it can be pretty private ... but still with the ability to call up the more public stuff by anyone (say, for example, a client wishing to view an informational on a procedure they are considering). Any ideas for how to accomplish this?
What I'm looking for is ideas on a media server that can accommodate the informational videos and client file images. I'm trying to stay away from something PC based if I can, as it really ought to be centralized and available in various locations, and PC control in that kind of scenario can be problematic. But it also needs to have some means of locking out various content, as some of it can be pretty private ... but still with the ability to call up the more public stuff by anyone (say, for example, a client wishing to view an informational on a procedure they are considering). Any ideas for how to accomplish this?
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Comments
1.) you will need to do this pc based
2.) I suggest you review HIPA
3.) what record management does the office use now?
a.) if paper based there is more room to play
b.) if electronic based, please let me know what system they use, there are some API calls most make available for authorization, you can use that to create token to pull up client images.
as far as the actual hardware, there are some nice options out there that will make you come off looking like a rockstar with a good budget, and very good margins.
It's a new office for an established practice. Although they have some sort of management software in their existing office, the doctor has expressed his dissatisfaction with what he has used in the past, and has not ruled out having something written especially for this new office. I'll see if I can find out something more concrete than that. I'm assuming because his tech-interest level is high that it will be a digital system in the end, whether he currently uses paper now or not.
The overall system layout is probably going to be based on a DGX 16. What we want to get away from is having to put a computer terminal in the offices, etc. There is going to be some public video available ... cable TV or some manner of streaming content, stuff the patient can choose when waiting for the doctor or consultant. Then, when the provider arrives, they can switch it over to the patient information on the same monitor ... or that's the concept, anyway. Piping a computer monitor output into the room is trivial enough, but being able to call up specific material is more the challenge, and then being able to control it readily.
I'll lay out how I did it, and maybe you can take inspiration from it, this was about a year ago, there are some nicer bits of hardware available now.
I threw a VIA micro-itx board behind each tv in each client room, connected to each one was power, lan, and vga/audio to the tv, and a serial to the tv.
The TV was also connected to cable TV.
On each system was a CF card with ubuntu linux, a very simple host python script that watched a network port for commands, and a simple app, pretty much just a browser.
(the same thing could be done with windows if you aren't comfy with linux)
We had a main server that did all processing, the doctors had tablets, when they checked into a room, the tv changed to the vga input, if any client data was needed to be displayed on screen, the doctor had to select on the tablet what to show, and enter the patient id number, and their pin for verification. After they left the room, the screen went back to TV.
I can probably dig up the .py files, or go back out to the client and snag the files.
James
snazzy way to do things
Pity the AMX site is scant on details for it ... not even a "Getting started with ..." training video. GUess I need to make a call or two ...
Yes, but they are pretty specific, and I'm not in the "how do I do this" stage, I'm in the "what is this systems capacity, and how does it all work together" stage. Learning how to customize the user interface won't help me design a system.
Yes, and I've already started to set that up. I was double-teaming them by asking here as well, because often these forums have better ideas that aren't tied into the rep's sales quota.
Source
You can encode the video into multicast video stream.You will need encoder to encode the video stream. 1 video, 1 encoder. if there is more than 8 stream, try to go for blade form.
You can put up a digital signage player and encode it out as one of the channel.
Middleware
Vision2 is the middle ware to control the video stream and churn out the playlist. Video will also be saved in Vision2 for VoD functionality. You can use Ipad to access into Vision2 for VoD. In fact, any mobile device with a browser should work.
HLS is not supported for mobile phone or tablet. As far as i can remember.
End-point
At the end-point, you will need a STB(for Amx, it will be amino H140). There is a API to control the STB.
For the document or still image,
Maybe you can make use of desktop virtualization. Just a tot.
I remembered that is a USB(HID) in the Dxlink transmitter. Maybe you can use that for the mouse and keyboard.