How do I setup and use the local storage and usb dirve

[gec5741023]

My company purchased a cisco DMM server along with 10 dmp 4310g players.  I have been trying to work all this out on my own here to get it all working.  Let me explaine what we would like to do first before getting to specifics.

The cental DMM will handle playing any content and be used for creating and managing the content here at corporate wehre I am.  However my boss wants to send out individual dmp players (4310g's) out to our plants accross the contry.  He wants me to be able to creat the content or allow management for someone at the specific location to edit the content and then push out the content from the DMM server at corporate to the local dmp either saving it to the local storage or an attached thumb drive.  I guess my questions on this are as follows.

1) is it nessesary to push the content locally for playback?  Will playing content from our dmm over the wan be to much traffic?  Presentations could be as simple as a basic welcome page to a presentation playing video and flash images.

2) If pushing the content local would be a wise decision I am having difficulty seeing exactly how this is done.  In the dmp settings I see the local storage setting and have it turned on and set to read/write.  As far as the thumb drive gose how exactly to I set that up so the dmp can see it?  I plug it in the back of the player and it looks like it's active but from the management console of the player I do not see any way to actaully see if it knows about the usb thumb drive.

3) how will I push the content to the local storage and the thumb drive from the DMM?  It looks like I can send things to the internal storage though the advanced tasks/deployment package and or file transfer to DMP or server.  What exactly is the differnce between these two?

4) finally how will I actually play the content from the local dmp?  Can I set this up on a schedual from the dmm just like I would if it was playing from the local dmm?

I have been looking through the documentation but I have not found any good docs that are clear on actually how to do these things.  So any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

gec5741

[Daniel Arrondo Ostiz · Accepted solution]

Hi Glen,

Here are the answers to your questions

1) is it nessesary to push the content locally for playback?  Will  playing content from our dmm over the wan be to much traffic?   Presentations could be as simple as a basic welcome page to a  presentation playing video and flash images.

It's not mandatory to push the content locally, you can also play it from the DMM directly. The main advantage of playing it locally is that you can transfer the videos several hours or days before the presentation starts to be played, so you deploy the content out of business hours and then, when it's ready start playing the new presentation.

If you play the content from the DMM directly, the content will be transferred the moment the DMP starts playing it. This may fail if the WAN link is congested at that time.

2) If pushing the content local would be a wise decision I am having  difficulty seeing exactly how this is done.  In the dmp settings I see  the local storage setting and have it turned on and set to read/write.   As far as the thumb drive gose how exactly to I set that up so the dmp  can see it?  I plug it in the back of the player and it looks like it's  active but from the management console of the player I do not see any  way to actaully see if it knows about the usb thumb drive.

You don't need to do anything to enable the USB storage, it's enough to plug it in. To confirm that the DMP is able to see it properly, the easiest way is to connect to the DMP through FTP and confirm that it has a "usb_2" directory. This "usb_2" directory is where the USB drive is mapped.

3) how will I push the content to the local storage and the thumb drive  from the DMM?  It looks like I can send things to the internal storage  though the advanced tasks/deployment package and or file transfer to DMP  or server.  What exactly is the differnce between these two?

The "File transfer" task will just do that, transfer a file to the DMP. The deployment package is more smart and will transfer all the contents of a presentation and organize them in a structure that can then be used to play the content locally. You should always use the deployment package.

4) finally how will I actually play the content from the local dmp?  Can  I set this up on a schedual from the dmm just like I would if it was  playing from the local dmm?

Yes, it can be scheduled as any other presentation.

I would suggest you to have a look at the link below. It explains the steps required to configure the deployment package and to play content deployed with it.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/digital_media_systems/5_x/5_2/dmm/user/guide/dmp/cds.html#wp2188026

I hope everything is more clear now, but, if you still have questions, let me know. I'll try to answer them.

Daniel

[gec5741023]

Thank you very much.  This was extreamly helpful and exactly what I needed. 

I was able to do the deployment package and I was able to confirm that the content appeared to be on the thumb drive but I wasn't sure how to go about playing the content locally.  I did not see that it created a go to url that is used for just this!  Thanks again I am now able to push content and play it locally. Today I will be working with one of my remote sites and test it live!

Thanks again.