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Dedicated Players vs Express Players

  • Updated

Carousel Cloud gives you the ability to configure a wide variety of media playback devices as either Dedicated Players or Express Players. This article explains the differences between the two player types and when to use them.

Dedicated Players

Express Players

Full-featured Performance:

  • Designed for screens used primarily for digital signage

  • Leverages full device capabilities for performance, resiliency, and advanced playback features

Flexibility & Scale:

  • Lightweight and economical for broadcasting common content to unlimited endpoints, including multi-use devices, websites, and screensavers

When to Use:

  • Dedicated signage screens (e.g., lobbies, hallways, menu boards)

  • Need for advanced features such as video, interactivity, emergency notifications, offline playback, device control/monitoring, etc.

  • Priority on resiliency and performance over device flexibility

When to Use:

  • For Multi-purpose or shared devices (e.g., classroom & meeting room screens, browsers, screensavers)

  • Embedding content in websites

  • Large-scale or distributed deployments with cost efficiency in mind

  • Achieving a broad reach of common content is more important than advanced playback features or unique content per screen

Licensing Type: 

  • Per screen

Licensing Type: 

  • Per feed of common content

  • Each feed can power unlimited devices

Express Player Behavior

Express players unlock your ability to include large numbers of devices in your Carousel Cloud ecosystem, and due to functional differences compared to dedicated players, they have more limited capabilities, as shown below.

Please Note: Express players activated in Carousel Cloud can have both Full Screen and Zone Alerts delayed up to approximately 1 minute. For that reason, we do not recommend using express players as your only tool for emergency alert communication.

Supported Express Player Bulletins

Unsupported Express Player Features/Bulletins

  • Canva Bulletins (Snapshot only)

  • Clocks - Analog, Digital

  • Countdown Timers

  • Event Display

  • GeckoBoard Bulletins (Snapshot only)

  • Google Docs (Snapshot only)

  • Google Sheets (Snapshot only)

  • Google Slides (Snapshot only)

  • Image Files

  • Microsoft Excel (Snapshot only)

  • Microsoft PowerPoint (Snapshot only)

  • Microsoft Word (Snapshot only)

  • Power BI (Snapshot only)

  • RSS Feeds

  • Templated Bulletins

  • Weather Bulletins

  • Web Bulletins (Snapshot only)

  • Features

    • Power Save

  • Bulletins

    • Audio clips attached to bulletins

    • Interactive Bulletins

    • Live Video Bulletins (HLS Video Streaming)

    • Uploaded Videos (including templated video blocks)

    • Video Input Bulletins

    • YouTube Bulletins

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