# ChannelOS Academy > Short lessons on putting something on a TV and keeping it right, in the order the jobs > actually come up. Source: https://channelos.tv/academy Lessons: 24 Total hands-on time: about 2 hours ChannelOS runs digital signage on a television's own web browser, so the lessons below assume a TV, a wifi connection and a phone, and no media player box. Each lesson is one job: a short version in numbered steps, then the longer explanation, then the part that catches people out. Reading is free and most of the tasks can be done on the free plan, which includes one screen. Every lesson has a markdown twin at the same path with `.md` appended, so a single lesson can be fetched on its own. --- ## Get something on the screen today From nothing to something readable on the TV you already own, in one sitting. Anchor: https://channelos.tv/academy#start ### 1. How to put something on a TV screen today The fastest honest route from nothing to a TV showing your prices, timed end to end. Plus what a USB stick, a laptop on HDMI and casting from your phone are each still better at. To put something on a TV screen today, open play.channelos.tv in the television's own web browser, scan the six-character code it shows with your phone, then describe the show you want and press Publish to send it to that screen. The TV is the player, so there is no stick to format and no laptop left plugged in behind the panel. Changing it later happens from your phone. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/put-something-on-a-tv-today Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/put-something-on-a-tv-today.md Needs: Free plan, about 10 minutes ### 2. What you actually need before you put anything on a screen The real shopping list for digital signage is four things, and three of them are already in the building. Here is the list, what a media player box genuinely buys you, and whether the TV from the stockroom will do. To run digital signage you need four things: a screen that can open a web page, a connection it can reach, a plug that stays on, and something you want the room to read. Three of those four are usually already in the building, because with ChannelOS the TV's own browser is the player, so there is no media player box to buy. A media player box is still the right purchase for sites with no reliable network, outdoor installs, and panels with no usable browser. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/what-you-need-to-start Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/what-you-need-to-start.md Needs: Free plan, about 5 minutes ### 3. Pair your first screen: the two minute version, and the four TVs that take longer Open the player on the TV, scan the code with your phone, done. Then the awkward cases: a TV with no browser, a TV out of wifi range, a code the server says is already in use, and what happens when you unpair. To pair a TV, open play.channelos.tv in the TV's own web browser, then scan the QR code it shows with your phone or type the six characters underneath it into ChannelOS. Nothing is installed on the television and it takes about two minutes. The only sets this cannot work on are the ones that cannot run a browser at all, which in practice means Roku and Apple TV. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/pair-your-first-screen Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/pair-your-first-screen.md Needs: Free plan, about 2 minutes ### 4. Your first show: one sentence in, then the three edits every draft needs What to type into the prompt box, what comes back, and the three things an AI draft almost always gets wrong: a price, a photograph, and a slide that says too much. To make a slideshow for a TV, write one sentence naming the business, the three things it sells with their prices, and the one action you want from whoever reads it. AI drafts the slides in about a minute and hands back an editable show. Then do the three edits every draft needs: check every price against your own till, swap the stock photograph for one of your own, and cut each slide down to one idea. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/your-first-show Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/your-first-show.md Needs: Free plan, about 5 minutes ## Portrait, and the sideways TV A television turned on its end, from the bracket on the wall to a show built for that shape. Anchor: https://channelos.tv/academy#portrait ### 1. Portrait digital signage, end to end: four decisions in the order you hit them Portrait is not a mode you switch on. It is four separate decisions, two of them made with a tape measure and two of them in software, and doing them out of order is why so many vertical boards end up sideways, cropped or just worse than the landscape one they replaced. Portrait digital signage is an ordinary television hung a quarter turn round, not a special class of display. Getting it right is four decisions in order: whether the spot is read head-on, the panel and the bracket, the show's shape at 9:16, and the screen's rotation. Only the last two are settings in ChannelOS. The first two are a tape measure and two manuals, and they are the ones that put holes in a wall. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/portrait-digital-signage Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/portrait-digital-signage.md Needs: Free plan ### 2. How to mount a TV vertically: VESA, weight, and the bits nobody mentions A software company's honest hardware page. The hole pattern is the easy part. What actually decides it is the manual, the mount's own rating, and where the infrared receiver ends up. You can mount most TVs vertically, because VESA is only a hole pattern and a square one (100x100, 200x200, 400x400) bolts on either way up. What decides it is the manual: many consumer TVs are not warranted for portrait use, and some run warmer rotated because the vents were cut for a landscape chassis. Read the set's manual and the mount's own rating before you drill. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/mount-a-tv-vertically Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/mount-a-tv-vertically.md Needs: Free plan, about 45 minutes ### 3. Build a show that is actually designed for a portrait screen The mount is right, the rotation is right, and the board still looks like a mistake. That is because a 9:16 board is a column of type read top to bottom, and a disappointing portrait board is usually a wide layout that was turned on its side rather than composed for the shape. A portrait digital signage board is a column of type read top to bottom, not a landscape design turned a quarter round. Design it at 9:16, which is 1080 by 1920 on a 1080p panel, and choose that shape when the show is created rather than flipping it. Because every size on a slide is a percentage of the slide's width, the same number renders about 56% as large on a portrait board, so portrait type runs close to double. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/build-a-portrait-show Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/build-a-portrait-show.md Needs: Free plan, about 10 minutes ### 4. My board came out sideways. Which of the four settings is wrong? Four different faults produce a board that looks wrong, and they do not look the same as each other. Name the symptom on the wall first, then change one setting. Two of the four are the screen's rotation, fixed from your phone in about ten seconds. To rotate a sideways board, open Screens in ChannelOS, pick that screen, and under How it is mounted choose one of four quarter turns: Upright, Turned left, Upside down, Turned right. It rotates the picture without changing the show, and it reaches the TV in seconds. Four different faults produce a board that looks wrong, so name the symptom first: a page lying on its side is the rotation, black bars are the show's shape. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/fix-a-sideways-board Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/fix-a-sideways-board.md Needs: Free plan, about 2 minutes ## Make it run itself Decide once what airs and when, then leave the screen to get on with the week. Anchor: https://channelos.tv/academy#schedule ### 1. How to schedule what airs and when, so nobody has to swap the board Scheduling in ChannelOS is a channel with a daily timeline, not a playlist pushed to a device. Set a time range and a repeat rule once, and the screen plays the right board at the right hour by itself. To schedule digital signage content in ChannelOS, put each show on a channel's daily timeline with a time range and a repeat rule (Once, Weekly by weekday, or Date range), then tune the screen to that channel. A channel is a feed a screen reads in real time rather than a playlist pushed to a device, so editing the show changes every screen on the channel with no re-publish. Channels start on the Solo plan. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/schedule-what-airs-and-when Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/schedule-what-airs-and-when.md Needs: Solo and up, about 10 minutes ### 2. Dayparting one TV: breakfast, lunch and dinner on the same screen One screen, four menus, and nobody standing at the television at eleven in the morning. A worked cafe day with real hours, then the four things that decide whether it genuinely runs itself: gaps, the handover minute, clashes, and the two things that are allowed to air over the plan. Dayparting means giving each part of the day its own show on one channel, so the screen changes itself at the minute you set rather than when somebody remembers. In ChannelOS you add a show to a channel with a start time, an end time and a repeat rule, and a screen tuned to that channel follows it. Channels and scheduling start on the Solo plan. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/dayparting-a-day Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/dayparting-a-day.md Needs: Solo and up, about 15 minutes ### 3. Running a screen 24 hours a day, 365 days a year Four things wear out when a screen never goes off: the panel, the warranty, the electricity meter and the connection. Here is the arithmetic for each one, and the hours worth not running. Yes, a TV can be left on 24/7. LED, LCD and QLED panels light the picture from behind rather than pixel by pixel, so they do not burn in. OLED is the exception, and it should not hold a bright static logo or price strip in one place for months. Consumer sets are specified for roughly 6 to 8 hours a day against a commercial panel's 16 to 24, so your own manual and warranty are the authority, and the cheapest hour is the one nobody sees. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/run-a-screen-24-7 Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/run-a-screen-24-7.md Needs: Free plan ### 4. How to put one urgent message on every screen, then get the schedule back A takeover airs over the top of whatever is scheduled, for as long as you set, and then hands the channel back by itself. Nothing is edited, so nothing has to be put back. Also the one job it must never be given. To put one urgent message on every screen at once in ChannelOS, run a takeover: open the channel those screens are tuned to, press Go live now, pick the show and how long it runs, then press Air now. It overlays the schedule rather than replacing it, so the channel hands itself back when the time is up and nothing has to be undone. It is not a certified mass-notification system. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/live-takeover Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/live-takeover.md Needs: Pro and up, about 1 minute ## One channel, a hundred screens Many screens showing the same thing, changed in one edit, the way a channel works. Anchor: https://channelos.tv/academy#broadcast ### 1. How to show the same thing on many TVs at once Two routes. A splitter sends one source's pixels down a cable to every screen wired to it. A channel lets every screen be online on its own and read the same feed. When each one is right, and how to do the second one. To show the same thing on many TVs at once you have two routes: an HDMI splitter sends one source's identical pixels to every screen wired to it, or each screen goes online by itself and tunes into one channel. The splitter wins inside one room with no internet, and because it is one paired screen however many TVs it feeds, it runs on the free plan. The channel route reaches other buildings, updates every screen from one edit, and can give one screen a different feed, but a screen that pairs on its own is a screen we count, so the second one needs Solo at $5 per screen per month billed annually ($60 a year). Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/same-show-on-many-tvs Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/same-show-on-many-tvs.md Needs: Solo and up ### 2. What a realtime player is, and why it changes the job Signage splits into two architectures: push a playlist to each device and let it play from local storage, or let the screen listen and work out what to draw as it goes. Here is what each one costs you, and where the other one wins. A realtime player is a screen that holds an open connection and works out what to draw from your show and your schedule as it plays, rather than downloading a playlist and playing it from its own local storage. Change the show and every screen listening to it repaints, with no publish queue and no per-device sync. Push-and-cache is the better model when the network cannot be trusted. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/what-a-realtime-player-is Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/what-a-realtime-player-is.md Needs: Free plan ### 3. Why it is called ChannelOS.tv Every other name in this category is about the screen. This one is about the feed, and the difference is not branding. Here is what changes when a channel is the thing you manage instead of a list of devices. ChannelOS is digital signage built around the channel rather than the screen: a channel is a named feed with a daily schedule, a television tunes into it through its own browser, and the OS is the layer that keeps every tuned screen current and controllable from one board. The name is an argument about the unit of work. It asks for a working network, which a media player with local storage does not. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/why-its-called-channelos-tv Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/why-its-called-channelos-tv.md Needs: Free plan ### 4. A hundred screens, one edit: running an estate An estate is structured once and then it is boring. One channel per role instead of one per screen, every screen tuned to the channel for its job, and the whole thing watched from one board. Plus the limits an estate buyer should check before committing. To run signage across many locations, make the channel the unit of work and cut the estate along role rather than geography: one channel for every front counter, one for every window, one for every staff room. Each screen tunes into the channel for its job, so a price change is one edit that reaches every screen playing that board, and a new site is a pairing plus a channel choice. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/a-hundred-screens-one-edit Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/a-hundred-screens-one-edit.md Needs: Agency ## Make the board worth looking at What gets read from across a room, and what people walk straight past. Anchor: https://channelos.tv/academy#craft ### 1. How big does the text have to be? There is a number for this and you can get it with a tape measure. The sign trade's rule of thumb converted into the one figure you actually type into a slide, plus the checks that decide whether the board reads from the door. Text on a digital sign needs roughly 25mm of capital-letter height for every 3 metres a person stands back. That is a trade rule of thumb, not a standard. On a ChannelOS slide every size is a percentage of the slide's width, so the number to type is about 54 times the distance in metres divided by the screen's diagonal in inches: a 55 inch screen read from 4 metres wants about 4. Use 96 on a portrait board. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/how-big-the-text-has-to-be Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/how-big-the-text-has-to-be.md Needs: Free plan ### 2. Three slides, not thirty How many slides should a digital sign have? Work it out from the loop, not from taste. Three slides at eight seconds each comes round in 24 seconds. Thirty takes four minutes, and most of it is never seen. Three to five slides is the right size for most screens, held about eight seconds each, which is a loop of 24 to 40 seconds. The constraint is dwell time, not design. As a rule of thumb worth testing on your own floor, treat someone walking past as four seconds and someone in a queue as forty: at thirty slides the loop runs four minutes, so most of the board is never seen by either of them. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/three-slides-not-thirty Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/three-slides-not-thirty.md Needs: Free plan ### 3. Set your colours once so the fifth show still matches The first board you style by hand comes out fine. The fifth one, made in a hurry, is the one that looks like a different company. A brand kit is the record that stops that, and the reason it is worth the ten minutes is that every AI-built show is drafted from it. To keep digital signage on brand, save a brand kit once: five colours, a heading and a body typeface, your logo and a footer line, then set it Active. Every AI-built show is drafted from that kit instead of from a generic default, so the work is done before the show exists. Brand kits are part of Pro at $8 per screen per month billed annually. On Free and Solo, duplicate one show you already like. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/brand-kit-every-show-matches Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/brand-kit-every-show-matches.md Needs: Pro and up, about 10 minutes ### 4. QR codes on a TV screen that people actually scan Most codes on a screen go unscanned for three physical reasons: they are too small for the distance, they are not up long enough, and nothing says what scanning gets you. Here is the sizing arithmetic and the fix for each. Yes, QR codes work on a TV. Add the QR code widget, paste your link, and make the code roughly a tenth of the scanning distance across, so a code read from 3 metres wants to be about 30cm. Size it by setting W and H together, because the code is drawn to fill its box and a box that is not square stretches its squares out of shape. Three things decide whether anyone scans it: its size against that distance, how long it stays on screen, and whether a line beside it says what scanning gets them. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/qr-codes-people-actually-scan Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/qr-codes-people-actually-scan.md Needs: Free plan, about 5 minutes ## When it goes wrong The four things that actually go wrong, what each one looks like, and the fix. Anchor: https://channelos.tv/academy#fix ### 1. The screen is not showing my change Nothing on screen tells you which of three things went wrong. Six checks from the outside in, starting with whether the screen is online at all and ending with the one button that forces a reload. Check three things in this order: that the screen says Live rather than Offline on the Display Board, that the show you edited is the show this screen is actually tuned to, and that something is scheduled for this minute. Give the middle check real patience, because pushing a show to a screen creates a channel named after that show, so a workspace collects near-identical names and nothing warns you that you had the wrong one open. If a change truly has not landed, Reload screen forces it. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/screen-not-updating Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/screen-not-updating.md Needs: Free plan, about 5 minutes ### 2. What happens when the wifi drops (and what does not come back) A screen that is already playing carries on. A screen that has to restart while the line is down cannot. Here is exactly which half you lose, how to test it in ten minutes, and when to buy a player box instead. A ChannelOS screen that is already playing keeps playing when the wifi drops, because the show is in the page and its pictures and clips sit in the browser's own storage. What stops is the live half: edits, schedule changes and controls from the board all wait until the line is back. A restart during an outage is the exception, because the page and the show are fetched fresh every time a screen starts. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/when-the-wifi-drops Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/when-the-wifi-drops.md Needs: Free plan ### 3. Getting a screen back by itself after a power cut Three separate things have to go right before a board comes back on its own: the panel takes power, the player comes to the front, and the network returns. Only the middle one is ours. Here is how to set up all three and how to test it in ten minutes. A screen comes back by itself when three things go right: the panel takes power and switches on, the player comes to the front, and the network is back so the board can load. Set the TV to resume its last power state or put a plug timer on it, then install the Android TV app and make it the home app with kiosk mode. Start after a power cut is best effort, not a guarantee. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/after-a-power-cut Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/after-a-power-cut.md Needs: Free plan, about 10 minutes ### 4. The show and the screen are different shapes The board is upright, readable and sitting in a band across the middle with black above and below it. Nothing is broken. The bars tell you which of the two shapes is wrong, and there are exactly two ways out: turn the screen, or rebuild the show. Digital signage is built at one of two shapes, 16:9 landscape or 9:16 portrait, and a sign is letterboxed whenever the show's shape and the panel's frame disagree. The show is fitted inside the frame rather than stretched or cropped, so a mismatch costs screen area and never the board. Bars at the sides mean a portrait show in a landscape frame. Bars top and bottom mean the reverse. Read: https://channelos.tv/academy/show-and-screen-different-shapes Markdown: https://channelos.tv/academy/show-and-screen-different-shapes.md Needs: Free plan, about 5 minutes --- ## Elsewhere Every public URL: https://channelos.tv/llms.txt Straight answers, with a permanent anchor each: https://channelos.tv/answers