THE DIGITAL SIGNAGE CMS
One browser tab runs the whole network.
Build the layout, watch the whole cycle back before anyone else sees it, publish, and every player collects it on its next check-in. Cloud-hosted by us or self-hosted on your own servers, and the same software either way.
- $12/display/mo
- Professional plan, all features
- 6
- Platforms from one CMS
- 2
- Licence models: own it or subscribe
- 14-day
- Free trial, no credit card
THE LAYOUT DESIGNER
This is the actual screen you would be working in.
Not a mockup and not an illustration. A frame from a screen recording of the CMS, with a real layout open on the canvas.
01
The content panel, on the left
Two tabs. ADD ELEMENTS is the widget library, searchable and grouped, and LAYERS is the stack of what is already on the canvas. Everything you can put on a screen starts here.
02
The canvas, in the middle
The layout at its real resolution, 1920 × 1080 here, zoomed to fit. Canvas, Grid and Preview Safe Area toggle above it: the safe area is the one that stops a price landing under a bezel or off the edge of a panel that overscans.
03
The Inspector, on the right
Properties for whatever is selected, split into Basic and Advanced so the common settings are not buried under the rare ones. With nothing selected it shows Layout Settings, which is where the layout itself is configured.
04
The timeline, along the bottom
Every region in the layout as its own track, with its duration and whether it loops. This is the part that turns a static design into something that plays, and it is covered properly below.
START HERE
A digital signage CMS, in plain terms.
A digital signage CMS is the software where a screen network is actually managed. You build a layout, schedule it, and every player picks it up on its next check-in, instead of updating each screen by hand or walking a USB stick round the sites. Live CMS is that software, and it runs entirely in a browser.
The parts that carry the day-to-day work are scheduling and grouping. Group displays by store, floor, building or department, then target a change at just that group. Give each team a login scoped to their own screens and their own features. Head office keeps the template, local teams keep their content, and neither waits on the other.
One CMS drives all six players: Windows, Android, Linux, Samsung Tizen, LG webOS and BrightSign. A layout built once runs on a panel with the player built in, on a box behind a screen, or on an industrial PC, and the network can be a mix of all three.
Where it runs is your call. LiveSign hosts it, or you self-host the whole thing on your own infrastructure with nothing leaving your environment. Dedicated self-hosting support is included on the Enterprise plan, and SAML single sign-on is available from the Business plan up.
AT A GLANCE
- Access
- Entirely through a web browser. Nothing to install to manage the network.
- Hosting
- Cloud-hosted by LiveSign, or self-hosted on your own servers.
- Drives
- Windows, Android, Linux, LG webOS, Samsung Tizen and BrightSign players, plus an employee’s own Windows desktop through LiveView.
- Building
- Layout Designer in the browser: canvas, widget library, Inspector, region timeline.
- Checking
- Layout Preview plays the full cycle, with a draggable playhead, before publishing.
- Player link
- HTTP or HTTPS on TCP/80, TCP/443 and TCP/9505. Players keep playing if it drops.
- Single sign-on
- SAML available on the Business plan and above.
- White label
- CMS brand and colours can be changed under the White Label option.
WHAT GOES ON THE CANVAS
Your media, and a library of live things.
Images and video are the easy half: upload them once and they are available to every layout. The half that separates a signage CMS from a slideshow is everything that changes on its own after you have walked away from it, and that is the widget library.
UTILITY
- Hikvision Camera
- A camera feed as a region on the layout
- Web Page
- Any URL rendered in place: an intranet page, a dashboard, a booking board
- QR Code
- A generated code, for a menu, a form or a Wi-Fi join
- HTML Embed
- Your own HTML, CSS and JavaScript in a region
- WiFi Share
- Guest network details, on screen
TIME & INFORMATION
- Digital Clock
- The time, in the display’s own time zone
- Date Display
- The date, formatted
- Weather
- Current conditions for the location
- Countdown Timer
- Time remaining to an event, opening or deadline
NEWS & FEEDS
- RSS Feed
- A feed pulled in and rendered on the layout
- Scrolling Ticker
- The strip along the bottom, from a feed or from text you write
SOCIAL MEDIA
- YouTube Video
- A video playing in a region
The panel carries on past the four groups above into Business & Productivity, and it has a search box because by the time you know what you are looking for, scrolling is slower than typing. Ask sales for a demo login if you want to go through the full list against your own requirement.
REGIONS AND TIMING
Six things happening at once, each on its own clock.
A screen is not one thing playing after another. It is several areas, each with its own content and its own timing, and the timeline is where that is set.
A region is one area of the screen
The promotion panel, the video, the clock, the date, the QR code and the ticker in the layout above are six regions. Each holds its own content and each is timed independently, so the clock keeps ticking while the promotion changes behind it.
Durations are per region
10 seconds on the date and the clock, 30 on the feed and the camera, a minute on the QR code, in this layout. A region holding one item loops it; a region holding several plays them in sequence, which is what the sixth track is doing with a camera feed, a web page and a video.
The longest region sets the cycle
Here that is 32 minutes 4 seconds, reported at the top of the timeline, and everything shorter loops inside it. Knowing the real cycle length is what tells you whether a customer standing at a counter will ever see the message you just added.
BEFORE ANYONE ELSE SEES IT
Watch the whole cycle back at your desk.
Preview plays the layout at its real resolution, in the browser, with the same timeline underneath it. Press play and it runs the cycle. Drag the playhead and it jumps to any second of it, which is the part that matters: nobody sits through 32 minutes to check what happens at minute nine.
The mistakes this catches are the ordinary ones, and they are the expensive ones. A feed that renders empty. A video with the wrong aspect ratio. Text that fits at 41% zoom on a laptop and collides at full size. An offer that expired on Sunday still sitting in the loop on Monday.
Finding any of those here costs a minute. Finding them after publishing means a wrong price in front of customers, on however many screens the schedule reached.
FROM DESK TO WALL
Four steps, and nobody visits a screen.
The same route whether the network is four screens in one building or four hundred across a country.
01
Build it
Drop widgets and media onto the canvas, size the regions, set each one’s duration. The status bar reads “All changes saved” as you work, so there is no save button to forget.
02
Preview it
Play the whole cycle in the browser, or drag the playhead to any second of it. What the preview shows is what the player will do, which is the point of checking here rather than on a wall.
03
Publish it
One button. The layout changes state to Published and becomes available to schedule to displays and display groups.
04
The players collect it
Each Live Player checks in over HTTP or HTTPS on TCP/80, TCP/443 and TCP/9505 and takes the new content down. Nobody visits a screen, and a player that loses its connection keeps playing what it already has.
RUNNING THE NETWORK
Six things you will use every single week.
Building a layout is one afternoon. These are the parts that carry the years after it.
Scheduling and dayparting
One-off, repeating and always-on events, plus campaign scheduling. Dayparting is the case that proves it: a breakfast layout and a dinner layout on the same screen, each starting on its own clock with nobody on site. Schedule to one display or to a group.
Display groups
Group displays by store, floor, building, region or department, then target a change at exactly that group. It is the difference between a price change taking one action and taking forty.
Display Admin
Every display in real time, with diagnostic and proof-of-play data per screen. The distinction that matters: knowing a screen has power, versus knowing what it actually played and when.
User Admin
Built-in authentication scoping exactly which CMS features and which displays each user or group can reach. A branch manager gets their own screens and nothing else. SAML single sign-on is available on the Business plan and above.
Media library
Images, video and the rest of your files, uploaded once and reused across layouts. Plan allowances are 1GB of storage and 4GB of bandwidth on Professional, 1.5GB and 6GB on Business, 2GB and 8GB on Enterprise.
White label
The CMS can carry your own brand rather than ours, published at $2,100 per brand. It is the option resellers and integrators running signage for their own clients ask about first.
The six players this CMS drives are covered one by one on the platforms pages, including which screens run a player with no box at all. What it costs, on either licence model, is on the pricing page.
We are inspired by the features of Live, and found new applications across the business.
Digital signage CMS: common questions
What is a digital signage CMS?
A digital signage CMS is the software where a screen network is managed: you build layouts, schedule them, and push them to players, instead of updating each screen by hand or carrying files around on a USB stick. Live CMS is accessed entirely through a web browser and can be cloud-hosted by LiveSign or self-hosted on your own infrastructure.
What is a layout, and what is a region?
A layout is the design that gets scheduled to a player: the whole screen, at a set resolution. A region is one area within it, and each region has its own content and its own duration. A layout with six regions can run a promotion, a live video, a clock, a date, a QR code and a scrolling ticker at the same time, each on its own timing.
Do I need design software to build a layout?
No. Layouts are built in the browser, in the Layout Designer: drag widgets from the library onto the canvas, size the regions, set the durations. You will want your artwork prepared somewhere, the way you would for any campaign, but the layout itself is assembled in the CMS.
Which widgets are built in?
The library is grouped. Utility carries a Hikvision camera feed, Web Page, QR Code, HTML Embed and WiFi Share. Time & Information carries Digital Clock, Date Display, Weather and Countdown Timer. News & Feeds carries RSS Feed and Scrolling Ticker. Social Media carries YouTube Video, and the panel continues into a Business & Productivity group below those. Media files you upload sit alongside all of it.
Can I put a live web page or my own HTML on a screen?
Yes, both. The Web Page widget renders a URL in a region, which is how an intranet page, a Power BI or Grafana dashboard, or a booking board ends up on a screen. The HTML Embed widget takes your own HTML, CSS and JavaScript when you need something the built-in widgets do not cover.
Can I check a layout before it goes to a screen?
Yes, and you should. Layout Preview plays the entire cycle in the browser at the layout’s real resolution, and the playhead can be dragged to any moment of it, so a region that goes blank at minute nine is found at a desk rather than on a wall in front of customers.
How long can a layout cycle be?
As long as the content in it. Each region has its own duration, a region with one item loops it, and a region holding several items plays them in sequence. The longest region sets the cycle: in the layout shown on this page, five regions loop at 10 seconds to a minute while a sixth runs a sequence lasting 32 minutes 4 seconds, and that is the cycle length the CMS reports.
How do Live Players communicate with the Live CMS?
Live Players are designed to be as independent as possible from the CMS. They connect frequently over HTTP or HTTPS using TCP/80, TCP/443 and TCP/9505, and keep playing their current schedule if that connection drops, picking up changes at their next successful check-in.
What types of content does the Live CMS support?
A wide range of file-based media and internet content, including video, images, RSS, text and data sets, as long as the target Live Player and the hardware it runs on can play that content type.
Can the CMS be self-hosted?
Yes. Live CMS runs cloud-hosted by LiveSign or self-hosted entirely on your own servers, and it is the same software either way. Dedicated support for self-hosted deployments is included on the Enterprise plan, and networks with no internet access at all are supported through the On-Premise Licensing Module.
Does it support single sign-on?
Yes. SAML single sign-on is available on the Business plan and above, so CMS login uses your existing identity provider rather than a separate account list to maintain.
Can the Live CMS be white-labelled?
Yes. Brand and colours inside the CMS can be changed under the Live CMS White Label option, published at $2,100 per brand. See the reseller and white-label programme for the terms.
READY WHEN YOU ARE
Open the designer yourself.
Fourteen days, two players of your choice, your own content on your own screens. Or ask sales for a walkthrough of the CMS against your requirement.
14-day free trial · no credit card · perpetual licence or SaaS, your call