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Tilecast Wiki

Tilecast is a self-hosted digital signage system for Fire TV, Google TV, and Android TV. Tilecast Studio runs in a browser. Tilecast Player runs on each display device.

This wiki is the operator manual: install the server, enroll players, build content, schedule playback, and keep screens running. Implementation details and protocol contracts stay in the repository's versioned technical documentation.

Start here

New installation:

1. Install the server
2. Install Tilecast Player
3. Pair the first screen
4. Add content
5. Build a playlist
6. Assign that playlist directly to the screen as fallback content.
7. Add Schedules when the fallback should be replaced at specific times.

Existing installation:

• Screens and Groups explains status, assignments, and grouping.
• Reliability and Kiosk covers commissioning, active hours, recovery, and kiosk behavior.
• Emergency Takeover and Commands covers urgent overrides and remote player actions.
• Player Updates covers signed APK releases and staged deployment.
• Backups and Upgrades covers the PostgreSQL and /data volumes.

Playback order

For each screen, Tilecast resolves playback in this order:

1. Active emergency takeover
2. Winning schedule
3. Direct screen assignment
4. No-content screen

A direct assignment is the screen's normal fallback. Creating a schedule does not remove it.

When multiple schedules match, Tilecast compares priority first. At equal priority, a direct screen target beats a group target. Remaining ties are resolved deterministically.

What Tilecast currently supports

• Uploaded images and videos
• Reusable Website and YouTube Sources
• Ordered fullscreen playlists
• Direct screen assignments
• Weekly and one-time schedules
• Screen groups
• Emergency takeovers
• Persistent player commands
• Organization, group, and screen-level player policies
• Cached offline playback
• Standard Reliability and capability-confirmed Managed Kiosk
• Signed Tilecast Player updates

Read Known Limitations before planning a deployment around kiosk lockdown, TV power control, authenticated websites, multi-zone layouts, or silent APK installation.