Media and caching

Uploads, network folders, cache sizing, and the formats that actually play well on cheap Android hardware.

Two ways to get media onto a panel

Upload it through the console. Fine for a board somebody sets up once.

Point at a network folder. The panel syncs from an SMB or HTTP folder on your network and plays what it finds. This is the better answer when the pictures change often, or when the person who maintains them is not the person who administers the screen — they drop files in a folder and the wall updates.

Cache

Media is copied to the device so playback never depends on the network. Set the cache ceiling under Settings → Content to fit the device's storage; the oldest unused items are evicted first.

A useful rule on a 16 GB stick: leave at least 2 GB free for Android itself.

Formats worth using

Type	Use	Avoid
Images	WebP, or JPEG for photographs	Enormous PNG screenshots — they decode slowly on cheap hardware
Video	H.264 MP4, 1080p, 30 fps	H.265 and 4K on budget sticks; the decoder is the bottleneck, not the network
Typefaces	WOFF2 or TTF	Anything you do not have the licence to embed

Match the video to the screen. A 4K file on a 1080p panel costs decoding effort and gains nothing visible.

Video on cheap hardware

Most signage stutter is a decoder problem. If a video is not smooth: drop it to 1080p, re-encode to H.264, and check nothing else heavy is on the same board — a full-screen video plus an animated chart plus a web frame will beat a £30 stick.

Typefaces

Upload a typeface and it becomes available to every widget on that panel. The family name is taken from the filename, so Vazirmatn-Regular.ttf gives you a family you can select by name. See right-to-left and custom typefaces.

Licensing, briefly

The photographs bundled with the templates are placeholders so a board is not empty on first run. Replace them with your own before a board goes in front of customers. The same goes for typefaces: uploading one to a panel is embedding it, and the licence has to allow that.