Your first screen

From an empty account to a television playing your content. About ten minutes, and no cables to configure.

What you need
A television or a computer attached to one, on the internet. A picture or a video to show. That is all — there is nothing to install unless you want to, and the apps can wait until later.
  1. Create a location

    A location is a real place: a shop, a café, a gym, a lobby. Screens live inside locations, so when you grow to twenty screens you still know which one is where.

    Go to LocationsAdd location. Name it the way your staff would say it out loud, not the way an address would. Add a photo of the place while you are there — you will recognise a picture far faster than a street name in a list.

    Locations → Add location
    Location name *1
    Westfield London — Main entrance
    City2
    London
    Country
    United Kingdom
    Venue type3
    Retail — Mall — Concourse
    Save locationCancel
    1The name your team will read in every list and dropdown from now on.
    2City drives the Locations filter and the map, so fill it even for a single site.
    3Venue type is how advertisers find you. Retail, transit, gym — it matters later, not now.
  2. Turn the television into a screen

    On the television, open cms.screenroll.live/tv in its browser — or launch the ScreenRoll app if you installed one. It shows a six-character code and a QR.

    What the television shows
    Ready to pair
    7KQ2XB
    Enter this code in your dashboard
    1Scan this with your phone and it opens the dashboard already on this code.
    2Or read the six characters out to whoever is at the computer.

    Then, whichever is easier: scan the QR with your phone, or type the code into Link TV on the Screens page. Either way you then choose which screen this television becomes — or create that screen on the spot.

    Note
    The code is good for 24 hours, which is long enough to give an installer the code the evening before they visit. The television's resolution comes from the panel itself, so a 4K reports as a 4K without anyone measuring anything.
  3. Upload something to show

    Media LibraryUpload file. A JPEG or an MP4 is the fastest start. Give it a name you will recognise; the file's own name is usually a serial number nobody can read.

    Images have no natural length, so you set one — ten seconds is the usual default. Videos use their own duration unless you shorten it.

  4. Put it in a playlist

    PlaylistsCreate Playlist. Name it, pick the publisher it belongs to if you manage several, then click the + beside each file on the right. The order on the left is the order it plays, and you can drag to change it.

    Note
    One item in a playlist is fine. A playlist is not a compilation — it is simply “the thing that plays”, and a single menu board image is a perfectly good playlist.
  5. Say when and where

    SchedulesAdd Schedule. Give it a name, choose a daily time window and the days it runs, tick the screen you just paired, and assign your playlist to the Main zone.

    Schedules → Add Schedule
    Schedule name *1
    Daytime menu
    From2
    07:00
    To
    15:00
    Targeting & scale
    Westfield London — Entrance TV1920×1080 · Landscape3
    Manchester Arndale — Café1920×1080 · Landscape
    Zone assignments
    MainDaytime · 3 files · 40s
    Create scheduleCancel
    1A name you will recognise in the list — “Daytime menu”, not “Schedule 1”.
    2The daily window. Outside it, this schedule simply does not apply.
    3Which screens it plays on. Tick as many as you like.
    4Which playlist fills the main area of the layout.

    Within a few seconds the television picks it up. It does not need a restart and nobody needs to touch it.

It is playing. What now?
Give the screen a photo and a venue type so it looks right in your lists and means something to advertisers — see Screens. If you want it to earn, read How advertising works. If it is not playing, The screen is not playing is the page you want.
Try it on a screen you already own. The first screen is free, for as long as you like. No card.
Start free — no card