Now Showing – QuickStart Guide

Now Showing is brought to you by Roomie Remote. It provides a Live Movie Poster display for Home Theaters. It integrates directly with 6 different media players, or offers deep integration with Roomie Remote and its many supported players. Both paths offer live feedback of in-progress movies including artwork and progress. It can be used with or without another control system because of this direct integration. Interfaces scale up to 8K TVs for direct control from a connected Mac, Apple TV, iPhone, or iPad showing your posters on the screen or TV. Ideal deployments include a Mac mini connected to a portrait-orientation Samsung Frame TV, an Apple TV connected to a TV force-rotated into Portrait mode, an iPad with an External Monitor in Stage Manager mode, or a wall-mounted iPad displaying directly on its own screen. Remotely control any of those from your iPhone. Compatible with all monitors supported by macOS or iPadOS 16.2 and up with External Display support. Vertical mounting (portrait mode) is recommended for the ideal poster viewing user experience. Now Showing features forced Portrait mode to ensure Portrait orientation even on displays that do not support it. Landscape display is also supported.

If Roomie Remote (separate app and subscription) is also deployed, deep integration is activated including automatic artwork display based on actual content, and progress status overlayed and integrated with posters, ratings, and theater features. 6 media players are compatible directly as noted below. No control system is needed for those players.

Supported Media Players for Progress Display

• Apple TV (also supported directly)
• iTunes/Music app for macOS
• Bose Soundtouch
• Casatunes
• Denon HEOS
• DirecTV
• DISH
• DuneHD
• Kaleidescape (also supported directly)
• Oppo BD (also supported directly)
• Panasonic BDT (also supported directly)
• Pioneer BDP
• Plex Media Player (Apple TV and nVidia Shield)
• Sonos
• TiVo
• Kodi (also supported directly)
• Yamaha Receivers
• Yamaha MusicCast
• Zidoo (also supported directly)

Supported Media Players for Automatic Poster Loading

Automatic Poster Loading attempts to load a high quality poster image based on the content playing on the actual device. The success of this method depends upon the content. For instance, some random YouTube video on your AppleTV will not load anything useful, but will load whatever graphic YouTube supplies for that video instead. In general, that won’t be a high quality poster, and will not be in the ideal orientation. Meanwhile, watching pretty much any movie in the Apple TV+, HBO Max, Netflix, etc. apps will work great. Systems like Kaleidescape work perfectly for almost all of their content since they don’t have random content like YouTube.

• Apple TV
• DirecTV
• DISH
• Kaleidescape
• Plex Media Player (Apple TV and nVidia Shield)
• Sonos
• TiVo
• Kodi

Custom Artwork

Depending on your plans, you can always designate specific custom artwork to ensure a proper display at movie time. Standard movie poster aspect is 1:1.5. For instance, a common size is 2,000 px by 3,000 px. Especially if you’re using Portrait orientation, you should look for that aspect ratio. Good websites to find high-quality poster artwork almost all of which is in that aspect ratio include:

Deployment Scenarios

While countless possible deployment methods can be used including just watching Now Showing on your iPhone, the following deployment scenarios provide ideal deployments using tested combinations of hardware.

Ideal Deployment Scenario 1: Mac mini with Samsung Frame TV

This deployment is the “perfect” scenario at this time. A monitor of large size (we have found the 43″ more than adequate to resemble a one-sheet poster size) mounts vertically, looks like a poster, is completely flush with the wall, and driven by an inexpensive Mac mini that has all the support required to drive the portrait mode display at full resolution. The brains of the TV are in an outboard unit that is usually setup in an adjacent room or cabinet. Only a single very thin wire needs to be connected to the TV itself, and that includes both signal and power.

Requirements:

• Samsung Frame (any model supporting Portrait orientation mounting which should include models from prior years as well)
  • Samsung Frame 32 (2023 Model, minor update announced for 2024)
  • Samsung Frame 43 (2024 Model)
  • Samsung Frame 50 (2024 Model)
  • Samsung Frame 55 (2024 Model)
  • Samsung Frame 65 (2024 Model)
  • Samsung Frame 75 (2024 Model)
  • Samsung Frame 85 (2024 Model)
  • Configuration: Update TV firmware and then consider disabling auto-update and manually checking for new firmware every year or so. Configure HDMI 1 input for Portrait orientation if mounted as such. Mount in Portrait orientation for ideal poster presentation. Turn off Screen Saver, Power Saving, and Art Mode. Or, leave Art Mode turned on and configure the delays/timers such that it’s in Art Mode when not being used as a Now Showing display. Control via Samsung EX-Link is the gold standard, but IP control is also an option. Note that the 32″ model requires a separate EX-Link cable all the way through the wall to the TV whereas every other model connects EX-Link on the OneConnect box.
• Mac mini (any M1 or better CPU model compatible with macOS Ventura or above)
  • Update to latest macOS and then disable auto-update in System Settings to prevent user interface notifications.
  • Configure System Settings-> Displays for Portrait mode vertical orientation using the full display resolution of the TV (this is 2,160 x 3,840 for all but the 32″ model).
  • Turn off all Notifications in System Settings -> Notifications.
  • Turn off System Settings-> Desktop & Dock -> Close windows when quitting an application
  • Set the Mac mini to Do Not Disturb mode to prevent any interruptions in System Settings -> Focus. Use an almost always schedule to keep it undisturbed. Turn off Focus -> Share across devices so that these settings only apply to this Mac mini.
  • Add Now Showing to login items to launch at startup if desired. The app will automatically assume Full Screen Mode if you had previously configured that. Just run the app and hit Cmd-Ctrl-F. It can then be remotely controlled from your iPhone, iPad, or another Mac.
  • Make sure System Settings -> Energy Saver -> Start up automatically after a power failure and Wake for network access are turned on.
    • Your Roomie Remote or other control system activity to activate the Now Showing device can use Wake on LAN to turn on the Mac mini or just leave the device on.
  • Running Roomie Remote works fine on the same device as Now Showing at the same time, so users of Roomie may consider designating this Mac mini as their Primary Controller.
  • A single Mac mini can run multiple Frame displays, and a single instance of Now Showing can handle all of the displays at the same time. In general, this number is 2 displays, but Mac mini (2023) with M2 Pro chip supports up to three external displays simultaneously.

Note that there are many displays capable of mounting vertically. We recommend the Samsung Frame here simply because it is tested and we believe it is the best choice today due to its resemblance to an actual poster through various factors like the matte finish of the display. It is almost perfectly designed for exactly this purpose. The setup instructions in this scenario can also be applied to many other monitors attached to a Mac mini. If you deploy using different hardware that works well, please let us know at support@roomieremote.com. Now Showing has the ability to force Portrait orientation, so displays that don’t have built-in support for it will also work fine, or you can choose to deploy Landscape orientation.

Ideal Deployment Scenario 2: Apple TV

A variant of Scenario 1 introduced in Now Showing 2.2 is the addition of the Apple TV platform. Just swap the Mac mini above for an Apple TV 4K latest model. The same TV recommendations apply from Scenario 1. This is a much cheaper option, but does come with some downsides. Apple TV supports only 1 TV. So you would need an Apple TV for each TV if deploying many Now Showing instances. Trailers discovered via the Search feature in the app are not supported on Apple TV, but custom video file trailers are supported. Configuration is only partially supported on Apple TV. We recommend all configuration performed on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac and then remotely deployed to the Apple TV. If you have something like a 500 MB trailer, that can take a few minutes to transfer. Mac mini offers all kinds of functionality to start the system automatically and launch Now Showing. Apple TV technically offers an MDM feature called Single App Mode, but it requires a lot of effort so in general any loss of power or restart will require manually starting the Now Showing app. Whether these limitations matter is up to you. The end result displayed on the TV and the devices supported for feedback is exactly the same.

Ideal Deployment Scenario 3: iPad with External Display

With the addition in version 2.1 of Forced Orientation, this is now an equally ideal deployment to Scenario 1. iPadOS itself does not support external displays in Portrait orientation, but Now Showing can now compensate for this so mounting as Portrait works well.

Requirements:

• iPad with M1 or better CPU (iPad Air 5 (2022), iPad Pro (2021 and 2022)) running iPadOS 16.2 or above
  • Requires secondary power such as Apple Magic Keyboard
  • USB-C port on the iPad connects to External Display
  • USB-C port on the Magic Keyboard connects to power
  • Use Guided Access mode to prevent device interruptions and notifications. (See Settings-> Accessibility -> Guided Access)
• External Display (any display supported by iPadOS 16.2+)
  • Use forced portrait orientation configured in Now Showing or deploy as Landscape.

Ideal Deployment Scenario 4: Wall-Mounted iPad

This scenario does not require the latest iPads, does not require secondary power, so is certainly the easiest to start off. It does require selecting an appropriate wall mount and power solution for the iPad. This could be an ideal deployment for an iPad Pro 12.9 for instance in the hallway outside a home theater. No special instructions should be needed here, but running Now Showing in Guided Access mode (see iPadOS Settings app under Accessibility) is highly recommended, and obviously this deployment will need to be connected to a charger. Some excellent PoE seamless wall mount solutions exist for this type of deployment.