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Remote Player

Peformaar's Remote Player provides a mechanism for showing Sessions and Recordings on non-interactive displays (e.g. video walls).

Creating & Managing a Remote Player​

  1. In the Performaar UI, navigate to the Settings > Remote Players page.
  2. Click the + New Remote Player button.
  3. Give the new Remote Player a name.
  4. Click the Create button.
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Once created, a token for the new Remote Player will be shown in the dialog. Make sure you save it—you won't be able to view it again.

The Settings > Remote Players page can also be used to edit the name of a Remote Player, change permissions and delete Remote Players.

Connecting to a Remote Player​

Remote Players are available through the browser and can be accessed at the following URL:

http://<server url>/players?token=<token>

Where <server url> is the location of Performaar Server and <token> is the token shown when the Remote Player was created. For example, if your Server is located at 192.168.1.10:9091 and the token for the Remote Player you're trying to start is MDFLRDI2OEpYWTZBSkhOMDc2V0dOUjJOMkg6c3docC1wbGF5ZXItRHV6a2V0UVE5a0VsWFU5YnJndVdxTmQ2YnJ3S1RRUGc= the URL will be:

http://192.168.1.10:9091/player?token=MDFLRDI2OEpYWTZBSkhOMDc2V0dOUjJOMkg6c3docC1wbGF5ZXItRHV6a2V0UVE5a0VsWFU5YnJndVdxTmQ2YnJ3S1RRUGc=
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Each token only allows you to run a single instance of a Remote Player at any given time. If you'd like to have multiple Remote Players running simultaneously, you should create as many as you need from the Settings > Remote Players page so you have multiple unique tokens.

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Starting a Remote Player in a browser in which you're logged in to Performaar will automatically log you out. You can use an Incognito Mode window for the Remote Player to prevent this from happening.

Launching on Startup​

Kiosk Mode for Chrome & Edge​

A common use case is to have a completely non-interactive machine that starts up with the Remote Player automatically in fullscreen mode. This can be achieved for the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers using an in-built feature called Kiosk Mode.

For example, assuming that Performaar Server is already running, executing the following command on computer startup will initialize the Remote Player page in fullscreen.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --kiosk "http://localhost:3000/player?token=MDFLRDI2OEpYWTZBSkhOMDc2V0dOUjJOMkg6c3docC1wbGF5ZXItRHV6a2V0UVE5a0VsWFU5YnJndVdxTmQ2YnJ3S1RRUGc=" --edge-kiosk-type=fullscreen --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required

Additional documentation for kiosk mode can be found in the Microsoft Edge documentation.

With this command, you can use the Windows Task Scheduler, or a command-line script or any of a variety of other mechanisms to launch Edge or Chrome and connect to the Remote Player on startup.

260-Character Limitation​

Depending on your method of configuring Edge or Chrome to launch on startup, you may run into the 260-character limitation present in various parts of the Windows operating system. One workaround to this is to use Environment Variables to shorten the full command.

For example, you can create a variable called SW_PERFORMAAR_REMOTE_PLAYER_URL and set its value to the full URL (e.g. http://localhost:3000/player?token=MDFLRDI2OEpYWTZBSkhOMDc2V0dOUjJOMkg6c3docC1wbGF5ZXItRHV6a2V0UVE5a0VsWFU5YnJndVdxTmQ2YnJ3S1RRUGc=). Then, in the full command listed above you can replace the URL with the environment variable instead.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --kiosk "%SW_PERFORMAAR_REMOTE_PLAYER_URL%" --edge-kiosk-type=fullscreen --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required

Showing Sessions & Recordings on a Remote Player​

To show a Session or Recording on a Remote Player:

  1. In the Performaar UI, navigate to the Sessions or Recordings page.
  2. Click the Play button next to the Session or Recording you'd like to show on the Remote Player.
  3. In the "Connected Remote Player" section in the sidebar, click the None option and select the name of the Remote Player you'd like connect to.

Once successfully connected, you should see the Session or Recording on the Remote Player while the Session/Recording page changes to show blank boxes instead of live streams or videos.

While connected, changing Layouts or the volume or fullscreen state of a particular source will also update the Remote Player to reflect these changes.