E-Touch Betabrite Setup & Use Tutorial

[fordman]

E-Touch Betabrite 101

Using a Betabrite with E-Touch is a great way to show what artist and song are playing without having to look at the jukebox. Plus it helps with the WOW effect!

First of all, you need a Betabrite.



You can buy these at most warehouse clubs, ebay & maybe craigslist.
New about $200.00 (US), used anywhere from $50.00 to $100.00 (US).

You also need one of these.



This connects between your com port on your computer and the jack on the Betabrite. About $15.00 (US) new. You might find them on ebay a little cheaper.

Once you've made the financial plunge buying one of these, E-Touch makes it a useful and fun tool to compliment your jukebox.

Now that everything is hooked up, Start E-Touch. After E-Touch has started, goto the Options screen. There you will find the 'LED Sign' Button. Tap/click the 'LED Sign' button and you will see this screen.



Lets look at the first part of the screen.



Enable Betabrite tick box. Tap/click that to make the Betabrite work with E-Touch.

You see the 9600,n,8,1 . That is the speed that E-Touch sends the message to the Betabrite. No need to modify this setting.

On the right side you see the Com Port drop list. Select which Com Port your Betabrite cable is attached to. Usually Com Port 1. Not much is used by the com ports these days.

In the middle is the 'Commit Changes' Button. Tap the button once you've Enables the LED Sign and made the Com Port Selection.

On the bottom of the box you see a sign selection drop box.
Betabrite is the most common sign, but there are chinese signs and name badge ype sign out there. They are a bit cheaper, but you get what you pay for.

The next box:



The Betabrite Message Settings Box

Display Credit Info tick box is for those that use the credits (commercial operators)

Display Songfacts. With E-Touch, you get the Song Fact Builder.exe file in your c:\Program Files\E-Touch Jukebox folder. With this program you can make interesting facts about your songs. Artist info, song year, genre, whatever you want. Save the info with the Song Fact Builder.exe program, tick the Songfact Information box and all the info about your songs will show up on the Betabrite! Kinda Cool!

Display User Information tick box.
Under that you can add your own text in between songs like 'The Party Box' or '3 Beers for the price of 1' or anything you want. But when the next song starts to play, then the user info is replaced with the song info.

Replace Intl Characters box.
This is for some funky looking characters that people type but the Betabrite doesnt know how to display them. So the Betabrite usually replaces the funky character with a '?'.

Tap/click Save Settings and away you go. If you are currently in the middle of a song, you will have to wait for it to finish either manually or by itself before the Betabrite will start to display any information.

Here is mine in action:
Fordman's Betabrite on Youtube
22 second video.

There you have it! Betabrite 101.



Fordman

[Bondy]

Nice Tutorial Fordman good job 

I was wondering if i could request a Tutorial for fan art as im still a little unsure of how to do this im not in any rush but i think this would be a good Tutorial to add

Thanks

Bondy

[fordman]

Sure, I'll do one for Fan Art Later Today. Fan Art is Easy. I thought I already kinda did one for fan art?




Fordman

[Bondy]

Well i thought all i ad to do was get an image of say the singer i wanted so say for example elton john put it in the fan art folder and make sure the image is named after the singer / band so eltonjohn.jpg i have added quite a few pictures and named them after the artist but they dont show up

Cant see what im doing wrong or do the jpg's need to be in there own older in the fan art folder ?

[fordman]

Fan Art should go into the Fanart Folder as artist.jp



Go into the Options, then button settings.



This is what you should get:



Try that and see if that works!



Fordman

[Bondy]

Thanks Fordman

I had the slider set to 0 DOH !!!!! no wonder i wasnt seeing anything all seems to be A ok now 

[Neonkiss]

I have a question about the set-up using a Betabrite.
Betabrite has their own software where you can add text and pre-arranged images to their signs. This information is stored in the on-board eeprom.
My question is, Is there anyway to have a stored message with the graphics from the Betabrite program on your sign and then switch to the R232 data stream with the song playing info when playing the jukebox? I would then like the sign to revert back to the internal message when no songs are being played.

I've been messing around with this, but can't get both messages to play.

[fordman]

I believe that when E-touch is running, it takes presidence with the betabrite, so if no song is playing and no song info is being displayed by the betabrite, then all you get is a blank betabrite. Turn E-Touch off, then your betabrite should go back to the stored messages.

Thats how I understand it works, but I may be wrong 

Fordman

[Neonkiss]

Thanks Fordman,
Yes, With my set-up I not only have to turn off the E-touch, but I have to then reload the Betabrite info.
I could add my message in the E-touch set-up under the "Display User Information" However it will not display it with the characters and fonts available in the Betabright program.
I guess what I'm looking for is the best of both worlds.  
I'm hoping someone here can help with that.