Set up the big screen

What the big screen does

Display Mode is the page your room watches. It plays the top song through an embedded YouTube player and moves to the next pick by itself when a song ends.

Around the player it shows the event name, the join code, the song playing now, the songs queued to play next, the vote ranking and the last few songs that played. Along the bottom sits a QR code with the words Scan to add & vote. Guests who arrive late join from the screen without asking you for anything.

The screen updates live as votes come in. If the live connection drops, it checks for changes every few seconds until the connection comes back.

Choosing the device

Any device with a modern web browser can run the screen. The device that opens the page is the one that plays the music, so pick it with the sound in mind as well as the picture.

• A laptop connected to a TV with an HDMI cable is the most dependable setup. The picture and the sound both travel down the cable to the TV.
• A smart TV with its own browser works without a second device, as long as you can sign in on it.
• A projector works the same way as a TV. Connect a laptop to it and send the sound to separate speakers if the projector's own speaker is small.
• Casting or mirroring a laptop tab to a TV is possible on some devices. The laptop still runs the player, so the laptop needs the sign-in, the playback permission and a working sound output.

What Display Mode needs

• A signed-in host account on that device. The display page asks for sign-in, and moving the queue along needs the event's owner or a co-host with manager rights on a Teams plan. A guest's phone cannot run it.
• Permission to play. Loading YouTube's player contacts Google from that device, so the screen waits for you to choose Enable playback the first time. Voting and the ranking work either way.
• A tap for sound, sometimes. Some browsers start video muted until someone interacts with the page. When that happens the screen shows Tap to turn on sound.
• An internet connection that stays up for the night.

Open it, step by step

Sound

The music comes out of whatever device runs the page. With a laptop on HDMI, that usually means the TV's speakers. With a laptop and separate speakers, set the laptop's sound output to the speakers before the party starts.

Set the volume on the device or the speakers, and play a song at the level you want before guests arrive. Different uploads can be mastered louder or quieter than others, so stay near the volume for the first few songs.

Keeping the screen awake

While the display is playing, CrowdTune asks the browser to keep the screen on. Some browsers do not support this, or refuse it in battery-saver mode, so before the party turn off the screen saver and the sleep timer on that device, and plug a laptop into power.

The page itself keeps its live connection open even when the browser treats the tab as in the background. If a song fails to play, the screen skips to the next one. After three failed songs in a row it stops and shows an error with a Try again button.

Controls on the screen

• Skip to next, in the bottom corner, moves on to the next pick straight away.
• Back to the host console, in small text below it, leaves the big screen without closing the tab.
• The YouTube player shows its own controls as well.

Typed song titles

On the free plan guests mostly type a title rather than pick from search. When a typed song's turn comes, the big screen looks it up on YouTube and plays the top match. A title with the artist's name finds the right track more often than a title alone.

YouTube ads and privacy

YouTube can play its own ads inside the player, before or during a song. CrowdTune cannot switch them off, and no CrowdTune plan removes them. CrowdTune shows no advertising of its own.

The player loads from youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed, which holds back identifying cookies. Google still serves the player, so it sees the display device's IP address and browser. The player needs the Playback and error reports choice on that device.

Making it yours

On a Teams plan, the Display tab in the host console lets you set a custom title for the screen, pick an accent colour, and hide the CrowdTune wordmark. On other plans the screen shows the event name and the CrowdTune wordmark.

Where the screen belongs

Display Mode is for private events, in a room of people you invited. YouTube's terms forbid public screening, so do not use it to play music to the public or to customers. The /terms page sets out the rule in full.

Questions