Visual Circuits Firefly MZ Media Player

Firefly MZ ($1995) by Visual Circuits and Focus Enhancements is a Linux -based playback unit that’s used to feed content to digital signage in remote locations. Using its included Media Messenger software, you can create impressive AV presentations on your PC that let you mix text, mpeg video clips and stills for a CNN-like look. Then, you can distribute these graphics to the Firefly MZ via network, DVD or satellite. From a remote location, you can schedule various presentations to play at various times, giving you 24/7 control over your message. Let’s take a look at how Firefly MZ works.

When we first unpacked the Firefly and plugged it into our DVI monitor, it immediately sprung to life, starting its Linux boot sequence. We could hear its 40GB Maxtor disk spinning up, and then on the screen there was a demo presentation that was included with the unit. It was immediately apparent that sophisticated graphics, both stills and MPEG video along with audio, can be created and played back by this small unit, which is only about 10 inches wide by 8 inches deep by 2 inches tall. Conveniently, it’s compact enough to be mounted on the back of a kiosk or display unit. Looking at the back of the unit (see graphic below), it’s impressive to see the variety of video and audio output options included. There’s an Ethernet network input, and then there are component, composite, DVI, and S-Video output for any type of display screen you’d like to use. There are also USB ports if you’d like to connect to the network via a USB network interface, and there’s also an RS-232 serial port. In addition, there’s a choice of SP/DIF or analog audio output.

The real fun started when we accessed the Firefly via our network. The diminutive box, in addition to containing a 40 GB hard disk, is also a miniature Linux computer. So after changing the IP address of our computer to one that was in the same Ethernet neighborhood as the Firefly’s default IP address, we were able to start up WebView, its internal control application using a Web browser, which let us control the Firefly from our computer.

You can create a playlist which contains all of your videos and graphics, and you can even add graphic overlays to a play list, or show web pages. From here, you load your videos, graphics, and text into the Firefly each of which goes into a pre-designated area of a template that you create.

The only weakness of this system I saw was the inability to use AVI video files— it only accepts MPEG files—not surprising since this is a Linux -based product. One other slight shortcoming of the unit is its limitation to 720 x 486 resolution playback, where I would rather have seen it capable of at least 720p output, given the currently intense interest in high definition visuals.

A big strength of Firefly MZ is the fact that you load your graphics files onto it, and you don’t need an entire computer to play back these files in a remote location. Also, Firefly doesn’t clog up your network with those pesky graphics and video clips because the files all reside and play back directly from Firefly, where they won’t be sucking up network bandwidth all day and all night. The company says that its product bridges AV and IT, and by allowing you to create the AV files on your computer and then distribute them using the company’s Media Messenger software to multiple Firefly MZ (after all, MZ stands for multi-zone) units, crossing this bridge is an easy thing to do.

A promising newly-announced feature of Firefly MZ is the ability to load .gif graphics onto it (Firefly was only able to use JPEG graphics before) where they can be placed into a template zone. Support for RSS/XML streaming text has also been added, where you can now click on a drop-down menu and link the unit to news feeds that can be constantly updated. And, if you don’t want to network the Firefly, all you need to do is load your graphics onto it via a network, then unplug and take it out into the field where you can use it as a stand-alone unit feeding your flat panel, projector or video monitor. And, it’s compatible with other Firefly units, along with Mantis and POPVideo Digital Media Players as well.

We found the Firefly MZ easy to use and compact. It’s the perfect solution to the problem of on-location playback for digital signage. Highly recommended. 9 stars out of 10.

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