Put It On The TV

Quick reference

<host-address> is whatever computer is running Tourney Jester on your network — the host's setup page shows the exact link to copy, so you shouldn't need to type it from scratch.

1. On the Fire TV remote, open Search and type “Silk Browser.” If it's not already installed, it's a free download from the Amazon Appstore — Amazon's own browser, so it's almost always already there.
2. Open Silk Browser.
3. Type in the Big Board's TV-mode link using the on-screen keyboard. It's much faster with the free “Amazon Fire TV” remote-control app on your phone, which lets you type with your phone's keyboard instead of clicking letters with the D-pad.
4. Press Go / Enter.
5. If Silk is showing browser chrome (address bar, tabs), it auto-hides after a few seconds of no input — leave it be and it settles into a clean full screen.
6. Leave the TV on this tab for the night. See Keep the screen awake below so Fire TV doesn't dim or sleep on you mid-tourney.

There are two different devices sold under similar names — check which one you've got.

Google TV (Chromecast with Google TV, or a TV with Google TV built in) has its own home screen and app store, so it can browse directly:

1. From the Google TV home screen, open the Apps row and install a browser (Chrome or Firefox) from the Play Store if one isn't already there.
2. Open the browser and type in the Big Board's TV-mode link. A Bluetooth keyboard pairs with most Google TV devices and beats the on-screen keyboard by a mile.
3. Go full screen and leave it running.

Older Chromecast (a plain dongle, no home screen of its own) has no browser — you cast a tab to it from another device instead:

1. On a laptop or phone on the same wifi, open Chrome.
2. Load the Big Board's TV-mode link in a tab.
3. Click the three-dot menu → Cast… → pick your Chromecast from the list.
4. Chrome mirrors that tab to the TV. Keep the laptop/phone plugged in and awake — if the source device sleeps, the cast drops with it.

Apple TV doesn't ship a general web browser, so we mirror a screen to it instead of browsing on it directly.

1. On an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, open Safari (or any browser) and load the Big Board's TV-mode link.
2. iPhone/iPad: swipe down from the top-right corner to open Control Center, tap Screen Mirroring, pick your Apple TV.
   Mac: click the Screen Mirroring icon in the menu bar (or Control Center on newer macOS), pick your Apple TV.
3. For the cleanest look, rotate the source device to landscape (or maximize the browser window on Mac) before you start mirroring.
4. Keep that source device plugged in. Mirroring keeps its screen on the whole time, which burns battery fast, and if it sleeps or locks, the mirrored picture freezes with it.

Roku doesn't have a general-purpose web browser built in (a couple of third-party “browser” channels exist but they're unreliable for anything interactive). Two workarounds actually hold up for a whole tourney:

1. Easiest — use an HDMI input instead of the Roku input. Plug a laptop straight into a spare HDMI port on the TV (or into the Roku TV itself, if it has extra inputs), then use the TV remote to switch inputs away from the Roku channel to the laptop's HDMI port. See Plain HDMI laptop below for the rest.
2. Screen mirroring, if your Roku supports it: check Settings → System → Screen mirroring on the Roku and turn it on. From an Android phone or a Windows laptop with Miracast support, choose “Cast” / “Connect to a wireless display” and pick the Roku. iPhones can't Miracast to a Roku — use option 1 instead (or AirPlay, if you've also got an Apple TV in the mix).

The most reliable option on this whole page, and the one to fall back to if anything above is being fussy. House Style pages are plain HTML/CSS/JS — no plugins, no special software, any modern browser on any laptop works.

1. Get an HDMI cable (or the right adapter — USB-C, DisplayPort, whatever your laptop needs) long enough to reach from the laptop to the TV.
2. Plug one end into the laptop, the other into an open HDMI input on the TV.
3. On the TV remote, press Input / Source and select that HDMI port.
4. On the laptop, open any browser and load the Big Board's TV-mode link.
5. Press F11 (Windows/Linux) or the green full-screen button (Mac) to hide the browser's own chrome.
6. Plug the laptop into power and turn off its screen lock / sleep timer — see Keep the screen awake below.

Many smart TVs ship a built-in browser under the Apps menu (Samsung calls theirs “Internet,” LG's webOS has its own browser, and so on).

1. Open the TV's Apps menu and look for “Internet” or “Web Browser.”
2. Type in the Big Board's TV-mode link with the on-screen keyboard — a Bluetooth keyboard pairs with most smart TVs and is much faster if you have one handy.
3. Go full screen if the built-in browser offers the option.

Heads up: built-in smart-TV browsers are often a few years behind and underpowered. If the board looks choppy, laggy, or won't load at all, don't fight it — fall back to a laptop over HDMI (above) or casting from a phone/laptop (the older-Chromecast steps above) instead.

Tourney Jester's Big Board tries to keep the display from sleeping on its own once TV mode (?tv=1) is on, using a browser feature called Wake Lock. Two things to know up front, honestly:

What TV mode's screen-care does do regardless of Wake Lock: a slow, subtle pixel-shift plus a faint grain drift across the whole board, so a static clock or logo doesn't scorch into an OLED/plasma panel over a long night. That helps with burn-in. It does not stop the screen from dimming or sleeping.

• Board looks stretched or cropped: the TV's picture mode may be zooming/overscanning the image — check the picture-size setting (often called “Screen Fit” or “Just Scan”) and set it to fit exactly.
• Nothing loads: double-check the TV/laptop and the host computer are on the same wifi network, and that the whole link — including the tourney ID at the end — got typed or pasted in correctly.
• TV mode isn't rotating panels: confirm ?tv=1 is on the end of the link. Without it, the Big Board shows one fixed view instead of cycling through Clock, Leaders, Payouts, and Sponsor.
• Screen went dark mid-tourney: see Keep the screen awake above — this is almost always the TV/device's own sleep setting, not the Big Board itself.