Idle Images

According to the Polycom administrator manual here are the sizes that should be used for the idle image feature:

Idle image for Polycom phones

Model	Width	Height	Color Depth
IP 301	n/a	n/a	n/a
IP 320/330	102	23	monochrome
IP 430	94	23	monochrome
IP 501	114	51	2-bit grayscale or monocrhome
IP 600/601	209	109	2-bit grayscale or monochrome
IP 550/560/650	209	109	4-bit grayscale or monochrome
IP 4000	150	33	monochrome

The manual also mentions the following:
Logos smaller than described in the table above are acceptable, but larger logos may be truncated or interfere with other areas of the user interface. (ie. You might see the logo in the background popping out the sides of menus when browsing through menus or while on calls)

The SoundPoint IP501/600/601 phones only support four colors black, grey, light gray and white. Any other colors will be approximated.
The SoundPoint IP550/560/650 phones support a 4-bit grayscale, which is a smooth gradient from black (0,0,0) to white (FF,FF,FF).
The SoundStation IP 4000 phone only supports black and white. Any other colors will be rendered as either white or black.

Files should be saved as BMP format: Windows, 4BPP (or 16 color), Uncompressed (No RLE). For consistency you should save all the files as 4BPP/16 color.

You can add an idle image to the phone either 1) globally by modifying the sip.cfg file, or 2) for specific phones by modifying the phone specific configuration file

1) Global Idle Image

• load your existing sip.cfg file into your favorite text editor.
• find the parameter bitmap.IP_X00.YY.name="IdleDefault" . (where X = 5, 6 or 40, YY = image identifier)
• modify the parameter to bitmap.IP_X00.YY="path/to/idle/image/imagename". The name must NOT have the extension (ie .bmp)
• find the parameter IDLE_DISPLAY ind.anim.IP_X00.ZZ.frame.1.bitmap="IdleDefault" (where X = 5, 6 or 40, ZZ = Animation Identifier)
• modify the parameter to IDLE_DISPLAY ind.anim.IP_X00.ZZ.frame.1.bitmap="path/to/idle/image/imagename". The name must NOT have the extension (ie .bmp)
• find the parameter IDLE_DISPLAY_WIDE ind.anim.IP_X00.AA.frame.1.bitmap="IdleDefault" (where X = 5, 6 or 40, AA = Animation Identifier)
• modify the parameter to IDLE_DISPLAY_WIDE ind.anim.IP_X00.AA.frame.1.bitmap="path/to/idle/image/imagename". The name must NOT have the extension (ie .bmp)
• save the modified file and reboot your phones.

NOTE: DO NOT CHANGE the numbers that appear in the original config file in place of YY, ZZ or AA.

2) Phone Specific Idle Image

• load your sip.cfg file into your favorite text editor.
• find the parameter bitmap.IP_X00.YY.name="IdleDefault" . (where X = 5, 6 or 40, YY = image identifier). Take note of the YY value.
• find the parameter IDLE_DISPLAY ind.anim.IP_X00.ZZ.frame.1.bitmap="IdleDefault" (where X = 5, 6 or 40, ZZ = Animation Identifier). Take note of the ZZ value.
• find the parameter IDLE_DISPLAY_WIDE ind.anim.IP_X00.AA.frame.1.bitmap="IdleDefault" (where X = 5, 6 or 40, AA = Animation Identifier). Take note of the AA value.
• load your phone.cfg file.
• add the following entries to your phone.cfg file immediately after the <phone1> tag, substititing the values of YY, ZZ and AA that you noted above.

• save your modified configuration file and reboot the phone.

IMPORTANT: After 1) or 2) you HAVE to do this:

3)
N.B. The line <indicators> above should be replaced by...
  <indicators ind.idleDisplay.enabled="1">
and if you set it in sip.cfg, just change the
  <indicators ind.idleDisplay.enabled="0">
to
  <indicators ind.idleDisplay.enabled="1">
This will enable the idle display.

To animate the display, you will need at least two images.
Check sip.cfg for the highest value of YY for
parameter bitmap.IP_X00.YY.name="IdleDefault" . (where X = 5, 6 or 40, YY = image identifier)
then add this to your file (sip.cfg, or phone.cfg)

replacing {YY+1} and {YY+2} with the next higher numbers above YY
the Animations lines should now read...


You may use as many images as you'd like, but be sure to use consecutive numbers, and not to reuse the same number twice.
Duration is milliseconds. (1/1000 of a second)

Note: Don't set the duration to low, try 3000 first, otherwise the pictures silently fail.

A word of caution! The image sizes above are MANDATORY, unless you get into editing size and position
Too large, and it will reboot a few times and not display.
But you may be able to use 8 bit.
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Bitmap Quotas

If you still can't see the image on the display but the layout changed to a smaller and relocated date and time (leaving a blank space where you'd expect to see your image), you may've hit the memory quota limit that the phone has for bitmaps.

Solution:

• Edit sip.conf.
• Search for:

     (this means your quota for bitmaps is 10KBytes)

• Increase value to a number greater than the bitmaps you plan to load to the phone (my single not animated bitmap was 15K so I increased the number to "20").
• Save sip.conf, reboot the phone, and enjoy!

To clarify, it seems that that bitmap quota is for all user loaded bitmaps, not just each individual one. I.e., if you set it to 20k as above, all of them must come in at under 20k, or the phone will just start dropping the ones that come in over that amount. E.g., I just recently set mine to 35 because I had three 4 bit bitmaps in an animation that came to around 33 or 34k.

Web-based bitmap files

I've found that just as for the sound files, the image files can be hosted on any reachable web server.
example: