With only a few days to go, the much anticipated digital signage Expo 2008 (DSE) will be held in the Las Vegas Convention Centre, 3150 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, NV 89109 on the 27th and 28th of February 2008. We have received a number of invites to attend this event but unfortunately we have to give it a miss.

For those will be attending this event, let us know what interesting things you found. You can discuss this on our digital signage forum thread.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Events

Our jaws dropped (literally) when we first received an email about linutop. I think your’s will too.

Basically, linutop is a mini (very mini) PC which has been designed to reduce maintenance costs. It runs on a linux operating system and there are currently two models on the market. Linutop 1 runs the operating system from a 1G external USB memory stick and the linutop 2 has an internal 1GB Flash memory.

Based on the company’s website, these unit have been designed for digital signage use. Our hands are itching to get one of these units to play with and can’t wait until we get one.

http://www.linutop.com/digital-signage.html

Category: Digital Signage Blog Products

This is a question we get asked quite frequently, so we thought we’d share our knowledge and post an answer on our blog.

“How do we display the same content on multiple screens?”

Assuming only one digital signage player is being used, you can either use a Video Extender or a Video Splitter to display the same video content on multiple screens.

A Video Extender is a device which uses the networking infrastructure (CAT5 cabling) to extend a video signal. At the local end, where the digital signage player is located a video transmitter device converts the source of the video signal to CAT5. At the remote ends, where the screens are located a video receiver device converts the CAT5 signal back to video. Depending on the device type and model, the video transmitter may have 1 to 16 ports which means that 16 remote screens may receive the same content. With a distance of 300 metres (1000 feet) a video quality of 2048 x 1536 can be achieved. Now the video transmitters can be cascaded (3 in total) to achieve a distance of 900 metres.

For shorter distances (<65 metres) , a Video Splitter can be used to split the source signal into multiple outputs. The video splitter does not use CAT5 cabling but instead uses the various types of Video cables (VGA, DVI, HDMI, etc) to transmit the signal from the digital signage player to the screens. This device is generally cheaper than using the video extenders.

Visit our online shop portal website for more product information.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info

Unlike the US, China, Europe and other countries, Australia has always been slow with adapting to new technologies. This has been evident with the digital signage industry. If you travel through George St in Sydney (one of the busiest street in the largest capital city in Australia) there are no large digital signage screen located anywhere and we find this very hard to believe – not even large billboards have been installed. I guess one of the advantages of being behind with technology is the fact that we can benefit and learn from other countries experiences and implement them here.

So putting that aside, we though we’d talk about who owns the largest digital signage networks in Australia that we’ve seen or encountered which are displaying advertisements or promotions for other businesses. They are mentioned in no particular order:

Eye Corp

Eye Corp definitely has the largest digital signage presence in the major shopping centres in Australia and many of us might have seen these in Westfields Shopping centres. We have seen two types of digital signage products installed in Westfields. There is a dual-screen setup, whereby two screens are positioned next to each other in landscape orientation. The other is a large screen housed in a stand which is positioned in a portrait orientation. Both are located in high traffic areas so they are hard to miss.

Outpost TV

We first encountered the Outpost TV screens at Bankstown Centro two years ago. They now have a presence at all Centro shopping centres, and various plazas/shopping centres.

Newsagencies

We’ve also seen a network of screens located in Newsagencies, but we don’t know who owns or operate these.

There are probably other companies out there worth mentioning but we haven’t come across any others except for the above. If you do know of any others let us know by discussing this on our forum here.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info