Let’s keep this simple, the only reason why you should install digital signage for your business is because everyone else is doing it. Yes, that’s my blog post for today. Short and simple.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Before we first started our company advertise me – we didn’t have a clue what the industry was called and the different terminologies that was used to describe this booming industry. Back then, the idea of having advertisements  or content such as menus, images, videos, weather feeds, and text displayed on digital screens was still at its infancy. Commercial plasma screens was becoming more popular and with the introduction of LCD screens, prices of plasmas was becoming more affordable. If you look at the below image of google trends for the term digital signage, you’ll notice that this term became more popular (from google’s search perspective) in 2007.  I tried trending the term digital out of home and dooh but google responsed with “do not have enough search volume to show graphs.”

digital signage google trends

One of the terminologies that we were unfamiliar with was  DOOH – to date we still don’t use this term that often since it has been replaced by Digital Signage. Now to me, the two terms DOOH and Digital Signage can be used interchaneably and I don’t care if there is a difference. One might say that DOOH (since it’s not at home) is a screen network in a public area and that digital signage can be located in a corporate building to display internal communications. To me, both are the same but Digital Signage sounds shorter and easier to say so we’ll stick with this.

If you have a different opinion let us know.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Written by Guest Blogger: Bryan Cochand

Communication is crucial to any type of business, but choosing the right way to communicate can be challenging. digital signage — a term for publicly displaying important information and announcements on a large plasma, LED, or LCD screen — is a cutting-edge method for businesses or organizations to get their message out to their consumers in an economical and flexible way. Catching up to all the advantages of this method can be an easy and very lucrative improvement. So if you are looking for new methods to increase the exposure of your company or organization, it may be worthwhile to check out the benefits of using digital signage.

continue reading »

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Guest Posts

The Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Newcastle has implemented a digital signage solution  to help communicate information (course timetables, date/time and important notices) to students. The 50″ Screen is installed on a professional and sturdy stand that is located near the front entrance hall of the building. One of the main reasons why the screen is positioned in portrait mode is due to space – it was envisaged students would accidentally bump the screen if it is located in landscape. However, we supplied the University with a versatile stand that allows the client to easily rotate the screen in  either landscape or portrait.

Here’s a few photos of the installation:

View our portfolio here.

About The University Of Newcastle

Sector leader in providing opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds.

Over 40,000 students including onshore, offshore and distance education.

Expanded into the Newcastle city centre on a campus accommodating business, law and creative arts students. Planning underway to establish education, humanities and social sciences disciplines in the city.

Home to the best engineering and health faculties in the country relative to size.

Even stronger health and medical research capabilities through the new state of the art Hunter Medical Research Institute building.

Increased reach across the region and overseas through expanded online program delivery.

Established infrastructure and support systems that provide one of the best student experiences in the country.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Case Study

Just for laughs, here is a picture of what you can do to cool down a FANLESS digital signage embedded player – you add an external FAN:

On a serious note, we did notice that temperature had an impact on CPU performance on a FANLESS embedded player so although there are some advantages of using a fanless system you may want to check whether CPU performance is more important for your requirements.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Blog Products

If your business provides an end to end digital signage solution, have you thought about which type of network switching infrastructure you should use for your digital signage solution? Basically, in the networking realm there are two main types of switches, one is managed and the other is unmanaged. What does this mean? Well, for an unmanaged switch you don’t need to administer or make any configuration changes – you power it up and connect your cables and that’s it, it will work. The only downside with this is that you don’t get the extra features like being able to remotely or locally manage the devices and use additional features e.g VLANs, Quality of Service, Security etc.  Many small to medium business would most likely use an unmanaged switch because it does not require additional resources and man hours to complete the setup. In this case, it means that connecting the digital signage players and servers to the network is simple and straight forward.

However, based on our experience working with large corporations they are most likely to have a Cisco or HP managed switches. To be honest working with this infrastructure can become very troublesome in some ways. Especially if the company uses VLAN tagging and manually disables each port. This means the installer needs to co-ordinate and rely on the IT network administrator to make the necessary changes on the networking switches. If it’s not done correctly or in a timely fashion, it could mean that the installer has no way of testing the digital signage players.

In my opinion, unless you need the additional features mentioned before I would personally just use an unmanaged switch – the overall solution becomes cheaper as well. As part of advertise me‘s services, we design and supply all the necessary infrastructure to build an enterprise digital signage solution that includes the networking component.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

It’s interesting to see that the University of Melbourne has a Google Map of where their digital signage screens are located in their campus. In total (based on the information on the map) the University has 43 LCD screens and 1 Projector as part of their digital signage infrastructure. What’s more interesting is that they are using the NDS PADS system (based on a URL I discovered). The University uses this system to promote university events and initiatives to staff and students.

Here’s a map of their digital signage screens:

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

This week we were up to no good and opened up two digital signage players to have a look to see what is inside the unit. Here’s some pictures of what we discovered:

Digital Signage player 1	Digital Signage Player 2

As you can see from the picture, these players have the same components as a computer – basically it is a computer. It has a CPU, Motherboard, PSU (Power Supply Unit), Graphics chip, HHD, Memory, Storage Drive and heat sinks/FANs.

Most of the digital signage players that we have seen have an Intel Central Processor Unit chip. The CPU requirements will depend on type of content and software you intent to use the player for. For example, if you just intent to display images and text an Intel ATOM CPU will suffice but if you need to display High Definition videos with flash and images, then a Dual Core CPU will be required.

Digital Signage Player Intel CPU

In addition, the Graphics chip is also a crucial component when determining what digital signage player is required. In particular, there are different types of Graphics chips and cards that has many useful features e.g multiple video outputs (HDMI, VGA, DVI), extended or clone video (the ability to duplicate or extend the content to multiple screens)

If you intent to display lots of Videos as content, then the bigger the HHD the better. SATA is generally faster than IDE. These days, HD Videos can take up as much as Gigabytes of storage, and given that storage is quite affordable then why not have the large storage space.

Digital Signage Player HHD

RAM (Random Access Memory) is temporary storage that loads much faster than a HHD. Memory is also cheap, so the bigger the memory the better. Obviously, costs is always a deciding factor when purchasing any type of product but before you do decide to make that final purchasing decision, make sure you thoroughly review and test the unit.

Digital Signage Player Memory

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Reviews

The title of this post may lead you to believe that I’ll be writing about a movie but I decided to share with our readers my thoughts on the digital signage screens/hardware in the current market. This is divided between the Beauty and the Beast.

Let me explain. The Beauty are those devices that look very expensive and pleasing to the eye but functionally, the system behind it is useless. It may catch your attention at first but then when you get to know the ins and outs of the device, you’ll just put it to the side and wished you never purchased it. Then you have the Beast, which I classify as devices that look weird, ugly and cheap but is sturdy and the overall system is exactly what you want. So which one are you currently using at the moment?

In the years that I’ve been in the digital signage industry, I’ve seen so many Beauties and Beasts. We constantly receive emails from overseas businesses showcasing their products and to be honest there’s never been one that just stood out. Maybe it could be time for us to start developing our own system.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

I thought I’d bring this up again since I just saw a video of a digital signage presentation that I believe breached several legal aspects. I want our readers to understand this clearly before they take the next step further.

The first legal area is about copyright. Yes, it’s something we all know about but the Internet provides us with so much as information, images and videos that we sometimes forget how easily the content can be easily re-used. So for those creating content, don’t be tempted to just use content that you find on the Internet. There are many companies out there that is able to provide stock images, videos, templates etc. Most importantly, in the video I noticed that there was an option to add an RSS news feed from CNN news. Even thought the video was a demonstration of a digital signage system, I believe there was a breach in the RSS terms and conditions. The CNN website clearly mentions that the use of the RSS is for non-commercial purposes. We previously talked about breacking RSS copyright laws in the post titled: Are you breaching RSS copyright laws? By the way, in that post we mentioned that we were getting 100 RSS feeds per day(statistics from early 2009 and as of today, we receive over 1000 feeds per day).

The second legal area is about overlaying RSS text or advertisements or any other type of content over live TV feeds. We also talked about this in one of our previous posts titled Embedding live video content in digital signage. Is this a breach of copyright in Australia? For example, if you were showing a live feed of a soccer match and you overlayed an RSS feed at the bottom of the actual feed then you’re breaching some of the broadcasters terms and conditions. Besides all the legal jargon that you will find on the broadcasters websites, I believe the main reasons why commercial businesses are not allowed to do this is for the following reasons:

1. It costs big money to broadcast video content and they make the majority of their money by displaying advertisements during the ad breaks. By you displaying other content such as ads then the broadcasters are not making money from you and they obviously want to avoid this.

2. The broadcasters do not want to give the viewers the impression and confusion that the other content on the live TV feed is actually displayed from them. They don’t want the affiliation simply because they are unable to control what is displayed on the screen. Just image you’re displaying live TV of a news channel and all of a sudden you display an overlay RSS feed of the CNN news. Now, that will be confusing.

I simply want to make our readers, system integrators or digital signage users aware of some of these legal issues because I don’t want you to be in a legal battle – I’d rather you spend the time rolling out digital signage solutions than sitting in a court case. I also thought that our readers needed to be better educated on how to best use the features in a digital signage system and  not breach any laws.

Has these laws changed? If not, then think twice before you use some of the advanced features in a digital signage system and don’t blame the solution provider or manufacturer for giving you the functionality to do this!

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Does anyone know or have seen a small digital signage player that is able to support HD (dual core) videos and can fit between the screen and the wall?

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Blog Products

Here’s an example of why it is important to invest in a good screen and I’ll give two examples I saw at Darling Harbour in Sydney Australia. The first example is an LCD screen in Sydney Wildlife World that was relocated from the inside of the reception area to the front. I think the company realised that the location of the screen is important and that visitors walking past did not notice the screens when it was located at the back of the reception area. It is now located at the front closer to were most of the traffic is. Besides one set of the screens being too low (I think this is an OH&S issue – I could almost touch the bottom of the screen with my head) the quality of the screen was pretty bad – have a look at the below picture. I could hardly see the content on the screen even when standing right in front of the screen. I think it’s time for a replacement – please call us if you’re reading this and want it replaced.

The second example is from Sydney Aquarium, which is just around the corner from the Sydney Wildlife. They recently installed multiple digital signage screens at the front of their reception area. From far away, you can clearly see the content of the screen. The colours on the screen is bright compared to the previous example. It’s eye catching and that’s what most digital signage installers need to think about i.e how can I make my screens get noticed. In total they had 5 screens, 4 in landscape and 1 in portrait. My suggestion would be to use a digital menu board at their food counter.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Klips

I stumbled across an RFP that was released on the 15th March 2011 by bidUSA and here’s the link http://www.bidsusa.net/Default.CFM?Page=400&BSID=63937&PC=70DB213F . The closing date is the 29th March 2011 and it’s for the North Carolina region. Apparently from the title the RFP is for the supply of digital signage 46 LCD display screens. In order to obtain more information you will need to register and login. There is currently a special offer “Sign up today to get full access to bidsUSA through May 31, 2011. There is no cost, obligation or credit card required.” so for those of you who are interest, apply for an account and start bidding…. and good luck.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Just recently, the NSW Bus transport department launched an SMS service for it commuters to receive up-to-the-minute information about when the next Sydney Buses service will arrive at their stop. All you have to do is simply SMS your bus stop number to 0488 TXT BUS (0488 898 287) for up-to-the-minute timetable information about when the next Sydney Buses service will arrive at your stop. The stop number can be found on the bus sign. Now I catch public transport (both bus and trains) and when I was waiting at the bus stop I was thinking to myself why don’t they convert your ordinary bus signs with a digital signage screen and display the location of the bus on a map. That way commuters exactly know where the bus is and how long before it will arrive. At the same time, the screen can be used to provide advertising and other useful information such as scheduled outages. If you have a smartphone then an application can be developed to provide this service to the general public. One that can be faced with having such an implementation is that buses can be target by terrorist or stalkers.

The screen can also be interactive so that commuters waiting at the bus stop can interact with the screen. Here’s a good example:

Yahoo! Bus Stop Derby from Obscura Digital on Vimeo.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Last year we noticed a number of companies launching their audience measurements tools as part of their digital signage solution. The solution normally consists of a digital screen, server, digital signage player and a webcam. By using the webcam, the software tool detects and counts the number of people who are looking at the screen. For some solutions, it can even go beyond just tracking this number and determine what gender and age the person that looked at the screen was.
You may be asking yourself, “Do I really need this solution?”. If you’re a marketing or advertising company then yes, this information is critical. Using raw data and number to present to your advertisers will make a compelling reason why they should advertise on your screens.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog News