Digital Signage Blog » Caption

First digital signage magazine in Australia

DigitalSignageBlog — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:00:54 +0000

We recently received the first digital signage magazine published by an Australia company (alchemedia publishing) and this is really a good sign of the growth of digital signage in Australia.
The great thing about the magazine was the case studies of digital signage implementations of local business in Australia. There is also the traditional advertisements of digital signage companies and manufacturers and this is really good to have as a local directory. We look forward to receiving future magazines and hope to eventually feature in an article.

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Post tags: Advertisements, australia, Australia Company, Business In Australia, Caption, Case Studies, Digital Id, digital signage, Implementations, Local Directory, Magazines, Signage Companies

Digital Signage World Australia 2010

Danny Hsueh — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:17:02 +0000

The first dedicated digital signage expo in Australia spanning just over half a hall at the Sydney Convention Centre. There were the usual players in the game showcasing their latest products and technologies, and as usual it was the manufacturers who stole much of the stage. The free seminars held almost every hour was an added bonus by experts sharing their knowledge and practical experiences.

Some of the showcase included:

Camera tracking technologies with facial, gender, height, and age recognition
3D digital signage
Video walls, LED displays, Super slim panels
Kiosks
and many more

Not a great amount of visitors in my opinion, however speaking with some of the exhibitors they said it was more than they expected. The majority of feedback I have received from them is that the quality of visitors were all either in the buyers market or looking to create business relationships, with a handful just showing interest and wanting to know more about the technology.

Although I did not see many of the current operating businesses exhibiting, I am guessing being the first show, some of us are still scoping out what the response is like.
From the outcome of the show, I expect to see a lot more exhibitors and visitors next year.

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Post tags: 3d Video, Added Bonus, Business Relationships, Camera Australia, Camera World, Caption, Dedicated Digital, digital signage expo, Digital Video, Exhibitors, Free Seminars, Game, Handful, Intel, led, Practical Experiences, Showcase, sony, Sydney Convention Centre, Video Digital, video wall, Video Walls, World Australia

Digital Signage Klips: Panasonic screen at Sydney Airport

DigitalSignageBlog — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:27:44 +0000

This week’s digital signage klip is from a well know location – Sydney Airport. The picture is of a large Panasonic screen located in the International Arrival Department (near the C gates). I don’t have the full details but as you can see there are also two smaller screens showing a map of Australia.

Thanks to Wendy for the photo.

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

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Post tags: C Gates, Caption, digital signage, email, International Arrival, klip, Klips, Map Of Australia, panasonic, Photo, screens, Sydney Airport, Wendy

Digital Signage software: Firefox 3.6

DigitalSignageBlog — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:30:49 +0000

For those of you who didn’t know, there are quite a number of digital signage players in the market that are using Mozilla Firefox on the Linux platform as their default browser to play content. To the viewer, this does not become apparent since the developers cleverly designed the application to run in full screen so when content is played you don’t see the tool and menu bars.

One of the many reasons why most digital signage companies are using Firefox compared to Internet Explorer is due to the fact Firefox is open source and comes with many add-ons. One of these add-ons is the ability to run the application in Kiosk or Digital Signage mode. The other obvious point is that it’s free and comes packaged with many Unix based OSes.

Now, Mozilla has just recently released Firefox version 3.6 which is meant to be quite an improvement in performance and features. According to Firefox loading web pages is much faster and uses less CPU. To be honest I haven’t really made any measurements but I haven’t noticed any differences in performance when using Windows XP. Looking at my task manager it still uses like 198,252K of memory – is this a memory leak. Is this normal?

There’s also this new type of theme called personas, which allow users to change the appearance of Firefox. This feature doesn’t really help with digital signage applications.

Now, one of the features which will definitely help the digital signage community is that open native video can now be displayed in full screen and also supports poster frames. Visit the firefox website for more information.

So now I’m wondering how many digital signage software companies are planning to upgrade or test Firefox 3.6 Are you one of them?

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Post tags: Appearance, Caption, Developers, Digital Signage Software, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Kiosk Mode, Linux, Linux Platform, Loading Web, Measurements, Memory Leak, Menu Bars, Menus, Mozilla, Open Source, Oses, Poll Id, Poster Frames, Signage Companies, Software Companies, Software Update, Task Manager, Tool Bars, unix, Web Pages, Which Allow Users, Windows Xp

Digital Signage Klips: Outdoor Screen

Danny Hsueh — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:00:24 +0000

In the busy city of Adelaide (in South Australia) lies the popular stretch of shops in Rundle Mall. There is no other perfect place for this large piece of real estate to impress than to be suspended high up in full view of passers-by. Perfect for the festive season and Christmas shopping, this large LED screen creates entertainment for all.

This week’s klip comes from Becky, a regular shopper at Rundle Mall.
“There is not one girl in Adelaide who does not know Rundle Mall”.

Do you have any klips you would like to share? Send them to info@digitalsignageblog.com with your name, business name, and a short brief describing the klip.

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Post tags: Business Name, Busy City, Caption, christmas, Christmas Shopping, City Of Adelaide, digital signage, Entertainment, Festive Season, klip, led screen, Real Estate, Rundle Mall, South Australia

Product review: Digital Signage Audio Tripper

DigitalSignageBlog — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:33:29 +0000

Christmas is fast approaching and we decided to review a product before the end of this year. It has taken us a while to complete this review as it involved using a video camera and editing the video but from this experience we can hopefully improve our processes and review more products next year.

Reviewed By: Advertise Me

The Product – Andrew’s Audio Tripper AS-7

The audio tripper is a two way automatic audio switcher. It has two audio inputs; a default input, a sensed input and an audio output.

In its initial state the tripper selects the default input through the output. Whenever an audio signal is fed to the sensed input, the tripper will automatically switch to this input. The LED (green light) indicates that the sensed input has been selected. Once the signal to the sensed input stops, the tripper will switch back to the default input.

There is a delay control that can be used to adjust the amount of time the tripper waits before switching back to the default input. A delay would be preferable in the case of a multi CD player, for instance, to allow for the time taken to switch between discs.

The Setup

For our testing purposes we connected the unit as follows (I thought I’d be different and sketch the diagram by hand):

In this particular setup, we used a mobile phone as a default audio input – we thought we’d be creative and use a portable device that everyone carries around.

For the sensed input, we used the audio output of a digital signage player. The digital signage player was connected to a 19″ LCD screen and played scheduled content in a playlist. The playlist contained three items:

1. Image of product review email – has no sound

2. 15 second advertise me promotional video created by Blue Pony – has sound

3. Image of John Mayer Listening to… – has no sound

The output of the audio tripper is connected to a speaker. So what basically happens is that when the audio tripper doesn’t sense any audio coming from the digital signage player i.e playlist item 1 & 3, it will play audio from the default input i.e. mobile phone. All RCA audio cables were used for these tests.

Our Verdict

We tested several audio input sources – mobile phone (Nokia n95, iphone, blackberry storm), a CD player and also a digital signage player and didn’t find any issues with the switching or the quality of the audio.
We have actually used this unit for one of our clients and we haven’t had an issues.
The only thing to consider is that if the unit looses power, it will not perform the switching but it will still continue to play the default audio input – so at least there will be audio
We would recommend to decrease the delay to the minimum setting (rotate anti-clockwise)
Can be used for many purposes – ie. backup audio for continuous music

Usage

You may ask yourself when would you use this type of setup and to be honest if you had a digital signage player, you could schedule the audio to play directly from the player but there will be certain situations and environments like a retail store, that you may need to give some control to the local store manager to play their own audio CD’s.

The Video

Here’s a quick video demonstrating how the system works.

If you want us to review your product, contact Advertise Me via email: review@advertiseme.com.au

About Advertise Me:

Advertise Me is a privately owned Australian company specialising in all aspects of digital signage solutions.

Our team of highly skilled professionals is able to introduce innovative ways for businesses to communicate with their intended audiences for a variety of purposes including informing, educating, entertaining and selling.

You can expect us to:

offer the most affordable and cost effective solutions tailored to your specific business needs.
provide you with concise and accurate information and will ensure that you understand and are comfortable with our proposals.
strive to make our clients happy and successful.

We have partnered with a number of key reputable organisations and will continue to build further partnerships to deliver the most effective solutions for our customers.

Visit our website at www.advertiseme.com.au for more information.

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: 1918, advertise, Amount Of Time, Aud, Audio Input, Audio Inputs, Audio Signal, Audio Switcher, blackberry, Blue Pony, Caption, Cd Player, christmas, Default Input, Delay Control, digital signage, digital signage player, email, Initial State, Input Output, Input Sources, iphone, John Mayer, lcd screen, Mobile Phone, Multi Cd, nokia, Nokia N95, playlist, Pow, Sketch, Sound 3, Tripper, Video Camera

Weekend Fun: Blackberry App World and v5 officially released in Australia

DigitalSignageBlog — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:58:12 +0000

For those of you with a Blackberry in Australia did you notice the Blackberry App World icon and v5 of the OS? On Saturday morning I restarted by blackberry and whilst browsing the icons on the home menu I noticed an new icon…. it was the App World Icon. To be honest I initially didn’t know what it was but after pressing on this icon, my jaws dropped. I then checked the Blackberry Desktop Manager and noticed v5 was available – this is where i jumped out of my seat and did the “dance of joy”.

I spend the next hour or so installing and browsing through the applications available on the App World and upgrading to v5. I was surprised to see most of the applications were FREE. I ended up installing and testing some of these applications and found some to be very useful. I was however disappointed to the number of applications, in particular the number of games available.

I had no issues with the upgrade process, except that I was almost worried when the last second task “Waiting for device initialisation” almost took 30 minutes. Just make sure you just leave it running and DON’T switch off your computer or the Blackberry otherwise you may brick your phone.

The main improvements I saw with version 5 of the OS are:

1. When the blackberry is loads it has a progress bar at the bottom rather than displaying a rotating clock. It’s also quicker to load

2. Definitely faster in all aspects – opening applications, flicking through contact lists, changing applications

3. The additional of threaded SMS messages

4. The interface appears to look different – in particular blackberry messenger

5. Better reception – for some reason, I no longer get the usual SOS messages

The only bad thing I noticed is that browsing seemed a bit slower but it could be just my reception or it could be that the Blackberry Proxy is being congested. Anyways thank you Blackberry and Vodafone – you’ve made my weekend more fun.

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Post tags: 30 Minutes, Applications, australia, Blackberry Desktop Manager, Brick, Caption, Clock, Contact Lists, Dance Of Joy, Fun World, Games, Home Menu, Improvements, Interface, Jaws, Messenger, New Icon, Progress Bar, Proxy, Running, Saturday Morning, Sms Messages, Sos Messages, vodafone, World Icon

Klips: Share your digital signage snap!

Danny Hsueh — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:00:49 +0000

Here we would like to introduce a new section called Klips. This allows anybody anywhere in the world to share their digital signage moment with the rest of our readers.

If you would like to share your digital signage snap with us and the digital signage community, please send in your klips to info@digitalsignageblog.com with a brief of your snap, including location where it was taken, your name and/or business name.

At the end of each week we will select a few interesting klips and post them here. So keep an eye out, and get snapping!

Note: All image submissions to this blog will enter the agreement that the submitter will be held responsible for their images. DigitalSignageBlog.com will not bear any responsibility to any harm or damages the images may cause.

Taken by Danny from Advertise Me in the wee hours of the morning at Sydney Airport Domestic Terminal T2 on his way to Adelaide.
Spot the number of errors in this digital signage.

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments |
Post tags: blog, Business Name, Caption, Damages, Digital Id, digital signage, domestic terminal, Image Submissions, Images, klip, Photo, Snap, Submitter, Sydney Airport, T2, Wee Hours

Digital Signage at Adelaide Airport

DigitalSignageBlog — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:20:34 +0000

Several weeks ago I was in the Adelaide airport and I was surprised on how different the airport digital signage screens was being used and implemented there. This is what I saw:

If you look at the screen closely, you’ll notice that on the top right hand section there is a banner stating “Advertise Here…”. This is the first time I’ve seen an airport trying to promote advertising space which is great to see.

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Post tags: Adelaide Airport, Caption, Digital Id, Digital Marketing, digital signage, marketing, screens

Advertise Me Interviews Ronni CEO of Minicom Digital Signage

DigitalSignageBlog — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:00:52 +0000

Many of us in the digital signage industry have in one way or another read their blog, heard or even used one of their products – I’m referring to no other than Minicom.

This week we had the opportunity to turn the tables around and interview Ronni, the CEO of the Minicom Digital Signage Division:

advertise me:	Hi ronni, thanks for joining us for this interview – I know you’re a hard man to catch with your busy schedule.
Ronni:	Thank you for having me. Yes, it has been a very busy first half year.
Advertise Me:	I thought we’d start something different today and want to firstly ask you what’s your “elevator pitch” when meeting new or potential clients (our readers)?
Ronni:	Minicom Digital Signage is an established and recognized pioneer in the digital signage market, hence, we believe and are trusted that we know the market, the application and the needs. Our solutions control, extend and distribute multimedia and communication between the players and screens, making sure the message gets across… Our solutions reduce TCO and ease the DS deployments by providing the platform for in-site content distribution based on innovative technology.
Advertise Me:	Please tell us a little about how Minicom Digital Signage started with Digital Signage, and what was the inspiration behind the business?
Ronni:	Minicom Digital Signage has been a leading vendor for control and communication solutions in the computerized classrooms. Roughly ten years ago, we discovered that some of our integrators had been using the educational solutions to extend and distribute video signals in digital signage applications. This was during the days when you typed “digital signage” in Google, Google returned large format plotter printers. This is how we entered this market and swiftly recognized that we stepped into a major development, if not to say even advertising revolution. Since then we have been totally focused on the digital signage application, without looking left or right, resulting in a high degree of expertise. Other vendors come from the Pro-AV field, hence are more generalists and as a result of this they provide less focused solutions, answering the specific digital signage needs.
Advertise Me:	Over the years, Minicom Digital Signage has proven to be a strong provider and leader of Digital Signage products, so what makes Minicom Digital Signage so successful?
Ronni:	Once again: focus. Whoever turns to us, knows that we have accrued a decade of experience. We talk to all participants in the value chain on a daily level and maintain outstanding partnerships with most of the players in any layer of the market. We have recognized that the installers play an important role and consider the network owners as the effective endusers.
Advertise Me:	There is now a trend of increasing Digital Signage solutions using Software as a Service (SaaS). What is your opinion on this?
Ronni:	I believe it is part of the effort of the players in the market to find a suitable, competitive business model while maintaining an ongoing revenue stream. The digital signage market is project based, so for technology providers there is the challenge of captivating customers over a longer period of time. SaaS can be a win-win solution: at the one hand it dramatically reduces the capital expenditures for the network owners, at the other hand it provides the software vendors an ongoing, constant flow of income. I do believe that the model will further evolve and at the end of the day the industry will be more service driven.
Advertise Me:	Quite a number of companies, including Minicom Digital Signage, are now starting to integrate their solutions with environmentally friendly plans. Can you elaborate on how Minicom Digital Signage is playing their part for a greener world?
Ronni:	Our solutions reduce by their nature electricity consumption. With our architecture there is no need for a PC next to each screen. You may backrack all of the players in a single, secured room and dramatically reduce the number of PCs required since several displays can be fed from the same player. Furthermore, with our management platform, we allow all displays to be switched off when the shop closes. Besides, our technology is agnostic to the display, PC and SW vendors, hence, when upgrading a system, it doesn’t need to be swapped out.
Advertise Me:	What has been the most successful and popular Minicom Digital Signage product?
Ronni:	The DS Vision 3000 series has been a breakthrough in the market. Not only it carries full HD (1080p) signals as far as 600m and more, but it offers a built-in management platform, allowing to access and manage the display’s management port.
Advertise Me:	Do you have any advice for people who are planning to start a business in the digital signage industry?
Ronni:	There are lots of experienced and less experienced persons attracted by the positive vibrations coming from our market. Obviously, the lesser educated ones will not only burn themselves, but their customers will also suffer. It happens too often that a customer comes to us, asking us to it right after he had one-two failures before. So the bottom line for newcomers is to really understand the application, from content to measuring. There is no quick money in this market and competition is getting more intense. In any event, partnering with more experienced, established companies will always be an added value and accelerate the entry.
Advertise Me:	What is the Minicom Digital Signage Certified Reseller program and why should businesses partner with Minicom Digital Signage?
Ronni:	As mentioned, we invest a lot of attention and money into our long year old partnerships. Many of them have originated from the partner program. Networking is an important aspect in the market as we need each other in projects. Minicom Digital Signage, being a pioneer in the market, has a lot of legacy value to offer and with the partner program we provide access to these assets.
Advertise Me:	This is our final question. What do you see as the next “BIG THING” in digital signage?
Ronni:	I am not a prophet and we are driven by evolution, rather than revolution. So by nature it is hard to answer this question. However, we do observe an increasing engagement by more important players from the traditional advertising and OOH markets in the digital signage playground. This will ultimately change the rules of the game and lead to major consolidations.
Advertise Me:	Ronni, thanks for taking part in this interview and we hope to speak to you again in the near future.
Ronni:	Thank you very much. It has been my pleasure and honor.

To read more interviews click here: http://www.digitalsignageblog.com/category/digital-signage-interview/

About Minicom

World leader in “last mile” connectivity – Flawless transmission of audio, video and serial signals has enabled Minicom Digital Signage to become the leader in the production of advanced multimedia distribution and extension solutions for the digital signage marketplace. The digital signage industry has come to rely on Minicom‘s CAT5 and optical fiber-based hardware systems to deliver high resolution, high performance multimedia content. Today over 50% of all “last mile” deployments worldwide depend on Minicom technology.

To read more interviews click here: http://www.digitalsignageblog.com/category/digital-signage-interview/

About Advertise Me:

Advertise Me is a privately owned Australian company specialising in all aspects of digital signage solutions.

You can expect us to:

offer the most affordable and cost effective solutions tailored to your specific business needs.
provide you with concise and accurate information and will ensure that you understand and are comfortable with our proposals.
strive to make our clients happy and successful.

We have partnered with a number of key reputable organisations and will continue to build further partnerships to deliver the most effective solutions for our customers.

Visit our website at www.advertiseme.com.au for more information.

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Post tags: Busy Schedule, Caption, Ceo, Communication Solutions, Content Distribution, digital signage, ds vision, Educational Solutions, Elevator Pitch, environmentally friendly, Format Plotter, Google, Google Google, Half Year, Hard Man, Innovative Technology, Inspiration, Integrators, Interviews, Minicom, Signage Industry, Start Something, Video Signals

Using your Iphone as a mobile digital signage player?

DigitalSignageBlog — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:00:57 +0000

This may sound a bit ridiculous but has anyone thought about using your Iphone as a mobile digital signage player? I mean lets think about this, if people can use the Iphone to watch movies and video clips why can’t it be used as an integrated digital signage player. The unit can be easily connected to the Internet and it also has a touch screen so really its perfect for interacting with your intended audience. With the sheer number of Iphone users out there, setting a digital signage network can be easily established.

All we need now is a digital signage Iphone application… and my guess is that someone is already developing one.

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Post tags: apple, Audience, Caption, Digital Id, digital signage network, digital signage player, Guess, Integrated Digital, iphone, Mobile Digital, Poll Id, Sheer Number, touch screen, Video Clips, Watch Movies