Screens, whether they are a plasma, LED, LCD or even a projector – these are one of the most critical components in any digital signage project. At advertise me we always recommend our clients to install a commercial screen rather than a residential screen but that’s going to be a different topic all together. So today,  I decided to take a photo of some of the packaged screens we store and post it on this blog. Below is the image.

Advertise Me is a reseller of many of the large screen companies such as Panasonic, Samsung, NEC, Sony, Phillips, Acer, Asus, Viewsonic, LG and Mitsubishi. So before purchasing your next screen for your upcoming project, make sure you  from us and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed (Australian Companies only).

screens screens screens for digital signage projects

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Category: Digital Signage Blog News

This seems to be a common dilemma amongst a number of LCD/Plasma decisions in a lot of tender projects and client requirements. Do clients really know what they are asking for, and how important is screen resolution for digital signage rollouts?

Let’s clear a few things up first.

Native resolution is the fixed number of pixels on the screen. For example, if your screen has a native resolution of 1280×720 pixels, this means your screen is physically made up of 1280 pixels wide and 720 pixels high.

Maximum resolution is the highest resolution that the screen is capbable to display.

When an incoming signal to the screen does not match the native resolution, that signal must be converted (or scaled) to be displayed correctly on the screen. So lets use the same screen above, it has a native resolution of 1280×720. If an incoming signal is 1920×1080, the screen will scale this resolution down so that it can fit on the physical dimensions of 1280×720. Likewise if an incoming signal is 1024×768, then the screen will up-scale this resolution to fit 1280×720.

This process is possible because the screen has been programmed to recognise different input signals and to convert them as such. More often than not you will have a list of all the supported input signal resolution sizes, and the highest supported resolution is your Maximum resolution.

Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about how important is screen resolution in digital signage?

In all my digital signage years until now, I have not had to focus on optimising the quality of the display in regards to picture sharpness and contrast ratio. The general technology of the Plasma/LCD screen makes up for this. What comes out of the digital signage player is just right for the display quality. The general conversation would be on how to most effectively capture consumers attention with the type of content and how it is designed.

However recently in Australia, digital broadcasting of TV networks have become more prominent and consumers are now well aware of terms like HDTV. This presence of high definition television has entered many homes and now the retail store fronts want to show this off also. Because consumers are already aware of such technology, there is an expectation on store owners to provide this service to them.

The question comes back to client requirements. Do most clients have the proper knowledge to determine what screens they want based on what they know or what they have been told? Is it important to match the right resolution of what is coming from the digital receiver into the digital signage player, and out to the screen?

We’d like to hear your point of view on this topic. There is no right or wrong answer, as each requirements are different, but we would like to hear your thoughts.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Techie, Featured Post

With the increasing focus for businesses to help reduce global warming, what measures are we taking to ensure our digital signage solution is “environmentally friendly”?

As new technology is being developed, most manufacturers are designing digital signage products which will help reduce power consumption.

Generally for a digital signage solution one would need a screen and also a digital signage player (can be a PC, a small form factor embedded PC, or digital signage player).

When implementing a digital signage solution one should consider the following:

- the average power consumption of a plasma screen is 350 watts compared to LCD 213 watts

- the average power consumption of a PC is 78 watts compared to an embedded PC 8 watts (linutop)

If power efficiency is what you’re after, take note of the following:

- use screens, in particular LCD’s that consume less power

- screens uses power even when they’re not turned on!!! The standby power uses several watts. The best thing to do is to turn the device from the power point.

- decrease the LCD’s backlight. Most LCD’s these days have the option to control the intensity of the backlight but by doing so it makes the LCD screen less bright.

- use software tools to automatically shut down your digital signage player and screen rather than leaving it on 24/7

If you have any further ideas on how to futher save power, please let us know or discuss it on our digital signage forum.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog News