I find myself that more often than not, I am always re-calibrating our players each time we get a new screen. That is, the result of what is being displayed on one screen will be different when the exact same player is plugged into another screen of a different manufacturer.

The results vary quite largely and this is an issue that still bothers me every time. Although having said that, I have not tried many digital signage players, so it could be an isolated issue. But I won’t be surprised if it isn’t.

Video signals going into a screen can vary in all sorts of resolution sizes, and each screen is required to convert (or scale) that signal into something it can display (I will talk more about native resolution in my next post).

One of the most bizarre cases that I have come across is a 1366×768 resolution size from a player was being scaled to 1600×1200 on a Samsung LCD. So what resolution do you design your templates at?

Is this a common issue?
If it is, what are people doing to address it?
If not, is your digital signage a customised or generic solution?

Tweet This Post

Category: Digital Signage Techie

Just the other day one of my tooth fillings suddenly broke and being annoyed at having a hole in my tooth I immediately visited the local dentist. I was quite surprised that quite a number of Dentists are not using digital signage in their theaters or offices – let me explain how digital signage can be used in this industry.

The majority of us will at least once a year visit the dentist, so you all should know what I’m referring to when I use the term “the Dentist chair” – yes that comfortable chair that has a little basin on the side, an extendable arm with a light, and is able to arch all the way back so that the person sitting on it ends up staring at the ceiling (see the top image). If you’re thinking in the right frame of mind you may have just encountered a “light bulb” moment – yes… that’s the spot for digital signage. We talked about location, location, location in one of our previous posts and I believe that’s the perfect location for digital signage.

How long do we generally sit on the Dentist chair, 10 minutes? 30 minutes? Well, my visit lasted 45 minutes starting at a blank ceiling and I must honestly say it was very boring.   If there was a digital signage solution installed it can be used for quite a number of purposes and these are:

1.      Depending on the age group, the dentist can offer to show a movie, music, a kid’s show to entertain the patient. Rather than having a screaming child, showing one of their favourite shows will help them to calm down making the experience for both the dentist and the patient more comfortable.

2.      You may be able to potentially connect headphones to the digital signage solution and let the patient listen to calm music or the audio coming from the video. This is better than listening to all the drilling and crunching noises

3.      Educational information – use it to display educational information/videos on teeth maintenance and oral care

4.      For those who are intrigued at watching the dentist working inside your mouth, why not have a small camera attached to the drill bit thingy and show the video capture on the screen

5.      Advertising – basically you can make some passive income from displaying advertisements. Colgate, OralB and other toothbrush/paste manufacturers would definitely jump on board if there was a network of screens

6.      Motivational quotes – I recently watched a movie and in one scene the dentist had two posters stuck on the ceiling. If I remember correctly the quotes where:

Hang in there baby!!!

“Only a life lived for others is worth living.” – quoted from Albert Einstein

Wouldn’t it be great if the dentist a had digital signage solution to display a number of animated motivational quotes rather than a static poster.

So there you go, that’s how we would have used digital signage in this location. I do hope that the next time I visit the dentist I would be able to sit on that chair and maybe watch a movie or see something interesting or educational.

How have you seen digital signage implemented at the dentist?

Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.

Tweet This Post

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info

Congratulations to Minicom, the winners of the Digital Signage Case Study 2008 competition! To view the winning entry visit the digital signage portal forum.

We received over 20 submissions from all over the world ranging from small private businesses to large scale corporations to manufacturers so a big thanks to all of the businesses who submitted their valuable case studies.

There was an interesting mix of digital signage solutions and the parties involved in delivering them. What we found most common amongst smaller businesses is that they operate with numerous partnerships and work together to provide the most cost effective digital signage solution for their customers. We did also notice that most of the businesses who submitted a case study ranged from various industries such as Information Technology, multimedia, video, sound and were not purely focusing in the Digital Signage industry.

Most of the submissions were confidential and bound by privacy agreements, so we have decided not to discuss any of the submitted companies and their clients. Although you might have missed out in winning this competition don’t feel disheartened because this year we will be running more competitions so make sure you regularly check this blog.

Once again, congratulations to Minicom and thanks to all that participated.

Tweet This Post

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Case Study

Just recently, I was involved in a discussion with a couple of friends about whether one of them should install network cabling throughout his new home.  We started brainstorming reasons why he should do it:

1. You’re able to connect to your Local Area Network with faster and more reliable speeds than wireless

2. It will be more secure than wireless

3. Cheaper to install the cabling before the walls go up

4. You’re able to use the network cabling to extend video and sound

Now, whilst we were talking about point 4, we ended up having a heated debate whether you degrade video quality when extending a DIGITAL video signal. One my friends raised a good question which was ”If you send 0 & 1′s down the ethernet cable, you would expect those 0 & 1′s to come out the other end. So why would you loose video quality if it’s digital?” – that was a really good question and I was quite reluctant to answer because I didn’t have an answer.

So for those techies out there, how would you have responded to this question?

Feel free to respond to this question by adding a comment.

Tweet This Post

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Techie

A video captured by a youtube user in Tenjin Station (Fukuoka – Japan) of a digital signage screen.

For more Digital Signage videos visit the Digital Signage Portal.

Tweet This Post

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