Photo by Jim Kumorek
Up here in New England where I live, we've got a lot of 250-year-old churches with big brass bells inside tall white steeples. Admittedly, some bells are now triggered electronically, but many churches still have pull ropes coming down through a hole in the ceiling. It's a legacy from the days before telephones and televisions when the ringing bells literally called villagers to worship. Many churches, too, especially those in the centers of towns, still have wayside pulpits, regularly bedecked with unglamorous letter tiles that spell out a line of scripture or a thought-provoking philosophical quotation.
Charming and quaint, sure, but that's New England. And the bells and the wayside pulpits are ultimately just old-fashioned ways of helping spread the word and that's something that has gone on for millennia. Of course, today there are a lot more dynamic ways to reach parishioners and church visitors with information, including drawing on increasingly practicable digital signage technology.
Admittedly, digital signage may conjure images of new flat panel monitors at airports showing flight information, or perhaps the increasingly fancy content shown around sports arenas, theater complexes, and shopping malls. And, indeed, those installations are the poster children for digital signage technology. Yet, digital signage is increasingly becoming a viable option in more straightforward places, such as corporate lobbies, educational campus, and houses of worship.
Many houses of worship today already use large panel monitors or projection systems during live worship services, often displaying scriptural passages as they are being read or the text of songs being sung. While similar in many ways to digital signage, those uses are distinct from typical digital signage in that they are part of live production, advanced manually by a person using a production or presentation switcher.
Digital signage, on the other hand, is generally automated. For example, a retail location may have continuous, automatic displays shown through a series of videos and text information to highlight sales items throughout the day. The "program" can even be pre-set to change around lunchtime to promote nearby cafes and restaurants.
At a house of worship, digital signage content might run prior to the live service, similar to the ads before the feature film at a movie theater, albeit promoting piety rather than popcorn. Or, a digital signage panel in a church vestibule or fellowship hall might intermix lines of scripture with announcements for worship service times, bake sales, and choir rehearsals.
While larger airport or arena installations are indeed complex, digital signage is ultimately nothing more than a generic term for displaying dynamically changing information, whether it's on hundreds of monitors or just one or two. Digital signage infrastructures, even large ones, really amount to just a few basic puzzle pieces: a monitor or monitors, a local player or players connected to the monitor(s), and the content.
Servers can control large numbers of local players and can upload content across a network. In addition to basic content schedule, digital signage software can be used for monitoring, traffic management, and statistical reporting, all of which add potential levels of complexity. But those are ultimately just degrees of the same basic equation.
Monitors, Displays
Nothing needs to be particularly special about digital signage monitors, whether you have 1, 10, or 100. They can be large flat panels, LCD or plasma, projectors, or even an old analog CRT. However, the emergence of digital signage as a unique communications medium is clearly a direct result of the increasing affordability and availability of large, flat panel monitors. Their slim form factor makes placement much easier than old big-belly CRT monitors; that includes hanging them on walls or standing them in the corner of a room.
Several companies offer panels specifically geared toward digital signage, with integrated player functionality built in. In these cases, the monitors have Ethernet ports and built-in processors for transferring information over a network and playing it without a separate local player attached. Still, the basic puzzle pieces-a monitor, a player, and content-remain the same.
The size and type of monitor(s) depend, of course, on placement and content, and there is a lot of information available on panel types. However, there are a few basic rules of thumb. LCD panels weigh a lot less than plasmas and that's a distinct advantage for hanging. LCDs are also the only choice for smaller monitors in smaller spaces. Plasmas, generally speaking, still retain a quality and color advantage with straight motion video content, while LCDs do very well with text and graphics.
Digital Signage Hardware & Software
A digital signage "player" can be as basic as a DVD player or as powerful as a networked computer receiving play-out instructions from a server, although many digital signage infrastructures use something in between. Several companies manufacture dedicated digital signage, "black box" hardware devices that offer targeted functionality without the general-purpose operating system of a full, personal computer. An embedded OS can minimize complexity and reduce the possibility of bugs, viruses, and hacks, as well as unwanted extraneous software installations.
One of the most basic examples of a freestanding digital signage device is Chyron's ChyTV. ChyTV is a simple text and graphics overlay device that accepts a live video input-for example, a live TV station or DVD movie-and overlays text and graphics around and on top of the video. Chyron's accompanying software leverages PowerPoint to create specific text messages, but then allows for re-positioning them around the screen, as well as support for text scrolls and crawls. A modest scheduler allows you to build "playlists," or programs that play the messages in a specific order. However, since the video is just a live feed, the text elements cannot be synced to the video.
Other player solutions take roughly the opposite approach, playing only video files. Products like Adtec Digital's Edje and Soloist product lines, Canopus' MediaEdge, and Electrosonic's FrEND are, in a real sense, simplified computers that have internal hard drives and processors for storing and playing back specific format video files such as, MPEG, Flash, and Windows Media, as well as JPEG still images. Each vendor supplies software (for installation on a separate computer) for creating schedules and playlists. However, in these cases any textual and graphical elements must be edited into the video clips themselves.
Yet another category includes products like Focus Enhancements' FireFly and Mantis, Magic Box's Aavelin, and Tightrope Media Systems' Carousel line. These types of products add yet another level of functionality by combining the video clip playback with the graphic and text overlay functionality of the ChyTV. The software that comes with these devices allows for dividing the on-screen viewing area into different regions into which you can schedule different types of content. More advanced software allows for mixing different content types, moving regions around the screen within a playlist and even polling the Internet for XML or RSS ticket feeds.
Once an installation gets into that level of sophistication, however, it will usually use local computers as players. A computer, of course, isn't limited to playing a set list of file types, but can rather play just about anything, including displaying business documents. More advanced digital signage solutions tend to use computers as the local players, solutions such as: Inscriber's InfoCaster; Scala's InfoChannel; Omnivex Display, Control, and DataPipe; and 3M Digital Signage Software. These are products that tend to drive tens and hundreds of monitors at a time.
With the exception of the local DVD, just about all digital signage hardware devices have an Ethernet port for uploading content and playlists. That data transfer can be done manually or automatically depending on the system, but after that, the play-out of signage content is typically automated. With the exception of XML and RSS ticket feeds, most digital signage content is stored and played locally rather than live over a network.
On the other hand, Standvision digital signage service is an example of one signage solution that is almost completely streamed over the Internet. Standvision is an easy to use, web-based application that allows you to build signage content from existing templates, create schedules and playlists, and then have that play to your local monitor via a simple Flash player running on a local computer. The content all resides on Standvision's servers and that makes is extremely easy to get up and running.
Content
Digital signage content can include images, videos, text, graphics, and even audio, played one after another or mixed together. The key in all cases is providing information in as flashy a manner as might be necessary to capture attention. In a shopping mall, that might demand more flying graphics, fast-motion video, and in-your-face text. In a corporate lobby, it is likely to be more staid: like text messages sharing the screen with a video news channel or perhaps just a series of slides.
A very basic example of digital signage content could be nothing more than a computer attached to an LCD panel in a church lobby simply auto-advancing through a series of PowerPoint slides. It's basic stuff, but it is digital signage that effectively puts information where parishioners can see it.
Such basic text-based content is straightforward enough to create and most digital signage software has basic text tools. However, few have anything more than the most rudimentary image creation or video editing tools, if that. Most have layout and scheduling capabilities, but you're expected to supply the content to be laid out. That can often make the creation of dynamic content one of the most complex parts of the whole equation.
Where grabbing eyes is critical, most digital signage content is created by design professionals. It is possible to re-purpose existing elements designed for print publication or a website, assuming they exist in digital form. And leveraging existing video content, or a live video feed, in the case of a product like ChyTV, can be an effective way to draw attention. Still, it's the production of content, and the need to frequently update that content that most often gets overlooked in initial planning of digital signage.
For houses of worship, a lot of potential digital signage content can be text-based and therefore, easy to get. Still, the power of digital signage is that it can mix different content types to blend information with eye-catching style and planning, for that should be part of the process. It's all part of spreading the Word, just with a 21st-century flair.
Quick Links
COMPANY: 3M Digital Signage Software
PRODUCT: Digital Signage Software
PHONE: (888) 460-8060
URL: www.3mdigitalsignage.com
COMPANY: Adtec
PRODUCTS: Edje, Soloist media playback systems
PHONE: (615) 256-6619
URL: www.adtecinc.com
COMPANY: Canopus
PRODUCT: MediaEdge media player
PHONE: (408) 954-4500
URL: www.canopus.com
COMPANY: Chyron
PRODUCT: ChyTV graphics/text overlay system
PHONE: (631) 845-2000
URL: www.chyron.com
COMPANY: Electrosonic
PRODUCT: FrEND media player
PHONE: (952) 931-7500
URL: www.electrosonic.com
COMPANY: Focus Enhancements
PRODUCT: FireFly, Mantis digital signage servers
PHONE: (800) 338-3348
URL: www.focusinfo.com
COMPANY: Inscriber
PRODUCT: InfoCaster digital signage software
PHONE: (800) 363-3400
URL: www.infocaster.tv
COMPANY: Magic Box
PRODUCT: Aavelin digital signage players
PHONE: (541) 752-5654
URL: www.magicboxinc.com
COMPANY: Omnivex
PRODUCT: Display digital signage software
PHONE: (800) 745-8223
URL: www.omnivex.com
COMPANY: Scala
PRODUCT: InfoChannel digital signage software
PHONE: (610) 363-3350
URL: www.scala.com
COMPANY NAME: Standvision
PRODUCT: Digital signage service
URL: www.standvision.com
COMPANY NAME: Tightrope Media Systems
PRODUCT: Carousel digital signage server
PHONE: (866) 866-4118
URL: www.trms.com
