The falling price of large HD TV's in the past few years has seen a rise in digital signage in churches. This is great since it gives the church another platform to get information out, because as well all know you can't have your pastor announce everything. The trouble we tend to run into is getting the signal from source to device. Usually these digital signs are being put in after the building is built so getting a cable to them may be problematic. So the solution is to just do it over the air, but that's really limiting on both distance and number of devices.
PeerAir intends to solve this dilemma with their new Pico Broadcaster --- little device has got some serious possibilities in any digital signage system. The Pico broadcaster broadcasts HD content to an unlimited number of DTV's that have a ATSC tuner and an over the air antenna within a 350ft radius. So this is great in mobile, church-in-a-box application . For example, our church has multi-sites in two high schools, so being able to set up digital signage without running cables every week would be a serious win. It's also great if you have a large common area in your building where you'd like to offer multiple TV's, but doesn't have conduit or cable path.
Right now, according to the Peerless website, the Pico broadcaster “accepts content form a computer or media player with IP transport stream output.” So it has some limits on the input side of things but it comes with streaming media server software so it is a turnkey purchase if you have a computer lying around. The software transcodes whatever you have to an MPEG 2 broadcast format.
On the downside, it is an FCC-compliant broadcast device, meaning you need a license to use it. The initial purchase comes with the first year of FCC licensing subscription, which I am guessing you have to pay to renew every year. So there would be a cumulative cost to continuing use, which doesn't excite me, especially since I am not sure what the licensing costs are. One of the other downsides is this device broadcasts into any open “white space” channel in the 500-700 MHz frequency, right where all the wireless microphones operate. I would think most churches are going to have a limited amount of space in that frequency range, and the last thing you want is potential bleed into your mics.
In conclusion, I think the product has some definite benefits, and would be a good addition to a digital signage system. The $2,250 price tag is steep, but if you had a dozen TV's that you could get signal to wirelessly, the cost might outweigh the hassle of getting cable to them. I would like to see a video input rather then a media encoder, but again if you are weighing convenience against cost, convenience might win out here.
Related Articles:
Creating Content for Digital Signage
