We're taking a first look in this article at Media Sign Pro's digital signage software. This product is a pretty spiffy, low-budget solution for a church that wants the higher-end look of a true digital signage package without the high price tag.
Media Sign Pro is designed to run on a Mac and, in particular, a Mac Mini to keep hardware expenses down. As with most digital signage packages, you can create a template with multiple “zones,” each designed to present a particular type of information. You can have a date and time zone to show—you guessed it—the date and time; an image zone that will show one static image (great for the church's logo); an RSS ticker zone that will show the latest news from the church in a TV news-styled crawler; an RSS Bulletin zone that will display longer news items, one at a time; a slideshow zone that will show a sequence of images; a text zone for a simple static text message; a video zone to play a list of videos; and, currently in beta testing, a web zone to display a web page.
The software has an edit mode for adding and configuring your zones and content; a preview mode that shows you what your layout will look like; and a play mode that runs the signage full-screen.
For a basic system, you buy the software for $499 and a Mac to run it. Place the display where you want the signage to be shown (presumably with the mouse, keyboard and processor in a secure space), lay out the signage zones and content, and hit play. Theoretically, you could run the video and audio output of the Mac into a video distribution or CCTV system to get building or campus-wide distribution.
Using the software is incredibly simple. So simple, I never actually looked at the documentation. You start a new project, add a background—which can be a color, image or video—and start adding zones. As you add a zone, you use the inspector window to set the attributes of that zone, such as what media to display in the zone, text, border size, background colors, etc. Then click the preview button to see what it will look like, and click the edit button to resume working on your layout. For zones that take playlists like the slideshow zone and video zone, you can schedule when each entry on the playlist should run, or just have them loop one after another.
When you're satisfied with the layout, press the play button and away it goes.
Need different layouts at different days or times? Create all the layouts you need, and there's a scheduler that'll change to the correct layout according to the schedule you set.
Want to be able to easily update the signage with late-breaking news? The RSS ticker and bulletin zones can get their information from a website URL. Add an easy-to-edit RSS file on your network, and the signage can take its information for those zones from this file that can be updated by anyone with the proper permissions.
In addition to the content features, Media Sign Pro can be configured to turn the signage system on and off, as well as start Media Sign Pro automatically when the system is turned on—enabling hands-off operation until you need to update the content.
This is a fabulous solution for churches that want to communicate more effectively through digital signage. If you already have a facility management system and want your digital signage solution to integrate with that, Media Sign Pro doesn't have options for that. The only minor complaint I have is that I found the resize handles for the zones don't always do what you want—sometimes the cursor changes into a shape that indicates you can resize vertically, but it will actually only resize horizontally. Using the handles on the middle of the sides helped with this. And, in my opinion, it would be nice if it wasn't a Mac-only application.
I highly recommend that churches interested in a cost-effective digital signage solution download a free 14-day trial and check it out.
