Porter Digital Signage: 2015

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Another article from yours truly to end out the year...
Five Top Trends in Digital Signage
From our house to yours, we wish you a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!

The Cloud, Affordability, & Other Key Digital Signage Trends

By Jeff Porter On December 23, 2015

Digital signage has gone from luxury to necessity in the commercial AV space. It seems that everyone wants to go “digital” instead of static print for signage applications. From Corporate Communications to Education, Government, Retail, Hospitality, and Entertainment Venues, deploying digital signage is a growing part of your business. But how to you keep ahead of the curve in this fast paced industry? Having been involved with digital signage for more than 20 years, please allow me to gaze into my crystal ball for the top five trends that I see going forward over the next few years.

1. Displays will become even more affordable. That's one thing you can count on in the hardware business...costs always go down! This will be a HUGE driver to the Pro AV integrators business. I can remember the first plasma screens costing $15,000 each. Now you can get an even larger commercial screen in the $1,000-range. More affordable screens means that your clients can deploy more screens in more places, and the ROI to justify those screens is almost not worth talking about.

2. All displays will become smart-er IP addressable screens. You’re seeing this already in smart screens from Samsung and LG (and others). MagicInfo from Samsung and SuperSign from LG allow you to “just have a screen” and connect it to the network without the need of an outboard media player or PC. Both Samsung and LG have software solutions supporting these new smart screens, and even some third party software companies like Scala and SignageLive support these built in players as well. Again, lowering the total solution cost and making it easier to deploy will be a boon to the Pro AV integrators business. The only trick is to make the built-in players more capable over time, or as Mark Twain said, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," when it comes to out outboard media players. Sophisticated applications will still require an outboard media player.

3. Software in the cloud, players always connected (no more sneakernet). A shocking number of digital signage screens in retail are not connected to a network today, and just get updated via USB stick from time to time. Really? In 2015?? Unfortunately, yes. That's has to change. The Internet of Things (IoT) is undeniable and unstoppable.

4. Dynamic data everywhere drives content strategy. Just playing a simple video loop won't cut it anymore. Content needs to by timely and relevant, and therefore dynamic, which in turn will be more engaging and successful. As a Pro AV solution provider, don’t just stop at hanging a screen. Talk to your client about their content strategy upfront and engage with them at a higher level. This will help you tailor the technology solution to exceed your clients’ expectations (and get more business)!!

5. More retailers adopt digital signage as a "default" versus print. To quote another famous person, John Wanamaker, "Half of the money I spend on marketing is wasted. I just don't know which half!" With 50 percent of print campaigns being either bungled or not deployed in-store, folks will realize that digital will guarantee 100 percent compliance (or close to that given human error). I don't think print will ever go away completely for permanent signage, but signage that ends up in the trash dumpster each week or month will absolutely go away.

Author Jeff Porter is a member of the Digital Signage Expo Advisory Board and will be attending DSE 2016 March 15-18 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. For more information on any of the educational programs offered at DSE 2016 or to learn more about digital signage go to www.dse2016.com. Jeff Porter is one of the industry’s leading experts in digital signage and is the founder of Porter Digital Signage Consulting. From business planning, to sales and marketing and technology choices, Porter has been helping his clients get all the moving parts of digital signage in alignment for success. Prior to heading his own consulting business, Mr. Porter was employed by Scala, Commodore, Bell Labs and Eastman Kodak. Mr. Porter holds a BSEE from Purdue University and a MS from the University of Illinois. He can be contacted at jeff@porterdigitalsignage.com or by phone 610-202-7676. For additional articles of interest on digital signage, check out http://porterdigitalsignage.com/Blog.html

- See more at: http://www.avnetwork.com/av-technology/news/the-cloud-affordability-&-other-key-digital-signage-trends/96551#sthash.dSASJec4.dpuf

Friday, November 13, 2015

Another fine article by yours truly just came out in this year's Digital Signage Resource Directory! Enjoy! Here's the text...

Digital Signage and the College Campus
By Jeff Porter, Porter Digital Signage Consulting

The College Campus has been a long favorite venue to AV and IT digital signage integrators for many years, but it seems that the adoption rate of digital signage at universities saw a dramatic increase in interest after the tragic shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA in April of 2007. Digital signage went from a “nice to have” to a “must have” for campus wide emergency notifications. Of course, having lower cost and easier to use hardware and software systems to support a school network has also helped make the deployment more affordable and easier to manage. Let’s take a look at some of the uses of digital signage on the college campus today. We’ll also take a look at the hardware and software systems, dive into a cast study and stare into the crystal ball of the future.

Campus wide emergency notifications became the driving use case, but the other 99.44% of the time, the network can be used to advise the students and faculty of events that are happening on campus. Early in the year, the screens can tell new students about activities and clubs or other items of interest to get new students oriented to campus. Perhaps there’s a special guest lecture happening in a particular school auditorium, or a concert happening next month at the performing arts center with new ticket availability. Notices on the screens can tell students how to find out more information about job placement, available internships, ride sharing programs, or notices from the health center to get flu shots. And who can forget the campus bookstore? Retail is a natural for digital signage, especially at a high tech campus. The list goes on and on.

At the football stadium or basketball arena, digital signage can be used to promote tickets for upcoming games, provide wayfinding for visitors, digital menu boards at the concessions stands and even connect with visiting alumni who might be returning for Homecoming with a schedule of events. And for live events, digital signage systems are often used to control the jumbotrons for the “big game”. ANC is one of the leading companies in this space. (http://learfieldsports.com/anc-sports-enterprises-llc/)

In each school of the university, there are usually special events and announcements that have traditionally be put on bulletin boards, but now can be put on the digital signs in those specific schools. It may even contain a “Did you know?” for the school or perhaps “Meet the new Faculty”. Having a digital signage network on campus can easily be used for wayfinding, which can be a huge benefit to prospective students and parents to make sure they get to the right room in the right building at the right time for their campus tour.

In the dormitories, a digital signage network can be used to communicate social events happening and even what’s on the menu in the cafeteria today. And in the cafeteria, digital signage can be used by the food service team for digital menu boards.

But if there is a campus wide emergency, every digital sign, no matter where they are, or what they are used for, can be used to communicate to everyone in a very efficient and effective manner, essential information to ensure everyone’s safety.

Where do I start?

When designing a digital signage network for a university campus, it is critical to think about “who is going to manage the content”. Answering that question will help you pick your software platform first. For most people, that means picking a software platform that is super easy to use with little to no end user training required. Having a web based GUI to manage the content is almost a requirement, so you don’t have to “install” any software on your user’s systems. Making sure that every stake holder in each school or organization can contribute content easily to the network will mean that the content on the screen will be relevant and up to date. There is nothing worse than out of date content on a digital signage network to convince people that it’s just not worth the effort and expenses to run (let alone expand) the network. Not everyone contributing content will be a graphic artist, so perhaps having a selection of pre-designed templates will be important. And it is also important to allow different users to have different roles and responsibilities to manage different screens. Some software vendors allow you to host the Content Management server yourself, versus having it “in the cloud”. If you’ve got your IT department involved, then setting up a server is no problem. But if not, a vendor hosted cloud based offering can let you focus on content, and not the technical bits and pieces. Of course, that’s mostly on the software side. What about the hardware?

Many of the top screen manufacturer’s today, such as Samsung and LG, are building in digital signage players into their commercial screens. I should probably point out here that using consumer screens from your local Best Buy or Walmart might not be the best investment. Those “TV’s” are not meant for 7x24 operation and will potentially fail early if used in that manner. Spending a little more money now to make sure you have a commercial grade screens designed for 7x24 operation will pay off in the long run, with a side benefit of having the “player” built right in (and not a separate box).

More traditional monitors without built in players can also work nicely however and may give you a wider choice of software platforms. Outboard digital signage players have gotten a lot smaller and less expensive these days. Consider the family of NUCs from Intel, about the size of a paperback book. They are low cost economical Windows based PCs that most software companies support. I might suggest getting a more industrially built NUC from the folks at Seneca Data (http://www.senecadata.com) such as their HDn product, which includes a built in power supply (instead of a separate AC adaptor) plus an RS232 connection to remotely turn the screen on and off. If you do choose a Windows based PC, be sure to ask for Windows Embedded OS instead of a stock desktop Windows OS. Windows Embedded has been specifically designed for robust and remotely managed operation, since no one wants to see error messages or click OK on a digital signage screen…ever!

Android devices are becoming more powerful and more popular as well as digital signage players. Coming in at about half the price of a NUC, these second generation quad core Android players can do a lot. One of my favorites is from IAdea since they support a wide variety of software platforms. (http://www.iadea.com) Of course, the fine folks at Intel are not taking this lying down. Their latest “Intel Compute stick” is only slightly larger than a Chromecast dongle. Just plug this fully featured Windows compatible device into an available HDMI port, connect up to the Wi-Fi, and away you go! http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel-compute-stick.html

Case Study: The University of Illinois

Thomas Kunka, Senior Applications Specialist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is responsible for one of the country’s largest and most sophisticated digital signage networks on a university campus. With 22 different organizational units across campus, one of the major challenges Kunka had early on was to create a system that would work for everyone. His background and experience in higher education IT, AV systems and Web Design made him the perfect choice at UofI to understand and advocate the diverse signage needs and then architect system that can a single system that can scale and adapt to meet the needs of the largest and smallest of networks. Currently the smallest is three signs in the Graduate College. The largest (and if taken by itself larger than many campus-wide networks) consists of over 100 screens (and at least 2 video walls) in the College of Engineering. Within the College of Engineering network, 69 of those located in the state of the art Electrical and Computer Engineering Building). Total, the University of Illinois has a network of over 300 digital signs on the Urbana-Champaign campus alone and there are more in the pipeline.

Illinois has long been in the forefront of technology innovations and digital signage would not be here today if it were not for the inventions and contributions by the faculty and staff at the University of Illinois. Nobel prize winning alumnus John Bardeen co-invented the first semiconductor in 1947. A single transistor started a whole new generation of modern electronic devices. The ILLIAC was the first computer owned by an academic institution in 1952. Jack Kirby of Texas Instruments fame invented the first integrated circuit in 1958. The first plasma screen was invented at the University of Illinois (monochrome orange by the way!) in 1964 by Don Bitzer, Gene Slottow and Robert Willson. The first LED was developed by Nick Holonyak, Jr. at Illinois in 1962. And fast forwarding through many other inventions , Marc Andreessen pioneered the first widely deployed web browser (Mosaic) at Illinois in 1993. Whew! That’s quite a legacy.

One year ago this month, the University of Illinois dedicated a new state of the art Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building on campus with digital signage having a prominent position in the new building. With 37 interactive touch screen room signs (with custom aluminum enclosures built by the department themselves) and another 30 other large screen monitors throughout the building, the new ECE building is digital signage done right. “The campus gets it,” says Kunka, “It isn’t about the technology, it’s about communication and innovation.” From wayfinding, to room signage, to menu boards or kiosks, platform can do it all.

Of course, none of this comes without a price. You still have to buy and install the hardware, pay for the software licenses, host the server, provide user support, and manage new deployments. Illinois uses a cost recovery model to share costs, making it less expensive to operate than if each school would run their own network. “The notion of digital signage as an IT service is predicated on lowering costs, lowering barriers, adding value and looking strategically at the bigger picture. The better we do these things, the better will be able to support the mission of the institution - now and in the future.”

Where can I find out more?

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. Many university digital signage administrators share information and best practices with a listserv that they run.

Check it out here: http://listserv.educause.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=digitalsignage

The Digital Signage Federation supports “end user networking circles” on their website, with higher education, being one of the special interest groups. Check it out here: http://digitalsignagefederation.org/End-User-Networking-Circles

Many digital signage software companies have published case studies on digital signage in education. Here are just a few to check out:

Scala: http://scala.com/discover/education/

CastNET: http://castnet.com/markets/education

Four Winds Interactive: http://www.fourwindsinteractive.com/industries/colleges-universities/

Tightrope Media Systems: http://trms.com/newsroom?category%5B%5D=case_study_education&search=

Visix: http://www.visix.com/university-college-digital-signage.html

Navori: https://www.navori.com/digital-signage-solutions/industries/education

Onsign.TV: https://onsign.tv/en/case-school-education/

Capital Networks: http://www.capitalnetworks.com/clients/case-study/audience-for-education

Conclusion

So what’s next? Most of the “owners” of the digital signage networks on college campuses are people in the IT department. And many times, the IT guys are not graphic artists nor are they experts in content production. Content production on the campus is generally left to each school to “figure out on their own”. Having been in the business for over 20 years, I can still unequivocally say “Content is King”. Without good content, your digital signage network will fail. And with the growing number of screens in different operational units on campus, the need for well designed content for digital signage is and will continue to be ever increasing. So I see an opportunity for a new content services department in the university that specializes in content production and content management. I do realize that IT folks and Creative types don’t normally “hang out” together, but I’m pretty sure digital signage can bridge that culture gap to produce some really nice results and I for one can’t wait to see the results.

About the Author

Jeff Porter is one of the industry’s leading experts in digital signage and is the founder of Porter Digital Signage Consulting. From business planning, to sales and marketing and technology choices, Porter has been helping his clients get all the moving parts of digital signage in alignment for success. Prior to heading his own consulting business, Mr. Porter was employed by Scala, Commodore, Bell Labs and Eastman Kodak. Mr. Porter holds a BSEE from Purdue University and a MS from the University of Illinois. He can be contacted at jeff@porterdigitalsignage.com or by phone 610-202-7676. For additional articles of interest on digital signage, check out http://porterdigitalsignage.com/Blog.html

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Another Cover Story by yours truly for this month's Digital Signage Magazine

Digital Signage Content Management Software – New feature roundup

By Jeff Porter, Porter Digital Signage Consulting

Every June marks the annual pilgrimage of “AV Guys and Gals” to InfoComm, this year being held in Orlando on June 13-19 and digital signage is always top of mind to those in attendance. Sometimes, however, it’s hard to keep track of all of the software updates from the various companies, so let’s take a look at what’s new in digital signage content management software from some of the leading companies right now.

Large format displays are big business at InfoComm, and each of the major display manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and NEC all offer software options to get you started.

Samsung has a product called MagicInfo (http://www.samsung.com/us/business/easy-and-instant-content-management-with-magicinfo ). There are actually THREE versions of MagicInfo. MagicInfo Lite is free and offers an easy way for small networks to update content via USB sticks to the built in player in Samsung’s commercial screens. This software is simple to use and requires no network or server setup (since it’s not a networked product). Simply save your content to a USB stick and “sneakernet” it to each screen. The second version called MagicInfo Premium “S” takes advantage of the Samsung Smart Signage platform build into Samsung commercial screens for easy update over a network. For a more sophisticated deployment needing data integration and mobile support, MagicInfo Premium “i” is offered. Both MagicInfo Premium versions are not free, and will require assistance from an AV/IT person to set up your network. This is not a cloud based system however, and it will require some training to get up to speed on the Premium version.

LG offers SuperSign TV for their bundled software. (http://www.lg.com/us/commercial/lg-supersign-tv ) SuperSign Lite is a free version of software that you can download and install on your PC, and either save to USB stick (like MagicInfo Lite) or connect to up to 50 screens on the same network (even with the free version!). A paid version of SuperSign is available for networks of screens over 50. One of the unique features of SuperSign is the capability to have live TV as picture in a picture with many models of SuperSign TVs. These commercial grade screens offer built in media players that have the ability to show live TV from either Component or HDMI inputs (from a cable or satellite set top box) or the build in digital TV Tuner (assuming the QAM or 8VSB off the air signal is in the clear). The LG SuperSign system is one of the lowest cost solutions for small businesses. The SuperSign TV displays themselves are very competitively priced. And the SuperSign software comes with 74 free professionally designed templates to get you going quickly. Compared with buying separate media players and software, LG wins the total cost of ownership (TCO) battle hands down. This is not a cloud based system however, so makes sure all of your players on the same local in-house network (and not scattered across the Internet).

NEC is probably best known for their Vukunet software platform (http://www.vukunet.com) targeted at digital out of home advertising networks. But you might want to check out something new at NEC called Creative Works (http://www.creative-works.com ). We all know that developing compelling content for digital signage can be a challenge, and NEC’s newest division is there to help. With content solutions spanning the very simple to the most complex, if you’re an AV company looking for help in this area, give Creative Works a look.

In the more traditional digital signage software space, you have companies such as Scala, Broadsign, Omnivex, Coolsign (owned by Haivision), but since we’re talking InfoComm, and many of the attendees of this show are AV integrators, I thought I would include an update on Tightrope Media Systems, Visix, X2O Media and Capital Networks.

Scala (http://www.scala.com) is one of the most popular software platforms for digital signage with their vast network of AV resellers and integrators to deliver digital signage solutions to their customers. Clive Fort, Scala’s Director of Product Management noted that Scala Enterprise Release 11 is just around the corner. This version is code named “Indianapolis”… how appropriate for this time of year! The core engine of Scala’s Enterprise Content Manager was completely retooled to make it exponentially faster and more responsive, especially with larger networks. Live real-time as you type search results are just one example of the new responsiveness of the user interface. Release 11 has been formally certified to work with Windows Server 2012 R2 and IE11. A new Android Player now supports the latest Android hardware from IAdea (http://www.iadea.com) with their MBR-1100 “media bar” player. This release also provides formal support for the Samsung Smart Signage platform, which seems to be taking off more in Europe than in the USA according to Fort. For Scala’s Designer product, corner styles and alpha masks on movies make content look “less rectangular”. They’ve also added a nice feature to graphically format tables of dynamic data more easily.

Broadsign (http://www.broadsign.com) has a new small form factor PC based player called the “Xpress Pro”. This is even smaller than their Android Xpress player (about half the size!), but has the full feature set and capabilities of their PC player with twice the RAM and CPU.

Omnivex (http://www.omnivex.com) has launched Moxie Cloud, a hosted version of their famous Moxie software. This offers customers a quick and easy way to get up to speed with Omnivex without having to setup your own server.

As many of you know, Coolsign was acquired by Haivision a while ago, and Haivision continue to improve the Coolsign product by integrating Haivision’s streaming video products with digital signage. (http://www.haivision.com/solutions/digital-signage) Bill Taylor, Haivision’s Director of Global Digital Signage explains that it is easy to stream a live or on demand video of the CEO to all of your digital signage screens across the enterprise. In addition, many companies need to communicate the digital signage to remote home office employees. Haivision’s integration with Coolsign can allow a desktop view of the corporate communications to those remote employees. So whether your focus is corporate communications, education or government, Haivision has a multicast capable, network friendly, streaming or on-demand solution for digital signage.

X2O Media (http://www.x2omedia.com) was recently acquired by Barco, well known for their amazing LED and video wall display products. X2O Media has always been known for their stunning real-time graphical effects with drag and drop ease of use, but they’re also upping the ante for corporate communications with applications for the Connected Workplace, Connected Workspace, Connected Desktop, and Connected Workforce.

The Connected Workplace application on the X2O platform allows users to communicate in real time with X2O channels displayed throughout the enterprise on digital signage, video walls, mobile devices, and more. When combined with iBeacons, user presence can be instantly detected, allowing enterprises to interact easily with employees, partners, and on-premises guests.

Designed for multiple users, the Connected Workspace application allows groups to collaborate in a shared virtual workspace either online or in huddle spaces — enabling document and desktop sharing, video conversations, polling participation, and more. Powered by the X2O platform, the solution strengthens teamwork by letting users easily engage within a common environment.

Using the Connected Desktop application on the X2O platform, users can view and interact with X2O channels directly from their desktop — improving visual communication within today’s digital enterprise. Specific use cases include consulting company news channels, integrating business information dashboards into workflows, and receiving live alerts straight from workstations.

The Connected Workforce application lets organizations harness the power of the X2O platform to share real-time content with remote workers across campuses and around the globe. That means a company can maintain up-to-date communication throughout its workforce regardless of location.

Capital Networks’ (http://www.capitalnetworks.com) Jim Vair sees a growing trend towards hybrid media player networks. With support for traditional Windows based media players, as well as Android Players and Samsung’s Smart Signage Platform, one size does not have to fit all. Take the new 10” Smart Signage Screen from Samsung. With integrated all-in-one screen and player, this device makes a perfect solution for meeting room signage. Using a predefined template from Capital Networks, these screens can be easily integrated with either Microsoft Exchange or Google Calendar for room scheduling. Need a big board in the lobby to direct folks to the correct conference room? No problem. Both large and small format screens can easily be added to a Capital Networks system. Mass notification and Emergency Messaging is a big requirement for municipal, government, education and hospital networks, and this can be easily done with this platform. A new web portal has been recently introduced to allow resellers to offer a limited web login for their customers to manage content on a network for both Android and Samsung players.

TightRope Media Systems (http://www.trms.com) recently introduced Carousel 6.5 with major enhancements to its media rendering engine (up to 60 times faster!) and allows network operators to seamlessly scale networks without adversely affecting network performance. The faster rendering performance specifically benefits the creation and distribution of weather bulletins, RSS feeds, and other time-sensitive content that requires real-time display. To achieve this, Carousel 6.5 amplifies its server performance to more effectively scale across multiple cores. Tightrope’s Carousel enterprise servers are easily scaled by adding further processing cores as the number of player end points escalates.

Tightrope also recently introduced Carousel Detective, a network diagnostic tool incorporated within the Carousel server core. This allows network operators and Tightrope service engineers the ability to access Carousel Detective over the Internet from any connected device for troubleshooting and general performance monitoring, further enhancing the enterprise-level performance of Carousel 6.5.

Visix (http://www.visix.com) besides providing traditional digital signage solutions and interactive way finding applications, also offers a broad range of small form factor signs for meeting rooms. These signs can be full color interactive LCD screens using Power-Over-Ethernet (no AC adaptor needed) but Visix also offers an e-Paper meeting room sign which is not only super affordable, but also wirelessly connected and battery operated! Content for these screens is managed from the Visix’s Axis TV software platform and has support for a wide variety of calendaring applications including Microsoft Exchange, Google Calendar, EMS by Dean Evans, Delphi by NewMarket, R25/25Live by CollegeNET, and for the DIY IT person, text file import support.

AxisTV version 9.0 was recently released and features a new AxisTV Design application – a desktop designer for templates, messages and layouts. This lets you place design elements exactly where you want them on the screen making it easy to build attention getting content with drag-and-drop widgets, guides and rulers with snap, flexible workspace sizing, familiar Office-like user interface, and ability to design offline and sync later.

That’s a quick round up of what’s new in the digital signage software space for InfoComm. Stop by their booths at the show for demo to find out more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Digital Signage for the SMB Market...Feb 2015 issue DS Magazine

Another great article by yours truly on what works for small and medium business for digital signage...in this month's Digital Signage Magazine (DSE 2015 issue)

Digital Signage for the SMB Market

By Jeff Porter (Porter Digital Signage Consulting)

If you’re a regular reader of this magazine, every month you’ll see some amazing case studies of the best of the best in digital signage. Maybe it’s the 6500 Burger King Restaurants that SICOM and IST deployed in just 18 weeks, or the lovely interactive end caps that Stratecache deployed at Lowe’s, or maybe the award winning in-store experience at Sprint Stores by Scala and Two West. And who can forget the Marriott GoBoard® that FourWinds Interactive did? They’re big. They’re high end. And they cost a lot of money.

At the other end of the spectrum however, you’ve got the Small and Medium Business (SMB) owner that wants to deploy digital signage and compete with the big boys, but he’s got neither the budget nor the technical staff to pull off an enterprise scale digital signage network. And typical system integrators and AV resellers won’t even return a call for a low budget project. But make no mistake…there are a LOT of small businesses that could benefit from digital signage, but they need a different approach from the traditional enterprise platforms.

According to the US Small Business Administration stats, there are 23 million small businesses in the US that account for 54% of all US Sales. And while corporate America has been "downsizing", the rate of small business "start-ups" has grown 49% since 1982, and the rate for small business failures has declined. So the potential market here for digital signage is huge. And if you think about it, the “base of the pyramid” is wide and deep, compared to the few large high deployments that you read about.

The SMB market, however, has a few unique requirements that narrow the choices pretty quickly. Let’s review those requirements and take an in-depth look at some of the options for the SMB market.

1 1. It needs to be ‘self service digital signage’. The small business owner needs to be able to run this system himself.
2.       It needs to be hosted in the cloud or run a local LAN. Needing to setup your own servers is a show stopper for the SMB.
3.       It needs appliance based players. PCs are too hard to configure. It’s gotta be simple.
4.       It needs low upfront costs, and low monthly fees.

So which digital signage platforms meet these criterion? Scala Enterprise? No. FourWinds? No. Stratecache? No. Omnivex? No. The list goes on. No offense to these platforms. They are the stalwarts of the industry for enterprise, but not for small business owners. So who’s left?

Broadsign, SignChannel by Scala, SignageLive, Media Signage, Samsung’s MagicInfo, LG’s SuperSign and a relative new comer Onsign.tv. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Broadsign (www.broadsign.com ) is probably the most famous company on this list. Their system is fully hosted, so there are no servers to set up and their basic monthly fee is just $25/month per player ($45/m for a fully managed service). They have a turnkey $149 Android player to make installation super simple. On the downside, their system is fairly sophisticated, so the learning curve is a bit steep. They have a ton of videos online to guide you through, but this is not for the meek of heart. You’re going to need to do a deep dive to manage this network yourself. So that $45/month fully managed service might sound like a better deal. Also, the Broadsign Administrator GUI is not a web based GUI. You’ll need to install that software on your PC. It works over the Internet, but if you’re expecting to do everything from a web browser, this is not your platform.

SignChannel by Scala (www.signchannel.com) was born to address the SMB market from the beginning. It’s super simple to use. Practically no training is required. SignChannel is very easy to set up. It works with a variety of low cost preconfigured appliance players from folks like IAdea (www.iadea.com ). And has a low monthly fee of $30/month per player, but that includes live news, weather, sports and stock feeds. There are hundreds of professionally designed templates that are easy to use and configure from any web browser. It’s completely hosted on Amazon’s cloud, so there’s nothing to worry about server wise. The only downside is that it’s only a full screen solution. It you need multiple zones, this is not your platform. (But I claim that all of those CNN-like and Bloomberg-like tickers are completely over rated for most folks.) [Full disclosure here: When I worked for Scala years ago, the SignChannel service was my baby, so I’m somewhat biased, but it does work well for full screen digital signage.]

SignageLive (www.signagelive.com ) contrary to SignChannel, SignageLive does have multi-zone support. It’s fully hosted, works with a variety of low cost appliance players (such as IAdea and In-Store Screen) as well as PCs (but I don’t recommend a PC player for the SMB guy…you want something plug and play, not plug and pray). The web based GUI is a little trickier to figure out, but not as complex to learn as Broadsign. So it’s still something that a small business owner could pick up in a few days time. They have a tiered service offering starting at just $15/month for a basic service full screen only (like SignChannel) or $30/month for multizone layouts with additional bandwidth and storage. SignageLive have embraced the Samsung Smart Signage platform in a big way. Nearly all COMMERCIAL displays from Samsung have a built-in digital signage player. It’s not as powerful as your typical PC player these days, but for many applications, it’s just fine. This simplifies the clutter immensely. Just plug the Samsung screen into a network jack and power it up. No separate media player is required. You do need to point your Samsung screen at the SignageLive servers, so there’s a bit of juggling to do with the IR remote of the screen to set that up. But once that’s done, you’ll get a code on the screen. Login into your SignageLive account, and voila, your player is online.

Media Signage (www.digitalsignage.com ) is another low cost option. Clearly they have the best web address! They have a free version, but many will likely want to upgrade to their $99/month version. That may sound like a lot, compared to the others, but this is for as many players as you want. Other companies charge per month per player. Media Signage charges a flat $99 per month regardless of the number of players. They do support PC players as well as, but for the small business owner, I’d stay with the Android based players that they sell for $125-$149. The $125 model plugs directly into the HDMI port of a screen (similar to a Google Chromecast “dongle”), but you’ll need to power it somehow via USB AC adaptor or from the monitor (if the TV supports that). The $149 version is a standalone box, similar to the IAdea media players (for SignChannel and SignageLive).

A relative newcomer to digital signage software is Onsign.tv (http://www.onsign.tv ) This cloud based platform for digital signage is incredibly easy to use for the beginner. They have support for both Android and Windows based players. For a small business owner, I’d go with an Android based solution. It’s much easier to setup and configure. Although you can easily download the onsign.tv app from the Google Play store and run that on any Android device, I would suggest getting a media player that was designed with digital signage in mind that allows for full remote management (such as those from IAdea). At just $15/month per player (or $10/month for more than 20 players) this service is one of the lowest cost options with full Internet connectivity and complete management from the web. It does offer multizone capability, and includes many widgets for RSS feeds, clocks and weather. They offer a free 30 day trial for up to 5 players, so it’s worth a serious look.

Many of the hardware vendors have a bundled software solution with their screens or media players. You might think that FREE is about as cheap as you can get, but there are some limitations. Let’s take a look at some of the more popular choices here.

Both Samsung and LG offer screens with BUILT IN players. Plug a network cable directly into the screen (or set up a Wi-Fi connection) and you’re done. No separate media player is required. Both companies are encouraging third party digital signage software companies to support their built in player, but they also offer a free software alternative to get you started.

Samsung has a free software product called MagicInfo. Simply download and install this software to your PC and you can create a USB stick with your content , playlist and schedule, and carry that to your screen, or if your Samsung screen is on your local LAN, control it over the network. This will ONLY work with Samsung screens and only COMMERCIAL Samsung screens (not Samsung’s consumer screens). Your PC and your screen need to be on the same local LAN (eg: in the same building) because it doesn’t work over the public Internet. A typical Samsung commercial screen, might cost northwards of $1000 for a 48” screen. So there is a bit of a premium for these industrialized commercial screens, but the quality and reliability of their screens are second to none these days.

LG’s offering is called SuperSign. Again, like Samsung’s offering, you download and install the free software to your PC and create either a USB stick with your content, playlist and schedule, or if the LG screen in on your local LAN, control it remotely. SuperSign only works with LG screens, and only LG’s Commercial Screens (named “LG SuperSign TV” either 42”, 47” or 55”). The SuperSign TVs have built in TV Tuners, so if you’d like to have live TV in your sports bar with drink specials on the side, you can do that with LG’s offering. They also have a way to lock out the IR remote and front panel buttons to keep folks from turning off the screen.

The bigger problem for small businesses is how do you purchase a COMMERCIAL screen from Samsung or LG, and how much extra is that going to cost over a cheaper consumer screen that you might buy at Best Buy or Sam’s Club. A cheap consumer 40” LED LCD today is about $300 at retail. An LG SuperSignTV display from CDW, Newegg or B&H Photo will run about $500-600 for a 42”, $700-800 for a 47”, or $1100-1200 for a 55” screen. Keep in mind however, that with a consumer grade TV, it wasn’t really designed for 7x24 operation, and you’ll need to purchase an outboard media player that might cost you another $300. So although you may think you are saving money with a consumer screen, it might cost you more in the long run to replace it. So compare the cost of a SuperSignTV at $500 to a cheap consumer LCD screen and separate media player for $600 and you’ll soon realize that the SuperSignTV is actually a pretty good deal. If you are still convinced that cheap consumer LCDs are the way to go, you may wish to consider adding an extended warranty to your purchase, just in case.

BrightSign (http://www.brightsign.biz ) is well known for their stand alone media players. Leveraging technology from their Roku sister company, they have a wide range of products for every budget, including new 4K media players. They too have a free software package you can download and install on your PC called BrightAuthor, which lets you easily create a playlist of media items and transfer that via USB stick to your BrightSign player. For a monthly fee, BrightAuthor can also connect to a cloud based service (BrightSign Network) to transmit your content from BrightAuthor to your BrightSign player over the Internet. BrightAuthor does support multizone layouts and has a variety of options for RSS feeds or live video or even “push button to play” modules. It’s relatively simple to use for the small business owner.

IAdea (http://www.iadea.com ) is also well known for their stand alone media players. They have wide support for their media players from a large number of third party software companies. But they too offer a free, simple to use, software package for your PC to manage content via USB stick or the local LAN called SignApps Express. It does support multiple zones, and is fairly intuitive to use. It does not work over the Internet, so you’ll need to have your PC and your media player on the same LAN (eg: in the same building). IAdea’s latest products have the latest Android OS and feature quad core processors, so handling HD videos and tickers are no problem. With wide support of many third party software companies, IAdea does not lock you in to their proprietary software like Samsung, LG or BrightSign. IAdea also offers a variety of All-in-One “signboards” typically 10” to 22” with built in players. These are great for counter top displays or for places that you just don’t have room for a traditional 40” or larger LCD.

There are a couple of other companies worth mentioning that specialize in smaller All-in-One retail displays -- In Store Screen (http://www.instorescreen.us ) and Outform (http://www.outform.com ) . Both offer very attractive integrated all-in-one android screens with built in players in a variety of shapes and sizes. So if you’re looking for something that’s a lot sexier looking than a typical LCD monitor, check these guys out. You’ll pay a little bit more for the “look”, but because they are Android based, you’ll have a decent number of third party software companies supporting them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Monday, January 12, 2015

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 | avnetwork.com |

The Technology Manager’s guide to SMARTER DIGITAL SIGNAGE By Cindy Davis

Digital signage is nothing new; it has been in use in commercial markets for more than twenty years. What’s notable in 2015 is the increased adoption of the technology. Nobody knows that better than the person who, since 1994, has helped pave the path at the digital signage behemoth Scala. Jeff Porter, former executive vice president of Scala and founder of Porter Digital Signage, said, “We’re a year closer to people accepting digital signage in lots of different places.”

The total cost of ownership of digital signage continues to decrease, making deployment more feasible within various markets. The availability of larger panels with near-zero bezels, higher resolution and lower power consumption, increased bandwidth, more advanced signal processing and distribution, as well as easier to use content management systems, are contributing to the adoption of digital signage. So, what’s next?

“The whole mobile engagement, based on proximity, is going to be huge,” Porter said. He sees companies as “eager to have digital signage be responsive to different conditions, and for the databases to be dynamic and interactive.” Retail and sports venues are among the markets already embracing mobile, Porter explained.

Adspace Digital Mall Network, the largest Nielsen-measured digital place-based video network in the U.S., is banking on it. In November 2014, the company introduced its partnership with Shazam, the mobile app company that pioneered audio recognition technology enabling smartphones to “listen” and identify music, delivering the meta information directly to users. “The marriage of mobile and location-based video just makes sense,” said Dominick Porco, CEO, Adspace Networks Inc. in the announcement. “Now, through our partnership with Shazam, we are able to offer our advertisers a seamless way to retarget their ads and extend their content to consumers’ smartphones.” The alliance extends the reach of both companies: Adspace Networks reaches 58 million unique shoppers each month through video advertising on 2,800 screens nationwide; Shazam has more than 100 million monthly active users.

“To have your mobile device figure out where you are, what you are standing in front of, to really triangulate all of that information and give you information that is relevant, pertinent, and timely,” Porter added. “It’s the holy grail of digital signage: the right information for the right people at the right time.”

With the help of content creators thinking outside the “wow factor” of 4K displays, real applications are emerging that take digital signage to the next level, and we will be seeing more in 2015. Reminiscent to the “lean-in” movement that ushered-in content on the Web, 4K displays and videowalls are providing the pixel density that enables close-up user interaction and engagement. While 1080p is adequate for Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) menu boards seen from a distance, the pixel density needs to be increased in order to read fine-point text and other detailed content.

Jennifer Davis, vice president, Marketing at Planar Systems, cites a 4K installation at The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) that has recently reimagined their retail space. “They put in a 4K display that switches from showing beautiful high-resolution video of what’s playing at the iMax theater down the hall to messaging about the space.”

Understanding the full capability and versatility of a 4K display can add significant value to a display and help deliver ROI. “What they use that resolution for is not only to create the most amazing 4K imagery and video on the [full] screen, but, because of the capabilities of the product, they can actually run four [HD] sources into each in a quadrant,” Davis said. Given that 4K is four-times the resolution of HD, OMSI is maximizing its investment. At times, it is dividing the display into quadrants from up to eight different sources to four HD content areas, each with its own message. Taking any digital signage deployment one step at a time is a good idea, but looking towards future uses protects an investment. When OMSI is ready to engage visitors with interactive content, the displays are enabled to deliver 32 touch points.

In the higher education space, Sean Matthews, president and CEO of Visix said that providers have graduated from delivering just event data and messages on displays, to “interactive wayfinding being a component and integrating social media up on those displays.” As Matthews opined, “It’s not just ‘Content that is King,’ but content that engages people, whether it be responding via social media or SMS, interacting with the display itself, or responding to surveys or polls and delivering that data back to the display.” Even though prices have come down, digital signage is still a significant investment.

About his clients, Matthews observed, “They want to be able to prove that this platform and these technologies are actually doing something.” Indeed, many start the discussion with wanting to know digital signage analytics. “It’s moving beyond that ‘me too’ kind of thing,” he added.

“There are a few guys like Samsung that have embraced the IP-addressable displays and have put the digital signage player in the screen so you don’t have to have a separate player,” said Porter, suggesting that this is a good idea for deployments that aren’t over complicated. Samsung brings integrators, end-users, and software partners into their Executive Briefing Center in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, to gather feedback and future needs. “A common theme has been the need to simplified, but also want their digital signage products dynamic, and Samsung is addressing this by making the display smarter,” said Kevin Schroll, Senior Manager, Smart Signage for Samsung.

The idea that digital signage is a large panel or videowall is so 2014. Samsung sees that people have
digital signage needs across multiple form-factors. As Schroll explained, “We’re going to launch a 10-inch and a 22-inch with all of the same digital signage attributes: the imbedded processor, the software, all of those capabilities that you’d typically see in a large screen will now be available in a small form-factor that a lot of end-customers couldn’t get with a tablet or a desktop monitor.” On the other end of the size spectrum, Alan Robles, associate experience designer for Gensler, said, “I am looking a future where I can take an entire wall and make it a display versus it being a postage stamp on it, that’s where I want to get.”

Robles is also thinking about massive panels. “If I can turn an entire architectural surface into a display, that display can become a view into another room that doesn’t exist,” he said.

Cindy Davis has covered the AV industry since 2000, when she served as the publisher and editor-in-chief of Electronic House magazine. In 2011, she was the founding editor and brand manager of the six TechDecisions Media B2B websites. She specializes in providing content and content marketing for audiences that need information and want to be inspired.

For more information, visit: http://www.porterdigitalsignage.com

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Nice article in Digital Signage Magazine this month on Content Management Software for 2015

I wrote a nice little article for this month's Digital Signage Magazine (December 2014 issue).

Here's the text. Enjoy!

Digital Signage Content Management Software – A look to new features in 2015 and beyond

By Jeff Porter of Porter Digital Signage Consulting (http://www.porterdigitalsignage.com)

New software for digital signage is being developed at a blazingly fast pace these days, fueled by innovations in hardware, display, servers, operating systems and “the Internet of things”. It’s sometimes tough to keep up with everyone and everything, but as 2015 begins we wanted to give you some of the top highlights from some of the major players in the digital signage content management software space to watch for this year.

Scala is readying a new release in February, just in time for ISE and DSE announcements, of their next generation Enterprise Content Manager. Major performance enhancements, simplified menus, a significantly improved search engine and better monitoring are in the offering for this release. That means the web based GUI will be a lot quicker and more responsive, which is always a welcome improvement for productivity. Scala’s Designer software is also getting some new graphical effects like alpha masks which will enable a much more creative control over multizone screen layouts (they don’t have to be just rectangular any more!). Designer will also be able to connect more easily with various data sources and format the data more easily for an attractive dynamic experience.

According to Clive Fort from Scala, there are five pillars of focus for their platform going forward:

1. Data Integration: This is the key to dynamic digital signage. Link that with real-time analysis and you’ve got the most relevant and timely information on your screens at all times.
. Interactive: Engaging the viewer with an interactive experience (with relevant dynamic data) is key taking engagement and user experiences to the next level.
. Scale: Every large network begins with a pilot. And while it’s important to test your content strategy in pilot, it’s equally important to prove out all the technical pieces. Scala’s platform is the same for both large and small networks.
. Devices: There is an explosion of network connected devices these days. Your platform needs to embrace a variety of different devices to engage the user at various touch points.
. Applications: Not everything you need to do in digital signage is going to be turn key, so Scala believes that having a third party SDK and APIs is key to enabling new vertical markets with amazing applications. Scala has a full website devoted to third party developers.

Existing customers on Scala Advantage will get all of these upgrades for free. So it appears that the boys at Scala have been very busy. A new release of their Android player is also expected, supporting some of the newest KitKat based Android players in Q1.

SignageLive has been working closely with the display manufacturers and media player companies to take full advantage of their roadmap. Samsung and LG are both rolling out new “System on a Chip” (SOC) players that are built into the commercial LCD screens. That means every screen can be IP addressable without the need for a separate media player, at least for basic digital signage content needs. This will mark the third generation of embedded players with lower costs and higher performance for Samsung. LG’s newly acquired WebOS platform (from Palm-Pre and HP Slate) is extending their Smart TV platform for digital signage. Of course these standard screens can also be connected to a small “hang on the back” (or “stick”) media player.

Folks like Seneca Data and iBase have wonderful little PC based players that most software platforms can work with. But there is a new generation of Android based players coming out in Q1 2015 from folks like IAdea that is going to raise the bar significantly. Quad core processors mean the performance is dramatically better than last year’s devices, and sometimes even come in a much smaller form factor, which can be much more cost effective than a PC based player. SignageLive is also planning to release a new version of their software in 2015 with much improved monitoring and alerts. They also see 2015 as the tipping point year for transition from Flash to HTML5.

Broadsign is keeping their 2015 plans under wraps, so you’ll need to sign up for their partner conference at DSE to find out the latest and greatest from them. But in 2014, they did release version of Broadsign X 10.4 just in November 2014, so there’s quite a few nice things there that they recently added. Users of their system will know they have two tools: Broadsign Administrator and Broadsign Creator. Creator is for creating simple, quick and easy content for an end user with little to no training, as opposed to the Administrator product, which is more aimed at a network operator with technical skills and training. With 10.4 you can easily view Creator content in Administrator without jumping between systems. 10.4 also includes a newly designed Calendar view for campaign management. And a nice feature added is the ability to clone configurations. Just copy something similar, and make a small tweak, instead of having to start over from scratch. And for Creator, complex schedules are more easily managed from that interface without needing to jump into Administrator. So there are enhancements to both software products to make each users’ experience better.

With Omnivex it’s all about the data. That has been their strength for many years. According to Omnivex’s Jeff Collard, he’s been noticing a shift in the attitudes of the CIO’s in large companies. Today’s modern CIO is embracing technology innovations and bringing those solutions to their internal clients proactively (instead of trying to keep them at bay). And it seems that hosting in the “cloud” is no longer a dirty word for many CIO’s. Companies like Salesforce.com and Amazon (with their Amazon Web Services) have blazed the trail for acceptance within the corporate IT world. And hosting in the cloud is amazingly cost effective these days, versus big iron servers that a company may need to own and maintain. But Collard sees that there is a still a need for digital signage to be a “job” at a company. “When you can get a degree in digital signage, and when that is viewed as a valid career choice (like being a webmaster), you’ll see a faster adoption rate in our industry.” Collard said. He’s also seeing the opportunity for network consolidation in 2015, especially among larger advertising networks absorbing smaller “mom and pop” networks. Collard was fairly optimistic for 2015 overall. He did think that the economy in North America was much more receptive to digital signage solutions these days.

Stratacache’s new focus is to make it easier to plug into other systems. Digital Signage is just one piece of the overall media mix is a company, and it’s important to be able to synchronize campaigns and allow for dynamic input from other system to drive the digital signage content. Russ Young from Stratecache believes that the days of the “simple slide show digital signage” content are fading fast. Clients are expecting data integration with their digital signage. There have been a few deployments with gesture based digital signage, but it seems that touch is still the preferred method of interactivity.

However, Young is bullish on a new beacon technology from SonicPing.net. Stratecache have tested a lot of BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) devices, and the inaudible sonic beacons seem to work the best. As soon as your sonic enabled mobile device gets within a close proximity and a specific dwell time of a beacon, content is triggered your smart phone based on your profile. SonicPing’s platform is easily integrated with digital signage content management systems such as Stratecache’s ActiVia software. You can expect to see a lot more mobile integration with digital signage in 2015.

Young also posed the question, “Why don’t we see more voice recognition systems for interactive digital signage these days?” That’s a very good question. We have Siri on our iPhones, Microsoft Sync in Ford cars, even Garmin GPS have voice recognition these days. Perhaps that’s one more technology from Star Trek that we need to bring to life in digital signage, right after transparent aluminum and the transporter!

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