Best Media Players and Software for Digital Signage

Another nice article from yours truly on digital signage HERE!  Enjoy!

Pre-DSE 2016 Show Podcast

The audio and video quality of this "google hangout" sort of sucks, but if you can get past that (and I prefer GotoMeeting which has about a million times better quality with the same equipment)...here's a podcast heading into the upcoming Digital Signage Expo Show in Vegas March 15-18.
Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7XyoWvvlE
Jeff

Here's a quick little video snippet of a cool new "Interactive Mirror LCD" at the National Retail Federation show in NYC (in the Samsung booth). This is my handiwork at Coloredge who's client is Calvin Klein. Thanks to the boys at Scala for some "Lift and Learn" techology bits, my buddies at Stylmark for a nice fixture, and the folks at Samsung for giving me a center stage position in their booth! https://vimeo.com/152105455

Yes, another nice article written by yours truly...this one's a keeper! :-) Digital Signage Best Practices Guide December 2015 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/ds_bestpractices_201512/index.php#/30

Digital Signage Best Practices: Future-proofing your Next Digital Signage Rollout on the Software Side

By Jeff Porter, Porter Digital Signage Consulting

Congratulations!  You’ve just rolled out a shiny new digital signage network!  Day One is complete.

 

But what about Day Two? Or Month Two? Or Year Two??  Will the same digital signage software platform do what you need then?  If you did your homework, then the answer is yes.  But just to review, let’s take a look at the decision process of choosing the best digital signage technology platform, so that you’re not having to explain to your boss (or the worse yet the client), that you’ll need to completely scrap the system a year or two later with some other new shiny digital signage system!

With more than 20 years in the digital signage business, I’ve seen a lot of networks come and go.  Allow me to share with you some of the secret sauce of success to make sure your network will serve you well into the future.

Number one…start with a decent understanding of the client’s content strategy and their use case for digital signage.  Please don’t lead with technology.  I know that’s hard for us technical guys, but trust me, choosing the correct platform will become obvious once you understand what the client wants to do.  Here are some basic questions to ask:

1. Can you tell me what content you’d like to have on the screen?
2. How often do you plan to update the content?
3. Are the screens customer facing or employee facing (or both)?
4. How many locations do you have?  Do you need different content in different locations?
5. Are there more than one screen per location?  And do those different locations have different content needs?
6. Will you need interactive capabilities? (eg: Touch screens, push buttons, other)
7. Will you need dynamic data on the screen (eg: price of products, meeting schedules, KPIs)?
8. Do you need news, weather, sports, stocks, or other content feeds?
9. Who is going to manage the content on a day to day basis?  And how many people will need to have access to the system to manage that content (with different roles)?
10. Do you have someone already picked out to provide content for the network? (and do they have experience with designing content for digital signage networks – as opposed to TV, print or web)
11. Have you given any thought to where you’d like to have the screens?  Where do people have the most dwell time? 
12. Are there special audio requirements? (many digital signage systems don’t use much audio as it can become rather annoying)
13. Mobile: Is there a need for mobile integration?  Do you have an app already done?
14. Walk me through the customer experience.  (that’s a good one to wrap it all together!)

Let’s do a little deeper dive into those questions, so you’ll understand how the answers to the questions will help you pick the best technology platform going forward. 

Many digital signage platforms are pretty basic in their operation.  Upload a few videos and play them in a loop.  What more do you need?   But imagine that you have 100 or 1000 locations and each needs a separate playlist of videos.  How do you keep your sanity with 100 or 1000 different playlists?  What might have worked well in a pilot, just doesn’t scale if the network takes off.  A content management system that allows for meta data and smart playlists means that ONE playlist can be made for many locations, and the players will dynamically “play the right media” without having to manually create a 100 or 1000 separate playlists .

Similarly, creating videos for every permutation of text overlay needed, will likely break the bank of the person paying for content development.  Imagine your 100 or 1000 locations each with a different price for different products in different stores.  Creating 1000’s of videos is a non-starter.  Creating one video with dynamic text overlays is the only way to go.  You can use brute force in a pilot, but if the network scales, you’ll be dead in the water unless your platform can handle dynamic text overlays.

Feeding the Digital Signage “monster” with regular content updates is going to be a key ingredient to making sure that your network is successful.  Having great looking content on Day One is wonderful, but if your viewers are ignoring the screens from Day Two onward, people will start to wonder if the investment in digital signage is worth it (or not).  Having timely, relevant, and compelling content on the screens every day will engage your customers more, and encourage people to participate in supporting your ongoing plans (to grow your empire!).  So make sure, in the budget planning process, there’s a line item for “ongoing content development”. 

Location location location is important in real estate.  It’s also important in digital signage.  Putting the screens in the wrong place (too high, too out of the way, too far away) will be a sure fire way to fail.  Think about locations that are eye level, where people have some dwell time, long enough to see the messaging on the screens that you want them to see.  And make the playloop length match the dwell time for that area.

These sorts of content questions sound rather simple, but it’s amazing how many people still get these basic assumptions wrong today. 

There are however some non-content related questions that you’ll need to consider for a given deployment that will have a large effect on your choice for a digital signage software platform.

1. Will the IT department allow the digital signage players on their network?  If not, can you talk with them to ease their fears?  Is there any other way to connect your players?
2. Is the client OK with a “cloud based” system or do they need to have the content management server set up within their own corporate IT infrastructure?  Many software companies only do “one or the other”.  Some do both.  So narrow your choices based on this answer.
3. If your server is “in-house” and you have a large network, and your content is mostly videos, will the bandwidth at the server be sufficient to handle the traffic for each location to download their media is a relatively short amount of time?  Do the math on the bandwidth.  1GB of data times 1000 locations is 1 terabyte that needs to be downloaded from the central server.  How long will that take?  Longer than you think!  Do they have any restrictions on that traffic (eg: only at night)? 
4. Consider if the digital signage software is coming from a company that will potentially become your competitor.  A lot of digital signage companies sell direct to end users.  If you are purchasing digital signage software to bundle with your value added services to sell to end users, be careful.  You don’t want your partner to do an end-run on you.
5. To the nearest whole number….how many 1000 player networks has the software company in question ever deployed?  If you need to “go large”, find out ahead of time if the company has ever done a network that large before.  You don’t want to be the guinea pig.
6. Check their financials, stability, track record.  The latest and greatest shiny new digital signage software might look pretty, but will that company or that software be supported for many years to come?  Are they financially sound?  Are their existing customers happy? 
7. Does their business model match yours?  If your business model is based on a monthly recurring fee from your customer, does your software partner make you purchase everything upfront, or can you pay for the software on a monthly basis to manage your cash flow?

Top Five Technology Trends for the next Five Years

From a technology side, obviously things are changing pretty rapidly.  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 your business. I can remember the first plasma screens costing $15,000 each.  Now you can get an even larger commercial screen in the $1000 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 your 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 gotta 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.  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 client’s 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.

Conclusion

Hopefully this discussion has given you a roadmap for engaging with your client to understand their needs and for you to recommend and deploy a digital signage network that will serve everyone well for many years to come. 

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