Digital Signage – Today’s market and trends
BrightSign is renowned globally for its reliable and affordable digital signage solutions. State-of-the-art technology and robust purpose-built operating systems can be as simple or as intricate and/or powerful as applications demand.
Jeff Hastings, CEO of BrightSign, spoke to us about current trends and considerations for purchasing digital signage in today’s market.
The industry is being driven today by people’s expectations around interactivity and experiential marketing. People are used to interacting in a very relevant and rewarding way with their phones, tablets and computers. They’re coming to expect the same out of digital signage. BrightSign is a leading driver of this trend with its extended input/output (I/O) interactive devices that offer touch screen interactivity, pinch/zoom/swipe, serial commands, general-purpose input/output (GPIO) and USB button controls, InfraRed (IR) remote control, HDMI In for Live TV playback, and advanced HTML5 rendering that can display live streaming social media feeds.
For many, the content displayed on the screen and seen by customers is the primary concern when choosing a digital signage solution, and of course the end result has to be perfect. However, there are a vast number of player hardware factors to consider when deciding which media players go behind the screen.
Digital Signage Players clearly need onboard storage to host a buffer of content – even the best streaming service isn’t reliable or fast enough to keep a player continuously supplied. Some players have built-in flash memory, others have replaceable SD cards. One issue is the frequency of reads and writes. Flash memory wears out over time. In fairness, SD cards suffer similarly after extended reading/writing, but SD cards are inexpensive and easy to swap out for new. WaiveCar, an innovative Los Angeles car sharing start-up, has a fleet of electric cars fitted with double-sided LCD screens that serve as roving billboards. WaiveCars are free to drivers for the first two hours SD cards are perfect for installations that rely on content loaded locally or when stable Wi-Fi connectivity isn’t available.
Many people think of fans as essential components for cooling heat-generating digital signage media players. However, fans are loud and make devices bigger than they need to be, but they’re a necessary evil, right? Wrong! As far as media players are concerned, they are actually completely unnecessary and a telltale sign of inefficient design.
A further benefit of efficient player design can be seen in players offering power over Ethernet (PoE). The concept is pretty simple, yet the convenience of PoE is significant. The ability to run a single cable that serves the dual purpose of powering a device while also sending content to that device is a great advantage.
When considering digital signage players it’s essential to consider all of the factors that will ensure success and provide the best user experience. With many options in the market, think about longevity of players in terms of content storage, temperature management and power surges. The best media player will be simple to install, robust and power efficient.