One week, two shows: European Sign Expo and Marketing Week Live

July 16, 2013 by
Electronic paper displays are creating new opportunities in indoor applications, such as internal communications

Electronic paper displays are creating new opportunities in indoor applications, such as internal communications

At the end of June, London hosted two large shows relevant to the DOOH industry, doing battle during the same week: European Sign Expo (ESE) and Marketing Week Live.

ESE, held at Excel, was an appendix of FESPA and, as with all appendices, it could be removed without causing any life-threatening harm. The show’s aim was to unite traditional, manufactured signage items with digital signage, showing off displays, media players and everything in between that might be needed to increase adoption, particularly in DOOH. However, it failed to attract many of the big players, leading to criticism before the show had even opened.

The companies in attendance did make a considerable effort to meet these objectives. Inurface Media promised and indeed showed a wide range of displays on a packed stand duly representative of this significant company in the UK supply chain. Display Solutions integrated, well, solutions from partners Intevi and Neo Advertising, while iBase demonstrated 4K displays using Dise software. This latter company also previewed its new S1-64, a four-input DVI signage player, plus an eight-up DVI redundancy system to be launched at next year’s ISE.

WizePanel from Wilke Technology was the star of this show. This is a standalone proposition that uses e-ink screens to display content, networked via a digital radio frequency. It may look like using a monochrome Kindle for signage, but whether it’s for wayfinding, internal communications or product information, the displays are clear and neat. This cable-free system can be attached using Velcro or magnetics, weighing as they do between 0.6 and 1.5kg, and measuring between 1.4 and 19″ (3.6 and 48.2cm).

Managing an installation requires the WizePanel dispatcher, its central station for the radio tags which connect to the IT environment. Supplied with its own software, clients can create different designs and change content dynamically. Jurgen Wilke, chief executive, explains the economics: “The cost will depend on the project, but about €500 (£432) per unit. The life expectancy is between five and 15 years; it carries long-life batteries which last for months. It is an all-round green and economical solution.”

But if you wanted to find more accomplished stands showing DOOH-relevant propositions, Olympia’s Marketing Week Live had the better draw. While pitched to marketeers, the Retail and Live areas contained strong digital signage offerings.

Live was located at the entrance of the event, dedicated to events and exhibitions companies; one of the first exhibits we came across was Alchemy, showing a couple of Christie MicroTiles displays fed with content from Amigo Digital. Channel Interactive was showing its for-hire touchscreen solutions, developed with U-Touch technology. There were videowalls and multi-touch tables which, according to business development director Mark Evans, are proving ‘very popular’ in the events community.

Beaver Group was in the Retail area, showing an impressive nine-by-six videowall composed once again of MicroTiles, enabled for interactivity using a touch-pad located in front. The wall’s 4K content has well deployed to give a truly immersive experience. Incidentally, the presence of Christie’s flagship display format across so many stands tells a tale of an industry that has cash to spend and is intent on providing impactful signage.

One newcomer was AVM Impact, whose product manager David Summer described Marketing Week Live as a ‘very good’ outing for the company – but he preferred to discuss digital media rather than digital signage, per se. “AVM Impact has so far been focused on the corporate market, but digital media encompases many other sectors,” he explains. “For this reason we are developing a new website which will better serve this market.”

Stratacache was showing its full range of products, although if you’ve been to other shows recently you’d already have witnessed this. Dutch developer JamiePro was also aiming to keep it simple; its background is in kiosks and was launching a new mini-kiosk with touchscreen and print facilities at Olympia, making it ideal for table-top applications. Also on offer were screens ranging from 17 to 80″ (43.2 to 203.2cm). Signbox, meanwhile, offers printed light-boxes that look very much like digital screens, complete with QR codes and smartphone interactivity, showing that, as we often debate at Output, digital signage’s next frontier is almost certainly mobile.

ESE is the successor to Screenmedia Expo, and the approach was the same: showing digital screens as a medium. Displays and players may be key components in the digital signage puzzle, but this is no longer enough. DOOH needs context and content – so it’s easier to see why Marketing Week Live was more of a success.

First published 16 July 2013 – Output

Filed Under: Digital signage Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Driving force: top-end media player options

March 18, 2013 by

Is the future of media players in HTML5 or NUC, or will technology remove the need for media players altogether?

Is the future of media players in HTML5 or NUC, or will technology remove the need for media players altogether?

Media players are media-processing modules that play digital content onto digital signage screens. But with hundreds of options available in the market, finding which one is the most appropriate can be a bit daunting. We spoke with experts in the industry to see what they think and asked them what they consider to be the top-end options.

Kevin Goldsmith, director of Digital Media Operations at USA-based Ping HD defines it: “A top-end media player will have more memory, a faster CPU and sometimes a dedicated, discreet graphics card. As performance increases so do the capabilities in terms of multiple video zones and the smoothness of animated and scrolling ticker playback.”

“For Intevi, there is no such thing as a top-end player, it depends more on the application and project requirements and finding hardware that fits,” says Adam Wilson, director at Intevi. “From knowing the project requirements we will then source, or build, a player that has the right operating system, size, heat output, power consumption and number of outputs. We also ensure the hardware is fully tested and support by the software package it will be operating. We use a range of different players for different projects. Spinetix manufactures some great products and we have recently been building our own Scala media players based on the Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing) bare bone, very powerful and cost effective.”

Spinetix’s HMP200 is a non-PC based media player with no moving parts and no need for maintenance. It can display a full HD video combined with multiple live news feeds and animations. The HMP200 comes bundled with the embedded Fusion software, a multi-lingual browser-based content manager that provides instant results, out of the box.

The Intel NUC is a 4 x 4″ (10 x 10cm) box with a third generation Intel Core i3 processor. At ISE 2013, Ingram Micro was also very enthusiastic about this mighty player. The NUC DC3217BY can be daisy-chained with Thunderbolt technology connecting several displays and the DC3217IYE can drive two digital displays at once with dual HDMI.

Inurface Media director Josh Bunce says: “One of the top-end options we sell is the Advantech ARK-DS762. Powered by the latest Intel i7 processor it can handle HD content on three independent displays thanks to its three HDMI outputs. This is more cost effective than using three separate media players and easier to configure. This is typically used with digital menuboards, and when you are looking at stretching content over several screens.”

An alternative for installations that require sophisticated video capabilities is BrightSign’s recently launched XD media players. Its advanced video decoding engine delivers up to two 1080p60 signals simultaneously, supports 3D content and is capable of displaying live HDTV content using an ATSCor Clear QAM tuner or HDMI input. All of the new XD models support HTML5 for easier content creation. BrightSign’s usual touch-screen interactivity has been enhanced on the XD players with the addition of swipe and gesture control.

AV distributor Steljes uses MediaTile’s Media Player, a cloud-based display-independent solution that integrates everything you need to run a digital signage network, allowing interactivity, HD and SD content and standard audio.

Steljes’s head of product management, Sam Baker, gives as an example a digital signage installation that Steljes carried out at Oldham Council. The council wanted to have an innovative modern approach to communicating with its residents, so the company advised on MediaTile’s cloud-based digital signage solution which uses a combination of mobile phone 3G connectivity and a web-based software offering.

“A key benefit of the MediaTile solution is its flexibility – the type of messages delivered by Oldham Council vary widely from day-to-day information about core services to more specific and localised communications, such as charity fundraising events,” explains Baker.

Goldsmith comments, “We consider a media player based on the expected content the customers think they will want to playback. When we get involved with multiple screen arrays or interactive content we spec higher performance media players that can cope with this type of content. Key is making sure we provide a media player that meets today’s objective, but also has the flexibility of what might be required in the future.”

So what next? Baker likes the options that MOOH (mobile out-of-home) offers; Goldsmith is excited about a new wave of HTML5 based media players that are standalone boxes or integrated within some of the newer LED monitors; Williams is looking out for signage on a chip. But then, some say no media player is the future.

First published 18 March 2013 – Output

Filed Under: Digital signage, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Intevi: using digital signage to gather sales information

July 18, 2012 by

Intevi, a new digital signage company, is developing off-the-shelf solutions for today’s demanding retail market. Adam Wilson, co-founder and director of Intevi, talked to Output about the company’s new Interactive Retail Unit (iRU).

Intevi's iRU can measure sales as well as attract shoppers

Intevi’s iRU can measure sales as well as attract shoppers

Seven months ago Wilson, formerly of dZine and AMX, started Intevi looking to provide end-to-end digital media solutions. Intevi’s iRU software allows digital signage screens to react to what is happening in shops, particularly where customers are encouraged to touch and feel products in an interactive way.

“The software is based on our Intevi Digital Poster solution which is a traditional digital signage product,” explains Wilson. “The content played can be managed in the cloud or it can be stored locally, or even a mixture of both. Our software also allows the media owner to schedule content changes in line with seasons, product releases, and so on, over the internet or via encrypted USB dongles.”

With this solution retailers are able to display an attractor content loop to engage dynamically with its customers. Once the customer approaches the display and a product is lifted from the shelf, a video specific to this product is triggered. So, for instance, if the shelf has female-orientated perfumes and male-targeted aftershaves, a suitable video will be displayed depending on the target gender of the product that the customer picks up.

“We first developed this solution for a couple of clients, and now it is an off-the-shelf product offering at Intevi,” says Wilson. “We have designed a physical interactive module, which allows for the various triggers to be connected and programmed accordingly. The interactive module communicates with the screen and stores the content ready to be played back.”

The content displayed can be triggered via a range of methods: product pick-up; pressure sensor; motion sensor; push buttons; gesture; or using analytical cameras which can determine the age and gender of the person in front of the screen. The content activated is specific to the action performed.

“Retailers are stepping up to the fact that consumers are more knowledgeable and tech savvy than ever before. Standard, non-interactive digital screens are seen by some retailers as old news and we are constantly investigating the latest solutions for our digital retail customers,” adds Wilson.

But the most interesting feature of this software is that it can provide retailers with real data on what products are most successful and which ones aren’t. They can then draw sales statistics and fine-tune their next order, change the location of the product and use the digital media displays for more insightful knowledge.

“Our system collates all information about what products were picked up, by whom, when, how many times. This is then cross-referenced with sales data to see what products where actually purchased,” concludes Wilson.

Screens are no longer just ‘moving picture decoration’ – they are real retail tools for information for the customer and the retailer. Retailers can improve products sales and get their numbers on the ROI from the screens.

first published 18 July 2012 – Output

Filed Under: Digital signage Tagged With: , , , ,