Hyper definition: 4K screens in DOOH

December 2, 2013 by

Display products such as PsCo’s hyperwall have put digital signage companies at the fore of 4K development

4K is undoubtedly expanding. Video production houses welcome the format and, even if they often have to use down-converters from 4K to HD, the image quality is still better than what can be captured via HD. Most video camera manufacturers have already launched 4K cameras and creative advertising agencies are adopting it in an attempt to future-proof their work.

Sony’s latest professional monitors, the PVM-A250, 25″ (60cm) and PVM-A170, 17″ (43cm), have been designed to be 4K ready. Using organic LED (OLED), these lightweight, slim screens have high colour accuracy, contrast and picture quality.

“Higher resolution content creation – 4K and beyond – requires monitors with larger screen sizes for accurate colour evaluation on site,” says Daniel Dubreuil, senior product marketing manager for professional monitors at Sony Europe. “Yet bigger monitors are harder to carry and take up more space. These new models have the screen size needed for critical evaluation, with a thinner and lighter design that’s perfect for live broadcast and outdoor shooting. They even have a handle for easy carrying.”

Danish broadcast production start-up Nimb TV has recently unveiled Denmark’s smallest Ultra HD Outside Broadcast van. The unit is built around a number of Blackmagic Design’s raft of Ultra HD products, which includes the ATEM Production Studio 4K and Blackmagic Audio Monitor. Housed in a three-wheeler moped van, it can be positioned at the heart of any live production, not simply feature films. But it is not necessarily the broadcast market that is paving the way forward in 4K.

“The AV and digital signage markets are leading on Ultra HD, 4K adoption,” believes Patrick Hussey, senior communications manager for EMEA at Blackmagic. “Meanwhile, the broadcast industry is, for once, playing catch up.”

Stuart Holmes, chief executive at AV distributor PsCo, corroborates this: “In the professional AV world, 4K or Ultra HD is nothing new; it made huge waves at CES and is now one of the latest buzzwords in the consumer market. Consumer expectations of image quality are through the roof as they compare the fine detail they get on their tablets, smartphones and home TV sets to displays they come across daily in the out-of-home world.

“As experts in videowalls, targeting vertical markets such as broadcast, public sector, retail, rental and corporate, we understand 4K and, from a multi-display angle, we have been delivering videowalls with higher than 4K resolutions for a long time. Our focus has always been more on delivering according to the required display size, shape and pixel by pixel performance required for a specific environment.”

In the AV manufacturing sector, the projector industry leads the way on 4K, particularly for 3D applications. Some manufacturers are already claiming they use 8K, although most of the time that means two 4K projectors, which gives better definition, but not at 8K standard. 

In the residential market there are 55″ (140cm) 4K screens available for under £4,000, but in the professional market this quality of screen is not so widespread. Many LED manufacturers say that their HD screens are 4K ready, they just need the content to match. That said, there are plenty of HD DOOH screens already on the streets and, if the image is already fit for purpose, then why change them?

French creative company MovingDesign, which designed the amazing 4Temps mall in Paris, says that its clients are not worried about definition as long as it looks good, while Monster Media has made similar noises concerning 4K. However, BrightSign’s XD line software and firmware upgrade to support and upscale into 4K would indicate that the format is coming to DOOH. The company’s BrightAuthor 3.7 software and its companion 4.7 firmware XD can upscale 1080p video content to 4K and offers enhanced IP streaming and some very useful HTML5 support features. 4K-display manufacturer Seiki Digital recently demonstrated the impact of BrightSign’s XD video engine, paired with the new software features, at the IFA trade show in Berlin.

4K is a technology that is relevant to large videowall displays, rather than close-up screens. For screens that are used for interaction or large displays, such as roadside billboards, 4K is irrelevant. In cases where flat-panel displays are used to create large videowalls, the better the definition, the more eye-catching and effective the signage will be, so expect to see more 4K making its way into the DOOH market.

First published 2 December 2013 – Output

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

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

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‘A daily wonder experience’: Trinity Leeds

June 3, 2013 by
Trinity Leeds represents the latest in a growing number of digital malls, offering new opportunities to advertisers

Trinity Leeds represents the latest in a growing number of digital malls, offering new opportunities to advertisers

When a shopping centre opens, in general it doesn’t go unnoticed. Trinity Leeds surpassed expectations when it launched this March welcoming 132,000 people. The shopping mall, said to be the size of 13 football pitches, is the largest project of its type in Western Europe boosting 120 shops, 12 restaurants, bars and cafes and the largest Everyman cinema in Britain.

At The Screen’s most recent Breakfast Briefing, Sean Curtis, head of marketing at LandSecurities, the company that owns the £378million shopping centre, Neil Morris from Grand Visual and JCDecaux’s Mark Bucknell got together to share their knowledge and experience of the new digital mall. Trinity Leeds features gigantic interactive videowalls, Google product search, LED advertising screens, its own mobile app, which can be tailored by the user, and totally free wifi through out.

“We own many big shopping centres in the UK, but with Trinity Leeds we pay special attention on following a customer led strategy,” explains Curtis. “Things have changed in the world of retail and we also need to change to attract and retain the public.”

Making the site a digital destination in its own right was one of the key objectives; the other was to give customers and retailers the best communication platform they could wish for. The ubiquitous use of wifi allows people to search compare and buy online, even if they are in the shopping mall.

“Nine out of ten purchases are done online today and a big proportion of the searches and buys are done on mobile devices,” notes Curtis. “When we were planning this project we asked ourselves, should we dance with the internet devil in a shopping mall environment? The answer was yes, definitely.”

Using Google’s product search paired with GPS capacities means that people can search online but it will only show retailers within Trinity Leeds. Customers’ preferences are logged in LandSecurities’s new CRM system, allowing it to offer a segmented and personalised service. “A multichannel customer is worth more than a single customer,” Curtis remarks.

The ease of use and customer-centric approach is also reflected in the £1million screen network investment. The screens, located in key areas across the mall, have information about events, special offers, news, the cinema, city guides and the centre itself. But most importantly for retailers, 70 percent of the air time on these beautiful digital canvases is dedicated to local stores’ advertising and promotions.

Morris described this project as unique for Grand Visual. The company’s day-to-day job is to deliver outstanding campaigns, but in a limited timeframe. In the case of Trinity, it had to consider how to orchestrate digital content across the mall all day, every day, for a whole year.

“It’s like running a channel,” says Morris. “Our brief was to deliver an immersive ‘daily wonder’ experience using Trinity’s screen state. To create these special moments for visitors, we designed a series of interactive content applications. It’s more like an art installation than anything else, but so far it’s been very successful in engaging visitors and providing a surprise factor.”

Using Panasonic D-Imager, a sleek camera-sensor located above the videowalls that collects spatial information about its environment, passers-by can interact with the screen without having to touch it.

“Nobody has done multiple-[dimension] image processing before now,” says Morris. Grand Visual worked with Fraps for the real-time video capture; this is a work in progress, with new interactive games and other experiential projects in the pipeline.

The digital experience at Trinity Leeds also includes a network of JCDecaux’s newly-launched M-Vision digital six-sheets. “The screens give Trinity Leeds and its retailers tactical opportunities,” explains Bucknell. “The advertising in it is location-specific and brands have the power to update their advertising or copy with relevant opportunities and promotions.”

According to Bucknell, malls are retail’s fastest growing environment. The average time people spend in them has risen to 178 minutes, with a 161 average spend and a 12 percent over-spend. “Digital just enhances the customers experience and gives retailers to tools to reach their audience with the right message at the right time,” he adds.

Since opening, Trinity Leeds has welcomed half a million people per week. Its modern look and feel, as well as its practical functionality using wifi, mobile and digital signage, gives Leeds citizens a sense of pride and creates a new destination for the city’s visitors.


First published 3 June 2013 – Output

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