MMD, the exclusive licensee for Philips Commercial Signage and Philips Monitors Worldwide, announced today a new addition to its digital menu board series, the 47-inch BDL4771V. The Philips 47-inch BDL4771V is part of an expanded line of commercial-grade displays built for menu board applications in quick service restaurants, theaters, amusement parks and stadium arenas.

"With the increase (in) demand for digital menu boards in the QSR industry, we are seeing many fast food brands across the world piloting digital menu board projects in their locations" said Craig Rathbun, managing director for MMD North America, in the announcement. "We've been fortunate enough to be included in some of these projects. It has given us great insight on what restaurant operators are looking for in menu board applications. To meet the challenges restaurant operators face, we expanded our digital menu board series with features to provide an overall solution with the efficiency to run at lower costs for years."

The new Philips BDL4771V features technologies to enhance the viewing experience of digital menu boards in public areas, MMD said. The Philips display includes an in-plane switching LCD panel for picture quality at 1.07 billion display colors. The large color spectrum creates precise color saturation and contrast for a wider viewing angle in both portrait and landscape orientations. The IPS display technology also produces image consistency from screen to screen in multiscreen implementations. This feature is intended to ensure viewers can clearly read signage content from all angles within an array of displays in a menu board configuration.

To meet a variety of digital menu board configurations, the BDL4771V features DVI loop-through technology, which allows the ability to daisy-chain multiple Philips displays through one digital source. By utilizing this technology, users can deploy systems in higher volumes while lowering costs for implementation by broadcasting a single video signal through multiple Philips displays. The DVI loop-through technology enables an array of Philips displays to connect in video wall and menu board configuration via DVI connection.

"Rapid growth of digital signage deployments in all categories of restaurant and foodservice is driving the need for more comprehensive technology solutions," said Craig K. Chapin, CEO of Allure Global Solutions, an enterprise software solutions company for digital menu boards. "Clients increasingly require our menu software and optimization expertise in lowering operating costs, integrating marketing and operating platforms, and delivering dynamic content experiences. Innovative Philips displays are key to how we create market-leading results that engage consumers and drive demand at the critical point of decision — the digital menu board."

In addition to all of the features that are standard on every Philips Commercial Signage model, including multiscreen image alignment, heat management and asset life tracking, the low power consumption of the BDL4771V is intended to improve TCO performance for demanding digital menu board applications. The display also incorporates Smart Insert, which allows the user to mount a small form factor PC or media player on the rear of the panel without increasing the overall depth of the display, and 700-nit brightness ensures that the viewing quality can be enjoyed in environments with relatively high ambient brightness.

The BDL4771V display also can be controlled and configured via RS232 serial cable, RJ45 network cable, and through HDMI via OneWire, which can simultaneously send audio, video and control signals to the display, cutting down on the need for additional cables. Video can also be connected via DisplayPort, which allows better viewing of 1080p video signals.

Read more about digital menu boards.