Article
INFOCOMM: Digital signage meets A/V
The Las Vegas event served as a common ground.
June 23, 2008
Strategy Institute focuses on content, project planning |
The Strategy Institute's Digital Signage Technology Summit was all about the end user. Held June 16-17, the A group of around 100 attendees was made up of representatives from universities, convention centers, hospitals, PR agencies, systems integrators and government agencies looking to install or explore digital signage technology. Lyle Bunn, strategy architect with BUNN Co. and moderator of the conference, said that three messages rang very clear during the discussions. One, digital signage deployers need to take advantage of and exploit the abilities of digital signage. The second focus was "planning before doing." During a presentation on digital signage at the Fira de Barcelona Convention Centre, that point was reiterated. "When I look at a screen, I think, ‘What is the value of the content here?'" said Ingancio Lamarca, CEO, Focus on Emotions. "We always have to be aware of the value of the content we're showing." Third, the conference focused on helping deployers to involve the right people and partners in a digital signage project. Testimonials and case studies from the Virginia Railway Express, Proctor & Gamble, the Mayo Clinic and the Naval Sea Systems Command described the coordination of content providers and integrators for each project. |
Lemke said that digital signage is a "sweet spot" for A/V systems integrators because they already have business relationships with many of the customers looking to deploy digital signage such as universities, convention centers and office buildings.
Interestingly, the Digital Signage Pavilion, housed almost exclusively in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, looked very similar to other strictly digital signage shows of the past, minus the presence of the large screen manufacturers who were more centrally located. Though the show as a whole was A/V-based, the Digital Signage Pavilion featured resellers, software providers, content designers and other services representing all parts of the market, all looking to interact with the systems integrators.
Dick Trask, director of marketing and public relations for SCALA, said, "InfoComm is a big A/V show, but that's great from a digital signage standpoint, since most of the resellers are from the A/V market."
Here is a taste of some of the action from the InfoComm show floor:
BROADSIGN was on hand, aiming its BroadSign Suite of SaaS digital signage software at integrators looking at digital signage, as well as at end users looking for a software solution. Members of the BroadSign team welcomed exhibitors for trial demos of the software in their booth.
"This show is really about the right partners," said David Womeldorf, executive vice president, marketing and products, for BroadSign. "There's a component of making sure our partners, both technology and preferred partners are well-educated."
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A 40-screen video wall from C-nario, powered by the C-nario Cube. |
DT RESEARCH used InfoComm to release three new digital signage appliances, the SA1000, SA2000 and SA1004. The appliances were designed to work with eixisting screens and hardware, as to prevent customers from losing their investments in those products.
John Ochoa, director of business development, focused mainly on the SA2000: "The appliance plays back DVD-like quality content on screens 37 inches and up," he said. "Also, with multiple outputs, the SA1004 can send content to up to four screens, eliminating the one-to-one player-to-screen system, ultimately making it more cost effective."
Ochoa said the applicances have proven to be successful in menu board and fast food applications.
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"Content can be a problem for screens," said Jimmy Dun, director of business development for Dynasign. "The key is to utilize these new technologies to generate automatic content."
HARRIS DIGITAL brought its broadcast background to InfoComm, showing its InfoCaster digital signage broadcast tool. Ted Dembecki of Harris Digital said that InfoCaster caters to small-scale customers who especially need help with content delivery and creation.
"They have to move from traditional slides to dynamic content," Dembecki said. "It's not enough to have low quality anymore. This is a new media – let's treat it like that."
Companies that works to connect suppliers, vendors and resellers would have a significant interest in InfoComm, and such was the case with tech giant INGRAM MICRO. The company's digital signage division was on hand to bridge the digital signage distribution gap.
"We're getting more vendors wanting to resell digital signage because of an increased interest in in direct buying from the end users," said Candace Chorpenning, marketing manager for Ingram Micro's Digital Signage Division.
ITS ENCLOSURES had its new ViewStation line of digital signage enclosures on display, designed to protect screen investments while still allowing for outdoor deployments of all types. Throughout the show, ITS poured water over its ViewStation Array enclosure, demonstrating that it is impervious to water.
"The biggest considerations are moisture, heat and cold, and that's really what screen enclosures are designed to protect against," said Karl Jackson, director of sales for ITS Enclosures.
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LG's 32-inch Stretch Screen. |
"We started in the financial trading industry where real-time information and ROI are critical to business, so Omnivex recognizes the value of live data for updating content," Collard said. "Such digital signage is strategic and dynamic, resulting in increased revenue, reduced costs and more satisfied customers."
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Panasonic's 103-inch screen on a custom Peerless mount. |
PEERLESS showed several of its new line of mounts designed for the wave of ultra-thin screens to hit the market in the past year. The Slimline mount holds up to 160 lbs. and rests only .4 inches from the wall. Peerless also showed their arm-mounts, which feature an internal cable management system and an in-wall housing box for a clean look.
REFLECT SYSTEMS has a history of large rollouts and added another one with Borders bookstores, which it announced at InfoComm. Gordon Blitch of Reflect Systems explained that Borders will feature the ReflectView digital signage platform in the concept stores it opens this year. The Borders network will have seven channels on subjects from cooking to health and wellness. Blitch said the backend software is very ad-based, as well as easy to use, because of its drag-and-drop interface.
SAMSUNG featured many new screen technologies, but the highlight was its huge "Magic Wall" video wall, made up of 40 screens that overlooked the Central Hall.
"At this point, people have figured out how to do video walls, but Samsung took it a step further," said Andy Weis, senior product marketing manager for Samsung. Weis said that the screens in the video wall were Samsung's "Intelligent Display," an embedded PC designed in conjunction with technicians from the University of California-Irvine, most of who were on hand to explain the back-end technology.
X20 MEDIA was another digital signage software provider present, showing the Web-based Xpresenter software as well as advocating its network management and content creation services. Xpresenter allows users to author content in PowerPoint and access content automatically from the Internet.
X20 originated as a broadcast company, something Maria Porco of X20 said continues to benefit the company. "We've learned from broadcast that people want fresh content," she said. "And no one wants to spend time updating and refreshing that content. They have to continue their day jobs."
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