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The future of 'green' screens in digital signage

Looking at making the industry more eco-friendly, what trends lie ahead in the greening of digital signage displays?

May 1, 2013 by Christopher Hall — w, t

Digital signage can replace printed materials, which is a gain for the environment. But they require electricity, which is a drain on the environment. They reduce the need for inks and other chemicals used in printing and posting static signs, but they increase the use of plastic and metal.

And in today's more environmentally conscious marketplace, end-users such as retailers and colleges are thinking about these things, because their customers are thinking about these things.

So how are digital signage screens going to become more environmentally friendly, to increase their attractiveness in the marketplace?

We went looking for what lay on the horizon for the future of "green" screens, but what we found is that the future is already here. In talking to three display manufacturers, all three picked one factor above all the others in terms of eco-friendliness.

According to Rachel Karnani, product manager at NEC Display Solutions of America; Jennifer Davis, vice president of marketing at Planar Systems Inc.; and Kevin Schroll, senior product marketing manager for large format displays at Samsung Electronics, it's LED backlighting.

"I think the biggest step forward that we've been making as digital signage manufacturers has been the transition from CCFL to LED," Karnani said. "So while it's not quite so much looking at the horizon it's exactly the transition that is having the biggest impact that is happening right now within the industry."

All three said they are seeing up to an approximately 50-percent reduction in power consumption in their LED-backlit displays, compared to older CCFL-backlit displays, depending on the size of the display.

"The transition to led backlighting is probably one of the more significant moves from a technology perspective," Schroll said, before citing the approximately 50-percent power drop. "That's a huge move just from running the product."

And there are a number of associated benefits to the environment that branch out from that initial one, they all said.

For instance, lower power means less heat, Davis said. And if a business has a significant number of displays located throughout its facilities, lower-power displays could actually translate into a reduction in the overall cooling costs for the building, she said. Planar found similar results when it helped clients move away from old CRT-style computer monitors, she said. "When the display requires less backlight there's less heat that is generated, and ... what we found is that that the impact in enterprise HVAC was not insignificant," especially as more and more companies move to deploying more and larger screens and video walls, she said.

And that trend toward larger displays actually helps too, according to Schroll. The bigger the screen, the bigger the power reduction from LED backlighting, he said. "So as you make that move up, LED will give you exponential benefits because it is compounded even greater, the benefit in a large-size display compared to a small size display."

All three also pointed to the impact of removing mercury and volatile gases used in CCFL backlighting from displays. That makes the displays more easily recyclable, but, Karnani said, the solid-state performance of LEDs compared to CCFLs makes the displays longer lasting and higher performing longer.

Tying in with that, according to Davis, is that most displays are being built to be more durable in public-facing deployments.

And longer-lasting displays benefit both the environment and the end-user, they said.

"The less often you have to replace the displays, the more green the solution," Davis said.

With LED backlighting, for example, the backlight stays true longer and degrades in performance more slowly than a CCFL backlight, Karnani said.

"So it's not that it's just an environmental initiative, there's also an improvement to the actual display from the customer's standpoint, so I would say that ends up being really a win-win," she said. "Reduced total cost of ownership absolutely goes right to the ROI for the investment; it is not only environmentally friendly, it's a better product and you're going to save money."

And there's an additional benefit from the fact that LED-backlit displays are just slimmer than older displays, Schroll said: They require less packaging and less environmentally harmful Styrofoam. So smaller boxes means less paper wasted and slimmer, lighter displays means less Styrofoam is needed to brace the displays inside the box, he said, "which means you're also now saving on packaging because your packaging is much thinner and much smaller than previously."

Looking further into the future, all three offered takes on how things green screens will continue to get greener.

Schroll mentioned the potential longer term impact of OLED, or organic LED, technology being used for displays. Davis said the trends toward lower and lower power consumption could result in displays eventually running off batteries or drawing power along the same cable that feeds input to the screens. And along similar lines, Karnani said the industry will continue to make incremental improvements toward ever lower and lower power consumption.

"Looking out on horizon, we've seen this big improvement, but we're going to continue to see iterative improvements to the LED-backlit displays," she said. "As we look forward it's going to be iterative improvements and small incremental changes over time."

Learn more about digital signage display technology.

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