Cisco unveils digital signage solution

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Cisco announced Cisco Digital Signage, a solution for management, publishing and playback of digital media on networked digital-signage displays.

"Cisco's entry into the high-growth digital-signage market reflects growing business demand for rich media signage to optimize their marketing, advertising and training, and drive a compelling, high-quality customer experience," said Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco's Emerging Markets Technology Group. "Enterprises are beginning to realize the potential of video for many new functions. Cisco Digital Signage, together with the power of the IP network as the platform, will help businesses reach customers and employees with powerful content."

Cisco Digital Signage comprises two products:

• Cisco Digital Media Manager is a Web-based software application that controls the creation, management and publishing of digital media to digital-signage displays. The Cisco Digital Media Manager remotely discovers and manages individual and groups of digital signs connected to Cisco Digital Media Players. The software also handles play lists, content schedules, customizable templates with on-screen zones, role-based access control as well as monitoring and reporting.
• Cisco Digital Media Player is a small form-factor device that controls playback of the video, graphics and text on digital-signage displays. The Cisco Media Player supports full-screen video or graphical zoning and provides local storage for high availability and automatic failover. The Cisco Media Player offers support for MPEG 1, 2 and 4 in both standard- and high-definition.

"We are using Cisco Digital Signage because it's innovative," said Michael Chang, president of Fantasia Coffee and Tea, a high-end retail beverage chain. "We chose the Cisco solution because it is very easy to use to change content on the fly or to customize content by location or time of day. Digital signage will allow us to easily promote new products and entertain and educate customers in line. Digital signage has great potential for our business."

The list price for the Cisco Digital Media Player is $1,490. Cisco Digital Media Manager pricing is based on customer configuration.