News

Media Sign Pro updates Mac-based digital signage software

December 13, 2010

Media Sign Pro announced today that the company will release version 3.2 of its Mac-based, digital-signage software. This version will include a variety of updates, including a fully-integrated system scheduler, higher zone limits, RSS feed optimizations and more, the company said.

"We have been working very closely with our clients to identify what features were needed to solidify Media Sign Pro as the premier stand alone Macbased digital signage software solution in the market," Media Sign Pro president and co-founder Chris Lee said in the announcement. "With a truly integrated system scheduler, increased zone limits, a variety of code optimizations across the board and many other new features, we believe that our clients will be very pleased with our new release."

Media Sign Pro said the highlight of the update is the automated system scheduler that allows users to schedule shut downs and startups of their Macs at scheduled times along with the auto-launch of their digital signage projects. Users can have their Macs start up at the beginning of the day, launch their digital signage projects, and then shut down at the end of the day without the need of any user interaction.

The version will be available to all clients free of charge, even those who are still using versions 1 or 2 and have not had the opportunity to purchase an upgrade to version 3, according to the announcement.

The new version also allows the RSS Ticker and RSS Bulletin Zones to auto-update every minute rather than every 15 minutes. This feature became a critical request from users who needed their Twitter feeds to update immediately after making a new tweet, the company said. Users can now tweet from their smart phones and see their custom messaging appear on the sign within a minute.

Limits for Video, Image and Text Zones have also increased. Users can now have two separate video playlists displayed simultaneously, allowing higher flexibility for designers. They can also play audio files supported by QuickTime within one Video Zone while having a muted video playing in another zone.

New features and optimizations in Media Sign Pro 3.2 include a number of key items:

• Fully-automated system scheduler allowing users to schedule their Macs to shut down and startup at specific times, along with having Media Sign Pro auto-launch and auto-play a specific project.
• A more streamlined and easier to use project scheduler that allows users to have different projects played at different times of the day, week or month.
• Video Zone limit has been increased from one to two, allowing two videos to be played simultaneously within one project.
• Ability to mute audio for individual files in a Video Zone playlist.
• Image Zone limit has been increased from three to five.
• Text Zone limit has been increased from three to five.
• RSS Ticker Zone allows character omission for easier Twitter feed integration.
• RSS Ticker and RSS Bulletin Zones now auto-update every minute rather than every 15 minutes.
• Stability improvements allowing operators to save larger project files.
• Many minor bug fixes that improve the overall stability of the application.