About Digital Signage
Standalone media and digital signage players
Media players
(those designed for professional use, not the
consumer-level USB devices) function essentially as storage devices to play back
digital media content, such as recorded video (MPEG video or Windows® AVI media,
for example), Flash® animations, text tickers, PowerPoint® files, and audio.
They can operate on their own, or they can be networked so you can update your
digital signage more easily.
Digital signage players (also called digital signage appliances) have
all the above functions but can also deliver live broadcasts, RSS feeds, and
other Web-based content in real time to your displays. They're usually Windows
OS-based PCs by design with spacious drives and high-performance processors. You
can even order them bundled with sophisticated design tools that enable you to
set up multiple zones within a single screen to show recorded and live video
alongside static images.
Network-side components
To enable the
playing back and control of prerecorded and live content, you may need an
authoring console that's equipped with content management software. Network-side
devices can also include media storage drives and devices, as well as dedicated
or shared servers, hosted centrally or in a distributed environment, that bridge
the connection between your media players and a content management system.
They're also used for uploading content and distributing video, audio, and other
multimedia to multiple digital signs on a network.
Prerecorded
video and other content can originate from the content management system or a
video library. For corporate applications, your system can be connected to an
Oracle® database or a CRM system, and in retail applications, your digital
signage can link to a PoS system database running on a network and tracking
available inventory.
Network-side
components can also be whatever it takes to link a broadband Internet or WAN
feed to your digital signage system, including DSL, satellite, or leased-line
modems or gateways.
Displays
These flat-panel displays give you a way to present digital signage images with
superb color, resolution, and contrast on a large scale. Because plasmas use
each and every pixel on their screens, color information is reproduced more
accurately. What's more, plasma screens display moving images with remarkable
clarity.
For displays
with lots of light and dark imagery, plasma panels provide excellent performance
with their high contrast levels, color saturation, and overall brightness. This
makes them great for digital signage setups in brightly lit rooms and areas
receiving indirect sunlight.
Plus, they are
well-suited for use in larger rooms where viewers aren't necessarily in front of
the signage. Brightness on the screen is consistent corner to corner because
every pixel is used, which makes viewing the images on the screen easier to see
from a variety of angles—better than the angles of LCDs. In fact, plasma screens
have as much as a 160° viewing angle (LCDs display at 130—140° viewing angles).
Plasma
technology outperforms LCD screens in contrast output, too. A contrast ratio is
the measure of the blackest black compared to the whitest white, and some plasma
displays have contrast ratios as high as 3000:1 (LCDs displays typically don't
produce more than a 1000:1 contrast ratio).
Burn-in,
however, can be an issue with plasma screens, particularly if they're used in
always-on digital signage that features the same shapes or patterns. And then
there's the matter of overall life. Plasma screens use a combination of electric
currents and noble gases (argon, neon, and xenon) to produce a glow, which in
turn yields brilliant color. The half-life of these gases, however, is only
around 25,000 hours, so the glow they produce for the plasma display grows
dimmer over time.
Like plasma screens, LCD panels offer sharp contrasts for super-clear displays
that are pleasing to the eye. They're better for smaller displays (under, say,
40"). And even though LCDs offer a lower contrast ratio than plasmas (1000:1 vs.
3000:1), they do rather well at displaying the blackest black against the
whitest white. This is because LCDs use electric charges to untwist liquid
crystals, thereby blocking light and emitting darker pixels.
LCDs display
at 130—140° viewing angles, which isn't as good as the angles provided by plasma
screens. But, keep in mind, their use of fluorescent backlighting requires much
less power to operate than plasmas. This also makes LCDs less prone to burn-in
(a possible issue on plasma screens) or ghosting of images.
What's more,
LCD displays have an advantage over plasma screens with their
higher-than-average number of pixels per square inch. These additional pixels
make LCD technology better at displaying static images from computers or VGA
sources in full-color detail. Applications containing a lot of data—such as
those containing spreadsheets or constantly updating lists or text
crawls—display particularly well on LCD monitors. Plus, there's no flicker.
The brilliant
displays provided by LCDs last over time, too. With LCD screens, there are
essentially no parts to wear out. They last as long as their backlights do, with
displays lasting, on average, 50,000—75,000 hours. That's why LCD screens are
especially good for long-term applications, such as digital signage displays
that require around-the-clock use.