What is digital signage?

Simply put, digital signage is the natural evolution of the sign. For example, instead of making a poster to promote a service that your company performs, you'd display it on a digital display. (LCD, Plasma, Computer Monitor, etc..)

You may be thinking that digital signage sounds complicated. It isn't. There are five pieces to the digital signage puzzle.

• Content Creation
• Management
• Players
• Network
• Displays

The following is a break down of each piece.

Content Creation

Most digital signage has creation software. This is where you put all of your assets together into what'll become the image displayed on your digital sign. Assets are digital pictures taken with a digital camera, stock images available on the Internet or an image you create from scratch. Assets also include the message that you want conveyed. This will most likely be text formatted to go with the image.

We always say that "Content is king". It's true. If a decision needs to be made where to place most of your time/money, make sure it's in content creation. If staff for this job doesn't exist, Noventri can help you with content creation. To learn more, check out the Content Management page.

Management

Content needs to be managed. In most digital signage solutions, there's management software for this job. Think of the management software as a traffic cop in the middle of an intersection. It directs the traffic of the content from the creation software to the digital signs. This includes, checking the status of the digital signage players, showing what is currently being played, scheduling content to be displayed at certain times of the day and triggering of emergency alerts. Say you want to display breakfast information in the morning, but you want your digital signs to switch to lunch information without having to do it manually. You can schedule your digital signs to display the breakfast information from, say, 6:30 am to 11:00 am and then display your lunch information until 4:00 pm, all without your intervention. Nothing to do or forget! The management software is the heart of your digital signage and is a powerful tool. If a basic digital signage solution is desired, management software that's properly configured can run in the background with little to no intervention on the same computer as your content creation software.

Players

Players do just that-play content. The player is given content to play and a schedule from the management software. It will be told what to play, and when to play it.

Some players are big, some are small, some are PCs running software, and some are solid-state, meaning that they have no moving parts and usually run a non-PC operating system. Players are a big reason why there's so much confusion when selecting a digital signage solution. There are many options. Don't look for a company that just sells players or worse, just player software, but who is a solutions-based vendor. A solutions-based vendor will have the entire solution integrated into one package and will be able to help you every step of the way.

Network

"Network" is a fancy word for saying "all connected players". Generally speaking, you would connect your content creation and management computers to a network hub. The network hub would then have CAT5 cables running from it to all of the players. Below is a diagram of how a basic digital signage network from Noventri would look. The digital sign showing the breakfast promotion can be the only sign on the network, or it can be one of many. In a simple installation, your existing house network would double as your digital signage network.

Displays

Displays can be anything from an LCD or Plasma to a Computer Monitor or Projector. Any display with an HDMI, DVI or VGA input will do. LCD displays have been the display of choice. When looking for a good display, there are a few things to look for.

First, consider a commercial or industrial display as opposed to a consumer quality display. You will not find these at your local mega-store. Industrial displays will last much longer and will have features like an RS-232 connection. RS-232 enables your player to control the screen. This is only important if your player supports this function. Before making your purchase, make sure that your player can play at the native resolution of your display to ensure there is no scaling or distortion on the screen. This is where a solutions-based vendor will be helpful.

Conclusion
Even though the descriptions above are a basic look into the vast world of digital signage, we feel that learning the fancy words isn't going to help you make the right decision, the right knowledge about digital signage will.
Noventri has spent over ten years researching what someone looking for digital signage should know and what he or she is actually being told. Everything you need is in The Truth Behind Digital Signage.