Digital Signage For Reception - Any Experience or Recomendations?

[Sam_Brown]

Budget of about £4,000.

 

Been tasked for getting some digital signage set up in reception for visitors. They want the usual mix of school information, bbc news, upcoming events etc.

 

Was wondering if anyone has any recomendations or experiemces?

[penfold]

Xibo - well within your budget

 

It's what we use here and find it very good.

[bart21]

XIBO is awesome any questions feel free to ask!

 

Xibo Open Source Digital Signage

[RTFM]

We've just been quoted an LG solution (LG Supersign) which looks good and would easily fall within that budget.

 

Not free like Xibo but another option?

 

Can happily pass on more details if your interested as i have a flyer and stuff for it, just drop me a pm and i can pass it on.

[plexer]

Let me google that for you

 

Ben

[glennda]

Xibo - have 8 boxes now dead simple to setup and costs nothing (not even a windows license needed now as there is a unix client)

 

EDIT: all you will need is a nice mahosive screen and an EEEpc or similar

Edited May 20, 2011 by glennda

[ihaveaproblem]

I used Sony Ziris digital signage solution at the old place i worked at. It seemed good. Not sure how much it costs though, also I dont know if it adds anything extra over Xibo which I guess is much much cheaper.

I can try find out more info if your interested.

[acerf1]

I use the onelan box , not very expensive about 200 when we got it is excellent , very easy to use , we have live sky new on one side and photos on the other side but with school new scrolling at the bottom.

 

 

i have tried Xibo which is very good for free but the one lan has better software.

[plexer]

I use the onelan box , not very expensive about 200 when we got it is excellent , very easy to use , we have live sky new on one side and photos on the other side but with school new scrolling at the bottom.

 

 

i have tried Xibo which is very good for free but the one lan has better software.

 

200??? did you miss a zero off?

 

OneLan - Digital Signage

 

Ben

[IKWeb]

I would also say OneLan I have been in a few schools now which use this. Yes its not free, it fits in your budget, and from a end user its easy to use and for your staff to update.

 

They use to do site visits with demo, so well worth getting in touch with them, to see if they still offer this.

 

 

Plexer, you don’t offer a solution to the OP in your first comment, and then, pull someone up in your 2nd, yes, he could have made a mistake, or he could have paid that for the unit. They have some amazing deals on at the moment, which aren’t listed on the website.

 

Sorry just peees me off when people ask for advice, and then you get a smart arsed comment like oh I will Google that for you, anyone can Google it, but what Google doesn’t offer is advise, within a school environment, and with someone like Digital Signs if you get it wrong you have lost allot of money..

 

Rant over.

 

Edited May 25, 2011 by IKWeb

[Sam_Brown]

I would also say OneLan I have been in a few schools now which use this. Yes its not free, it fits in your budget, and from a end user its easy to use and for your staff to update.

 

They use to do site visits with demo, so well worth getting in touch with them, to see if they still offer this.

 

 

Plexer, you don’t offer a solution to the OP in your first comment, and then, pull someone up in your 2nd, yes, he could have made a mistake, or he could have paid that for the unit. They have some amazing deals on at the moment, which aren’t listed on the website.

 

Sorry just peees me off when people ask for advice, and then you get a smart arsed comment like oh I will Google that for you, anyway can Google it, but what Google doesn’t offer is advise, within a school environment, and with someone like Digital Signs if you get it wrong you have lost allot of money..

 

Rant over.

 

 

He does it in the majority of topics he posts in that I've seen. It's no big deal. It's just the kind of smart arse comment you'd expect from someone in year 9. Not an IT professional.

 

Thanks for the advice IKWeb.

[penfold]

IKweb - To be fair if you type digital signage into the search box, it pretty much pulls up lots of threads asking the very same question. Yes sometimes it's easier to make a new thread to get a response, but all the replies are pretty much rehashed from earlier threads. OK it wasn't the most constructive post, but the OP could have just as easily read through existing material.

 

And as for the 200/2000 point, I dont really see that as much of a problem. At least I wouldn't have taken offence if it was aimed at something I'd written, it's easy to mistype things.

 

But back on topic, if you want to look at Digital signage and you have spare equipment, just install Xibo and have a play, it costs nothing but will provide so much more by testing it than just getting peoples opinion.

[IKWeb]

Hi Penfold - Yeah true, you can search for it, but as I guess you’re aware, the market changes, and new things are released which may not be included in old posts. So yes you can search for old topics are read up on what they advise, but also if they are old topics I would start a new one, so I make sure I am not missing out on anything.

 

My main issue was the comment wasn’t constructive, especially from a MOD!! To a user who is generally asking for advice / help

[plexer]

 

 

Plexer, you don’t offer a solution to the OP in your first comment, and then, pull someone up in your 2nd, yes, he could have made a mistake, or he could have paid that for the unit. They have some amazing deals on at the moment, which aren’t listed on the website.

 

Sorry just peees me off when people ask for advice, and then you get a smart arsed comment like oh I will Google that for you, anyone can Google it, but what Google doesn’t offer is advise, within a school environment, and with someone like Digital Signs if you get it wrong you have lost allot of money..

 

Rant over.

 

 

@IKWeb Many thanks for that however if you looked at the actual lmgtfy it would have brought up exisiting digital signage threads from edugeek.net this subject has been covered many many times and there is a lot of good content that I didn't want the OP to have missed.

 

Also I still can't believe that anyone could get a one lan box for £200 you'd struggle to find one of the windows nettops that people use with xibo for that.

 

Ben

[plexer]

My main issue was the comment wasn’t constructive, especially from a MOD!! To a user who is generally asking for advice / help

 

Sorry but my job as a mod has got nothing to do with how I may reply to a posting with a general answer. The job of a mod is to keep riff raff and rubbish off edugeek.

 

Ben

[dwhyte85]

Sorry but my job as a mod has got nothing to do with how I may reply to a posting with a general answer. The job of a mod is to keep riff raff and rubbish off edugeek.

 

Ben

 

Please do define riff raff.

[plexer]

Thems the people that post absolute rubbish in order to be able to spam our members that us MODS!!!! have to keep on top of everyday.

 

Ben

[soveryapt]

Another vote for Xibo from me .. ok, it takes a bit of work on your part, but it's really quite flexible (even more so now I discovered how I can add in file types that W7 will cope with such as M4V - not there as default but with a quick tweak in the MySQL it works).

 

The only issue I have with Xibo is getting the additional users set up - yes I can add in other admins who can do everything, but then I don't want to add in the ability to do everything for everyone - still trying to figure it out so if you need the ability to give staff reduced rights to post things you might be better with an OOB solution such as the others that have been suggested .. (if someone knows of a howto for setting up additional users that work in Xibo by the way, I'd be interested in knowing .. lol)

[john]

Please do define riff raff.

 

http://www.rockymusic.org/img/rhpsphotoscolor/RHPS-CRH03-RiffRaffTimeWarpL.jpg

Riff Raff

 

Back on topic now please, firstly if you have concerns over the work of a Mod please post in the Ask the Admin's Forum - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/message-admins/ and an admin will look into it.

 

I would recommend Xibo for a system, its getting a good following on here and on the net, and looks a very promising product. The commercial products, such as OneLan look nice but can be costly investments and require on-costs for support in some cases so may mean you need a long term financial commitment as well.

[broc]

We have a Samsung MagicInfo system in reception; its a decent piece of kit & worth considering however the biggest problem with digital signage for us is managing content & keeping it interesting. Like many of these 'bright ideas' that people have from time to time, staff soon get bored with having to provide content & the displays can end up going stale.

 

In parallel with researching the hardware, if you haven't already done so I would advise you to invest some time in discussing with the School Leadership team who is going to provide content & equally important who will have editorial rights over what gets added etc otherwise it can become a load of hassle for whoever manages the kit.

[GrumbleDook]

Votes for OneLAN, MediaCAT and Xibo ... all can do the business, it all depends on how much hands on support you want setting it up (you get what you pay for), how much continuing support you want and how much time you have to develop things yourself. Remember that your time is also a cost in this.

 

They have changed over the years and depending on what you are going to stream over them then I would also recommend you look at other streaming options too (like Boxee perhaps?)

[GrumbleDook]

Let me google that for you

 

Ben

 

@plexer can you clear out your inbox please?

[vikpaw]

Sorry but my job as a mod has got nothing to do with how I may reply to a posting with a general answer. The job of a mod is to keep riff raff and rubbish off edugeek.

 

Ben

 

And don't forget dealing with language that irate members use, which then blocks our site from showing at certain schools and even whole LAs therefore preventing them from getting all the advice posted here.

[Millgate]

Hi,

 

In response to the original question, I'd recommend LG supersign. Cost effective and can be centrally managed

 

Cheers

[DarrenC]

GrumbleDook is spot on.

 

Most digital signage systems can give an effective display, onelan, xibo, LG supersign, magicinfo, pads etc... Each one has its own USP's it's really dependant on whether or not you have specific things in mind for it. The most important thing by far is how much time you are going to associate to creating and updating content. We have put digital signage into a huge number of educational establishments ranging from one screen to over a hundred. They will only ever be as effective as the content you create.

 

You really need the buy in from the SMT if it is going to be used for anything other than displaying the school logo and welcome messages. I have seen some great things achieved with signage in schools especially when students work is incorporated into it, but it does need time dedicated to making it work.