Digital Signage For Reception - Any Experience or Recomendations?

[laserblazer]

We have a £300 32" Samsung TV that has a usb port. We create the content in powerpoint and use camtasia to convert to mpeg. Works well and is cheap as chips. With school staff being made redundant across the country, I really can't see the justification in spending £1000s on frivolities!

[redspecial2000]

Xibo for me, having used several other offerings (OneLAN I have particular hatred of). It's a great way of using up old kit as client devices!

[AVTechy]

Hi all. I've also been assigned to implementing a cost effective solution to provide concurrent signage across 20 screens over our site. From what I've seen and tested of Xibo so far, I'm really impressed with the outcome. Small footprint, and easy to get going once you're over the server & client installation and setup (which was still pretty straightforward with a couple of forum hints & regfixes). I love the fact that this was free and we could provide an effective solution which would have taken just a little training to staff who were updating the content.

Sadly I was later informed we were going to be using Adobe AIR streams instead. What this entails exactly I am yet to find out as I'm not overly keen on Adobe products, even though I'm forced to use them from time to time! I noticed they have an app for smart TVs and some signage apps too, but there's not a lot on their description. Anyone care to outline how an AIR stream would work? From what I've read it could be just an SWF stream which would obviously not be as efficient as Xibo. Then again, AIR looks like it could be a powerful solution which uses custom apps (there are 3 for signage already), which could just run in a similar way to xibo. Anyone else had experience using AIR for this kind of thing? The management weren't too specific about the AIR stream so from what I'm gathering so far, it could either be an SWF stream, or something completely different.

 

Sorry, don't mean to hijack this thread btw, but for the record - Xibo was good and cheap! Downsides to a lot of other solutions is that you need custom hardware. With Xibo, all you need are a screen and a mini-pc (I found these tiny little 'Zotac' boxes which look perfect).

 

Thanks for any opinions / help!

[glennda]

Hi all. I've also been assigned to implementing a cost effective solution to provide concurrent signage across 20 screens over our site. From what I've seen and tested of Xibo so far, I'm really impressed with the outcome. Small footprint, and easy to get going once you're over the server & client installation and setup (which was still pretty straightforward with a couple of forum hints & regfixes). I love the fact that this was free and we could provide an effective solution which would have taken just a little training to staff who were updating the content.

Sadly I was later informed we were going to be using Adobe AIR streams instead. What this entails exactly I am yet to find out as I'm not overly keen on Adobe products, even though I'm forced to use them from time to time! I noticed they have an app for smart TVs and some signage apps too, but there's not a lot on their description. Anyone care to outline how an AIR stream would work? From what I've read it could be just an SWF stream which would obviously not be as efficient as Xibo. Then again, AIR looks like it could be a powerful solution which uses custom apps (there are 3 for signage already), which could just run in a similar way to xibo. Anyone else had experience using AIR for this kind of thing? The management weren't too specific about the AIR stream so from what I'm gathering so far, it could either be an SWF stream, or something completely different.

 

Sorry, don't mean to hijack this thread btw, but for the record - Xibo was good and cheap! Downsides to a lot of other solutions is that you need custom hardware. With Xibo, all you need are a screen and a mini-pc (I found these tiny little 'Zotac' boxes which look perfect).

 

Thanks for any opinions / help!

 

@ZeroHour might be able to help as i beleive they are going to be using Adobe Air to broadcast the conference.

[plexer]

Staff cuts and frivoloties were mentioned.

 

If someone is tasked with implementing digital signage by smt then it is likely money is available and such monies are not related to staffing budgets.

 

Ben

[NDW]

iv used samsung magic info. works great and is easy to use. plus relitively cheap training if it is needed

[Mullaney18]

So the over cost saver seems to be Xibo, which i'm looking at atm, I see how it works with either streaming via the server/client or computer per screen basis.

 

Which ways can you physically connect the monitors?

We currently have TheLifeChannel subscrition which has VGA over Cat5,

and mentioned earlier over usb - Does that just pick up a screen signal or do you need additional software to use usb as a Graphics interface?

 

So in theory, I could use one of my old dell optiplex as a client connect to a £400 40 odd inch from Currys via VGA / extended, USB or other?

[glennda]

not sure how big your dell optiplex is nor if there is a suspended ceiling.

 

We currently run ultra small Hp's from a shelf in the ceiling and then a VGA lead down. but vga over cat 5 should be ok.

 

if you want to run more then 1 with the same info you could then split the signal etc

[brad82]

Xibo, and spend the money you saved on a player on a nice Public Display like an NEC or a Samsung Public Display. It makes a world of difference to the end product.

[frankq]

We have a Samsung Magicinfo screen in reception that I run over the school network It uses one computer as a server (currently my laptop) that deploys content to the screens built in pc. Author software can be used to create content and then publish it to the server where schedules and timings are set before deploying to the screen or screens if you had more than one.

[RobFuller]

Again another vote for Xibo setup here using some old laptops (batteries removed) and then using WOL and scheduled tasks to turn on and off is perfect. The money saved I spent on a decent high end digital signage panel from LG and the quality is exemplary!

[Gigabyte]

We use a signagelive screen which has a connection to the internet and pulls all its content directly from the cloud. Great piece of kit that just works.

[tonyd]

Rather than running full PCs attached to the large screen TV's, this looks like a great place to stick a RaspberryPi (Raspberry Pi | An ARM GNU/Linux box for $25. Take a byte!). As long as your information display screen technology is web based then it should not be too hard to get one of these to boot up to displaying the correct web page... At £22 a go they cost a lot less then any other solution, should generate very little heat, and if the TV has a USB socket then should be able to power up from there too...

[Schappell]

I would recommend a OneLan net top box, they are around £200 so well within your budget and are very easy to use from my personal experience.

[dave.81]

We are re-doing our digital signage in our main common room and also looking at our reception area as well. Having had a OneLan box, someone show me them at £200?? more like £2000, i will be binning our current one as it's terrible. Will be moving to 40" LCD's with an eeebox and using Xibo to control them all.

[gshaw]

3 MagicInfo screens here... software can be a pain when first figuring it out as some bits of the interface aren't exactly what you'd call user friendly... however it is very powerful and the new LED screens are awesome

 

Also comes with the option of the embedded PC so you can order, set and forget.

[squeeky]

rpi is a great idea but its hard to get hold of and even if you can you can only order 1

[RichCowell]

I used Xibo which several people have recommended, but I don't think there was support for live TV at the time - not sure if that's changed now...

 

We now have 2 OneLan boxes - ONELAN Digital Signage // Digital Signage Specialists, manufacturing Digital Signage Media Players, Complete Solution, Linux Based, Multi-zoned, Multi-media, Live TV, Transparency - and they work perfectly, all web-based, easy to get to grips with... Definitely recommendable :¬)

[chazzy2501]

The Samsung displays use SSD and are rock solid. They have IPS non glossy screens and can be mounted in either landscape or portrait. The screens can lock the IR down so no pupils can use a generic remotes. You can remotely change channels brightness volume (of the hardware not just the software in it). You only need mains and ethernet so it can look really tidy.

 

I've got 3 and they tolerate powercuts and tampering.

[squeeky]

xibo is good, if you want streaming just embed it in a web page using a plugin or similar with ie then just use the web page in xibo. Works perfectly 100% of the time

[hyb80]

Going to resurrect this thread. Looking at a solution and interested in xibo but has anyone got any examples of their digital signage with xibo? Had played with the idea of using chromescasts for this and casting tab from chrome or possible from a tablet if they improve the support.

[VeryPC_Colin_F]

PM for you Sam_Brown

[vikpaw]

I looked at Xibo, but didn't want to invest too much time into it, so we got two MediaCats from Navaho. Really good and just work with minimal setup and it's easy to get others to create their own displays too.

[glennda]

I looked at Xibo, but didn't want to invest too much time into it, so we got two MediaCats from Navaho. Really good and just work with minimal setup and it's easy to get others to create their own displays too.

 

They may have changed since I used these but they where a pain in the backside to get a Powerpoint on them. Has that changed?

I used to get the students to manage the content

[caffrey]

Thing is with powerpoints, it's easier just to export all slides as jpgs and run as a slideshow