The Art and Soul of Digital Signage

At Planar, we are interested in different ways of utilising Digital Signage to engage, inform and even dazzle the public. Recently we've come across an example from the UK on Remembrance Sunday for broadcasting the day's service to large audience and PRN in the US using their channel throughout national retail store locations to keep the fans of football up-to-date with NFL Networks football highlights when shopping.

And pictured here, the beautiful lobby of Hotel de Luxe in Portland, Oregon, where signage meets art and films! An installation where Planar proudly provides the hardware to create this unique environment.

 

Digital signage truly is more than just advertising! It's about informing, engaging, dazzling, entertaining, creating art & design... What's the most out of the box DS installation you've ever seen? We would be glad to see what you've come across on your travels. The more unique and customised solution you can come up with, the better: please include a link to pictures online in your comment.

For more ideas on what to look for, visit Planar's dedicated Digital Signage website on www.planardigitalsignage.com.

DOOH! is where the Growth is.

DOOH  sounded first like the grunt frequently uttered by Homer Simpson. In case you haven't come across it in other contexts than that of a cartoon so far, it actually spells out Digital Out Of Home, a well loved (?) abbreviation for the Digital Signage professionals.

BBC's Shafir Sakr (30.5.2011) reports on outdoor advertising noting that industry experts are forecasting faster growth for digital signage than for any other media. JCDecaux is the current leader in the market place. In the video report JCDeacux's Jeremy Male notes that with digital signage "you can't turn the page or switch off, it is just there".


Digital signage allows moving from brochures to digital signs and the report introduces a case of Duty Free shops doing just that at Oslo airport - where changing campaigns monthly at the fast paced airport environment offers challenges and Christine Toemte of TRN Duty Free explains how digital signage makes their life easier.

But what is so different about real time outdoor advertising and what possibilities does it offer the advertiser other than just a substitute to print? Adverts can be customised and updated remotely according to current events, weather changes and even according to the viewers gender or tastes, while sharing it all on Social Media sites. At ScreenMedia Expo in London I tested out Cadbury's interactive advert, which was connected with Facebook and left me with a Fair Trade Chocolate Bar in my hand! Now that's an advert that leaves a sweet taste in the consumer's mouth!

Planar is being active in DOOH market, especially through the focus on QSR market (QSR = Quick Serve Restaurants), including drive-in restaurants. Our strength in this market is the customisation capability, which has allowed us to create products like the Outdoor Digital Signage Display LC46 and Indoor Digital Signage Display LB3251WHW, which are available to all our customers. In May we explored the market at Screen Media Expo in London and DSE in Essen, demonstrating a wide range of our digital signage products from Transparent EL to ep55L Large Scale Signage Display with LED backlight.
 

Transparent EL, ep55L and LB32 at DSE in Essen

Planar stand at Screen Media Expo in London

 What do you think the future of DOOH will be like?

Digital Signage Expo 2011 Declared a Success by Every Measure

Digital Signage Expo® (DSE), the world’s largest international tradeshow and conference dedicated to digital signage, interactive technology and digital out-of-home networks (DOOH), is a success by every measure. The conference and trade show, which took place February 21-25, drew more than 3,600 attendees, a 6 percent increase over 2010. Both the increased attendance and the fact that there were a record 195 exhibitors, a 14 percent increase over 2010, 57 of them first-time exhibitors, validates the preeminent position of DSE as the industry’s main show. Click below to read more.

Digital Signage Expo 2011 Declared a Success by Every Measure

Planar Monitor Liquid Ingress Test

Water ingress testing on your rugged display can be performed in several ways. In this image, you see a Planar LA1750RTZ prototype undergoing a water ingress test with 65 gallons of water a minute, from a 1" diameter fire hose, for almost 5 minutes. Imagine the pressure on the display panel and enclosure from this amount of water over the 5 minute duration! This is one surefire way to test any water seepage into your display and provides valuable test information to prevent the occurance.

Displays are used in all sort of outdoor, rugged environments where they are subjected to liquid elements. From marine to emergency and heavy equipment applications, displays used in these functions are often submitted to considerable amounts of water and other liquids. And, the last thing you want to have happen is a display malfunction due to an ingress.

How would you like to see other tests conducted on displays for your rugged applications?

Vandal-proof Touchscreens

Does your display application require a touchscreen that can withstand the challenges of vandal abuse? When your touchscreen is subjected to unattended public access interactivity, vandal proofing can be a constant battle. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer when seeking a vandal proof solution.

However, there are means of increasing resistance to vandal abuse which can generally be addressed in three broad areas: impact protection, scratch/abrasion protection and liquid ingress protection.

Impact and scratch/abrasion damage are minimized by use of added glass top surfaces. Polymers, such as polycarbonate which are highly impact resistant, provide additional protection against impact, scratch and abrasion destruction. Optical bonding, provided by Planar Systems, fills the gap between the protective glass and LCD, keeping out dust and moisture and providing liquid ingress protection.

In addition, glass lamination and glass heat tempering will improve resistance to breakage. This approah can be applied to SAW, surface capacitive, projected capacitive, camera IR and matrix IR touch screens. Newer touch technologies such as force activated technologies can use a variety of tranparent media.

Flexible displays – the next big thing?

Ok, so say we got rid off the newspapers with Apple iPad. Then there’s a research project being run in University of New South Wales in Australia for creating flexible display to give you back the ”paper” feeling, when reading your newspaper on a display rather than on paper. They investiage using flexible polymer-based backplanes printed on plastic substrates for low manufacturing costs, durable and flexible displays. But putting newspaper on a display and then creating a display, which is like a traditional newspaper: does it not sound a bit like one worker digging a hole and the other one following and filling it again? I know, we're saving tons of paper, but STILL! Whether you agree or not, this set me thinking: what are the real uses of a flexible display technology?
At Planar, we experimented with curved and twisted glass surfaces which we made a display with our electroluminescent technology. This technology has the advantage of being able to create transparent displays. Having curved transparent (TASEL) displays is something in the development stages. People who see our samples at the shows say: ”Great that it’s curved! But is it just solid glass, not flexible?” Hmmm no, not flexible. But where would you need it to be flexible?
Having a wristwatch which is a display on a flexible display surface, why not. Being able to actually turn the pages of a newspaper physically rather than just wiping my hand over the screen or waving in front of it, nice. Or for extraordinary design effects, well yes!
In EE Times in June Christoph Hammerschmidt writes about the flexible display technologies being the future of displays. His main argument for the success is that “flexible displays don’t break”. He continues promising 58% expected annual sales growth by 2018 for the flexibles amounting to over 8 billion US dollars, while others don’t grow at all.
YouTube seemed to have an answer waiting for me, in the form of a video by Plastic Logic, who incidentally work in cooperation with the UNSW in Australia on their flexible displays project, perhaps the same group who made the video..? The video is titled: ”Plastic Logic - Why Flexible Displays?”.



But to me this only shows “what are flexible displays like” and I still didn’t explain why and where just these qualities would be vital and needed where other displays couldn’t do the job. Perhaps the durability and light-weight could be appreciated in consumer applications such as mobile phones and reading devices, like E-Ink, or for professional users in the military.
What ideas do you have for the flexible display applications? Please send us your ideas either directly onto my e-mail or comment this blog post. Thanks!

Touch Technology and Visual Performance

When utilizing touch technology in your display project, do you struggle with achieving optimum visual performance? Regardless of which touch sensor you use with your transparent window of either glass or plastic mounted above the display face, unwanted light reflections are introduced and can impact the visual performance of your content.

For indoor use, Infrared (IR) matrix and IR camera based systems do not require a transparent window and don't degrade the display luminance and contrast. This solution is acceptable for indoor environments for single users, but not public venues where high use and potential vandalism can occur or for outdoor environments.

Methods of optically coupling the touch window to the display or special films and coatings can be effective solutions when sunlight readable viewing is required. Typically optical bonding is reserved for those applications where high value hardware can absorbe any additional cost.

Visit Planar to learn more about touch display technology in our eBook, Touch Display Sensors and visit us for a quote for your touchscreen application. Look for information about touchscreen drivers in an upcoming post.