Digital Signage

[TSA AV Crew]

Hey everyone, I need some help.

Our church is getting ready for groundbreaking on our new building and we were planning on having some kind of digital signage. Its just that the ones I've found are outrageously priced and geared toward more high-end people like retail stores and hotels.

Do you use digital signage at your church and what software/hardware do you use? Also on average how much did it cost total?

[Sysmom]

We installed 6 large LCD screens in various places around our new Sanctuary when it was built 2 years ago. They're connected to the video wiring that originates in the media booth. (The screens are in the foyer, backstage, prayer room, green room, and council room.)

Currently, we only have 2 switch/scalers, and so we can choose which of them we want to display on those screens. We have them set to display whatever is shown on the side screens of the sanctuary (that's where most of the changes/moving happens.)

Ideally, when we get a third switcher, we'll be able to have finer control and serve up a third source which will be aimed at those extra ones often times.

When you plan your cabling ... plan for the future. You might not be able to afford _____(fill in the blank)_____ with the project, but in 5 or 10 years you will say prayers of thanksgiving for the people with the foresight to have installed enough cable for you to add another switcher, video source, video output, whatever it is.

In addition to the 3rd switcher, we hope to add more monitors/screens in the corridor as you enter the main complex and some in the courtyard someday, too.

deb

[Sysmom]

P.S. There's a thread from the past 3 or 4 months that had some great ideas for digital signage on a budget. Our idea of digital signage is really to have it connected to the rest of the things we show and do, rather than look for stand-alone solutions.

The computers which serve as sources to our switches and everything now are hooked to the network, and it's all just flat out flexible and simple to get to. Add another computer and another switcher, wire them to the video rack, hook up the right cables into the whole cabling thing (which are already there) and we'll have three discreet video inputs that can be displayed via that switcher/scaler.

It might all be overkill for 'only' digital signage, I don't know. Like I said, we hope to use it for more than just that.

[JHVideoGuy]

We have a couple of digital signage systems.

System 1 is an Enseo server. It delivers 8 channels of video content to 12 LCDs in our building. Screen sizes vary from 32" to 42" inches. All content is video created in house with After Effects or Motion. I can schedule content playback for different days of the week and pre service and post service. We installed it over 3 years ago. At the time we installed SD cabling and server. Cost of the server was around $8,000

System 2 is a Sony NSP network video player. It feeds content to a video projector that projects onto a Reversa screen in the foyer window. Video player was arounf $1k.

System 3 is in our shuttles. We have a DVD player that play a looped DVD on the TV screens in our shuttles. We have remote parking.

-dave
http://creativeideas.wordpress.com/