Digital Signage Help/Recommendations

[tkpeterson12]

I am looking for information/suggestions regarding adding digital signage to our church. Currently we still have someone who reads the announcements but would like to move to more of a video announcement or announcement loop direction.

That said the following are my initial thoughts/goals for the system:

• There will be multiple screens in the "system" including 2 in the sanctuary (double for use in projection), possibly one in the main vestibule, possibly one in the gym/fellowship hall, and possbily one in the entryway of a secondary entryway.
• The screens in the sanctuary could show the same stuff as the others prior to the service, but once the service starts, they would be used for whatever projection needs we would have (scriptures, song lyrics, videos, etc.)
• The screens NOT in the sanctuary would need to be able to display the video of the currently ongoing service in the main "zone" along with any additional announcements/stuff in one or more much smaller zones.

Any thoughts you all will have are greatly appreciated. If you've worked with a particular system that you would recommend, that would be helpgul as well.

Thanks in advance!

[cmchamp]

Check out Ed Qual's JustAddPower.com products. See if his routing hardware will do what you're looking for. just look at the schematics.
C.

[petereit]

I don't have any systems suggestions, but I will make this one recommendation: don't get rid of the person reading the announcements, even after you have the digital signage in place. People respond differently to different types of media, and sometimes a combination of media will cause an idea to finally connect.

We run our announcement loops before and after service, during offering and on the screens in our foyer and offices. But I we get the biggest response when we show the individual slides on our projection screens while a real person is at the pulpit talking through the announcements.

[bpalermini]

I've setup a system like what you are looking for with a matrix switch and a old PC running the announcement loop on Power Point. We just let the PC run all the time so that anytime a space was in use you could just turn on the screen and the loop would show.

The JustAddPower system that Corey mentioned looks like it would be a great solution for the switching but I don't have experience with it. We used an Extron matrix switch in our setup. Using a matrix switch gives you the opportunity to put any input onto any or all outputs.

There are much more sophisticated, purpose designed solutions for digital signage that give you the ability to schedule, switch between programs, etc. etc. but the cost goes up quickly.

[cw4u]

I know I'm a little late responding to this, but this is exactly what we do at my church. We have two different zones driven. One is for the two plasma displays outside of the sanctuary. And the other is for the 8 other displays located around the campus.

We have a cat5 distribution run to all of our TVs with the sanctuary zone also having a composite feed from our broadcast production room. The sanctuary TVs switch from composite to Cat5 on a timer based on the TV. And our announcment loop is set up on a batch script written for timing function. It works pretty well.

Make sure you get RS-232 control on your TVs. You'll later regret it. I know I do.

[ltjarl]

Hi,

We use XIBO (xibo.org.uk)
It is a server and client systems (Server=PHP+MySQL and Client Windows/linux).
Open Source and free use..

/ LT Jarl, Sweden