Reaching new audiences

Using the retail sector as a yardstick, a recent InfoTrends study on the impact of digital signage stated that digital displays have a 47.7 percent effectiveness increase on brand awareness; increase the average purchase amount by 29.5 percent; generate a 32.8 percent growth in repeat buyers; pull in 32.8 percent more in-store traffic; and customers spend 30 percent more time in the store.

In addition, an earlier survey by DigitalSignageToday predicted that ‘interaction with mobile devices is the runaway leader for the technology expected to have the greatest impact on digital signage in 2012 to 2013’. This has certainly proven to be the case.

No longer the ‘new kid on the block’, digital signage has come of age and a new generation of technology has evolved, driven by the massive growth in use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets whose users increasingly demand an interactive experience. And the hardware that presents and drives it is key to its effectiveness, whether it be a standalone screen or a media player driving content over multiple screens or sites.

Embracing the technology

Fairfield Displays is one company that has embraced digital technology and sees it as the way forward.

“Whether you like it or not, the world is going digital,” says marketing director Janice Fairfield, who adds: “It’s the way forward and every aspect of our daily lives is now affected—customers and clients just expect to see a screen when entering any building.


“Average time reading digital was just 14 minutes in 2013 and it is now projected to be 56 minutes by 2017. While older people are happy just to read the information, young people expect to interact with a screen.”

Fairfield urges sign-makers to embrace the technology too: “This is your opportunity to generate income. Using your graphic skills to provide simple content for clients is an excellent way to create an additional revenue stream; and there are several inexpensive programmes on the market that allow you to upload jpeg and video files to create stunning presentations.”

Fairfield Displays sees touch screens among the display options leading the way and is just launching the all-in-one touch screen onto the market. This unit is supplied with its own integrated PC and runs Windows and android operating systems, with built-in Wi-Fi.


 
“All you need to run the system is to download an app or load a Windows license and the screen is ready to use,” says Fairfield, adding: “It comes with the state-of-the-art Projected Capacitive (PCAP) interactive technology which is operated just like a large tablet. It is not affected by dust or debris on the screen surface, and the screen can handle up to ten touch points, which allows a variety of applications.”
  
Units are available from 22” up to 42” and, according to Fairfield, can be considered as the largest commercial tablet on the market. Elsewhere, Crystal Display Systems is a leading designer, distributor, and value added reseller of flat panel display solutions, offering industrial TFT LCDs, retail displays, translucent displays, touch screens, video walls, as well as many other digital display solutions.

With many years of specialist experience under their belts, the team at Crystal Display Systems understands the importance of a high reliability touch sensor for retail customers who expect the same user experience they obtain from their electronic devices.

Managing director Chris Bartram comments: “One piece of breakthrough touch technology which performs these modern world requirements with great accuracy is Displax’s range of high performance PCAP Touch Foils. These are the world’s first projected capacitive multi-touch products for large formats, with up to an incredible 5ms touch response rate—the fastest large procap ever.”



Touch foils bring simplicity and flexibility to many displays that users want to revolutionise with touch interaction.

Displax’s range of multi-touch foils achieve this with sizes up to 105” and 100 touches, which offers multiple benefits and advantages. The foils use a very straightforward form factor, making them easy and quick to integrate in almost any structure. Ease of integration is further aided with the use of a short three-connector flexible flat cable and almost no effort for cable routing is required. The touch controller board also has screw holes to allow a more rigid fixing.

Three ranges of Displax Skins—Dual Touch, Skin Ultra Fit, and Skin Ultra—are available with a wide range of options for screen size, aspect ratio, number of touches, glass thickness—up to 20mm—operating systems and much more, which make them highly customisable and flexible. In addition, Displax Skins are easy to laminate to any display. Bartram elaborates on the advantages for retail applications, which he says include vandal resistance, long wear life—as they show no deformation over time and are not susceptible to the effects of lights, temperature, and sounds.
 
He continues: “Also, being a through-glass touch technology, the skin is applied on one side of the glass while users touch on the other, which results in no wear-off of the touch sensor, making them perfect for use in busy public environments. As well as enabling a real flat and sleek design, the foils are also highly flexible and customisable and can be applied to curved surfaces.”

The use of a high-resolution conductive grid that detects an extensive number of simultaneous rapidly moving inputs combined with Displax enhanced touch algorithms, results in an enhanced touch experience, while an optimal higher touch resolution in the touch sensor allows for a smaller distance between fingers.

Displax’s newest development, the Sense, is a glass based multi-touch module, which includes a touch controller and the touch sensor already laminated on a chemically toughened soda lime glass with standard 3.3mm thickness. A transparent touch sensor makes Displax Sense suitable for projects where total transparency and vivid images are a requirement. Sense features anti-glare coating to improve vision and reduce reflection as well as anti-stiction treatment for better gesture performance. The metal mesh based touch sensor benefits from the latest improvements in conductive nano materials, and uses state-of-the-art metal mesh technology for improved optical transparency and touch accuracy.

A sharp image

Crystal Display Systems has also recently launched the Lucidvue Transparent Organic LED (TOLED) for high-end retail digital signage, an evolution in display principles which eliminates the need for display lighting and showcase box.


 
Bartram comments: “This development in technology creates so many more options for end users to innovate in a world of display. The Lucidvue can dramatically improve brand impact, astound your guests or customers, help you to set yourself apart from the competition, or inspire the next generation.”

The many potential applications for this new technology include retail promotion, hospitality, exhibitions, museum and entertainment, digital signage and many more, as Bartram explains: “This new genre of technology adds a further dimension to our standard transparent display offerings, giving some real benefits for high end applications that require an emissive display. The 55” self-emitting display enables a crisp image, while also offering a high transmittance rate of around 45 percent. It complements our existing range of T-LCD panels, and is available ex-stock.”

O Factoid: A prototype x-y mutual capacitance touchscreen was developed at CERN in 1977 by Bent Stumpe, a Danish electronics engineer, for the control room of CERN’s accelerator SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron). This was a further development of a self-capacitance screen also developed by Stumpe at CERN in 1972. O

As well as the many factors to take into account in achieving success with digital signage, such as image size, location, content, brightness, there are also many display technologies to consider, including LCD, LED, video wall or projection. Thomas Walter, section manager product marketing, NEC Display Solutions Europe, affirms: “NEC is the only manufacturer that can provide all the major display technologies, We call them the three Ls—LCD, Laser and LED.

“Partnering with NEC means you can benefit from our consultative customer-centred approach. We are ‘technology-agnostic’, meaning we are able to offer unbiased recommendation as to the most appropriate technology to perfectly fit the application.”

At Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2016 earlier this year, NEC Display Solutions launched a new range of fine pitch LED products dubbed LIFT (LED Intelligent Front Technology), the latest development following the partnership between NEC and LED manufacturer and media integration specialist Squadrat.



The LED LIFT range is based around a 16:9 module with a unique magnet solution. The pixel cards are interchangeable, allowing for upgrades with minimum effort and cost, and easy servicing via access from the front. Four pitch sizes are also available: 1.5, 1.9, 2.3, and 3.8mm, all using the same module.

Walter expands: “This new evolution in fine pitch LED brings an alternative technology offering a number of compelling reasons to consider its use for prestigious signage installations both indoor and out. Delivering bright, crystal clear, extra sharp image quality in a seamless bezel-free digital surface, the hot swappable, magnetic pixel cards make NEC’s LED LIFT solution highly versatile and future proof.”

Driving the show

Recent winner of the highly sought-after award for ‘Best Family Business’ in Upper Austria, Wallern-based AV Stumpfl exports over 95 percent of its screens, multi-image displays, and control equipment. These can be found in use at the world's leading corporate, visitor attractions, simulation, and training businesses in over 60 countries worldwide.


This firm has long been regarded as a key industry player when it comes to producing hardware, and AV Stumpfl has continued to live up to its reputation with the launch of its new media server Wings Engine Raw 8K, which was specifically developed for premium picture quality applications. It is capable of processing and delivering video content at the full 4:4:4 colour sampling at 60fps to reduce in pixelation and make the colours blend together more seamlessly, thereby avoiding any issues of compression.


There are also many other reported benefits of the Wings Engine Raw 8K, such as its ability to automatically transform the source colour profiles of images into any destination colour space in real-time, thus cutting out the need to try and match the profiles in advance; and the way it can produce frames to install between existing frames if the original content source has been produced in a lower frame, giving the image a smoother blending for more enjoyable viewing. The system also features the new WingsRX, which is AV Stumpfl’s most advanced software platform to date.

However, getting digital images to large screens can sometimes have negative effects on the quality of the images. To tackle this challenge, Suomen Videoviestintä SVV Oy invested in AV Stumpfl’s upgraded Wings Engine Raw 8K media server, adding to their expansive inventory. The firm is an expert audiovisual company based in Helsinki that specialises in light, sound and visual solutions to concerts, corporate functions and trade fairs in and around Finland.

“Our clients are increasingly demanding higher resolution images and media servers,” says Daniel Richert, technical co-ordinator at Suomen Videoviestintä SVV Oy, who adds: “The Wings Engine Raw 8K has met all our needs wonderfully and we are very impressed with the beautiful colour detail on a large screen without compromising the data or the image. We will make good use of it in projects such as the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and Nordic Business Forum, that require that best media serving and high impact presentations.”

This customer case study from AV Stumpfl really does set the scene for how far this technology and its implementation has progressed over the last decade. What it makes clear is that, whatever the scale of application, or the environment in which it is installed, the choice of hardware now available means that a solution is available to meet the demands and aspirations of virtually any end-user.



Whether you are a high-street sign shop or a national fabrication company, with some investment in staff, supplier sourcing, and training, you could be selling digital signage to your current customer’s base, while opening yourself up to a whole new market. For smaller firms that may mean installing six screens in a regional estate agents chain with the ability to change their content from a single laptop. For your giants out there it could mean multi-screen roll outs across multiple retail sites that carry software enabling the advertising to change in reaction to the weather. But whatever the case, the opportunities for sign-makers to be part of the digital revolution cannot be ignored.

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