What the market is telling us about digital signage

Defining the digital signage demand
The demanding digital signage market: Observations from InfoComm

By Mike Tometzki, SVP Sales

InfoComm 2022 proved to be a great event to show off our latest digital signage innovations to a largely North American audience. We enjoyed the full tradeshow experience – giving live demos, attending evening events, making new connections, reuniting with good friends, and of course a little karaoke.

Because we were able to meet with people that represent all parts of the ecosystem –manufacturers to distributors to integrators to end users, a few clear themes emerged that set this show apart from those in the past.

Demand the supply:  It quickly became obvious that it has been challenging for the supply to keep up with the demand for digital signage, as we’ve seen across many other sectors. A common question we heard from our CMS partners and end user customers was “when can we get a shipment of your H200 media players?” Luckily our response is “now!”

In fact, our partner Advanced Media Technologies had our H200 devices at the booth to hand out. They depleted the stock since we had so many companies that wanted to conduct their technology assessments and trials. See Rob Narzisi from AMT in action with the H200!

Creativity demands: I was really pleased to see how much the market is expanding its boundaries. Digital signage is definitely no longer limited to video streams with text-based overlays that catered mostly to the hospitality industry or doctor’s offices. We are getting asked about more advanced technology features where the media player and CMS programs are pushing the envelope on what is possible – across all different types of industries.

Think of time-critical displays that require low latency video with frame locking between different devices, such as for gambling applications, where inconsistent bandwidth issues can be a major problem. We are currently working with a customer where we implemented, validated and tweaked the low latency DASH profile for each location based on local network performance. For locations with lower bandwidth, the H200 limits the video profile to avoid bitrate-related video delivery issues. And you can imagine the need for security for these types of applications as well.

Hospitals are another exciting sector with high demands. Creating healthcare journeys with high-quality graphics, complying with network security standards and meeting requirements for touchless management of deployed devices is taking digital signage to the next level.

Meeting the demand: I have to give major props to our hardware and software product development teams for dialing in the highest in-demand features for our H200 media player. All the questions we fielded at the booth were very much in line with what our solutions offer. We are able to tick all the right boxes:

• AV1/HEVC 4Kp60 high quality video and 4K graphics
• VESA compliant with a tamper-proof ruggedized chassis
• Out-of-sight operations, remote management and optional Power-over-Ethernet – which eliminates the need for power cords

And when we explained how our SDK Amino Orchestrate works in concert with the H200, people immediately understood its value.

One of the main indicators that our solutions are aligning with current market requirements is that now our partners are proactively coming to us. They want to include our media players and SDK in their offerings. For instance, CMS companies like Now Signage and Packet Ship want to pre-certify our solutions to open up new customer opportunities. This represents a shift in the market from year’s past. And we welcome the collaboration.

The best news is that my branded Amino trade show trainers did the job at keeping my toes feeling good. Really, the experience reinforced that tradeshows are back for a reason (and not just for the karaoke).

We look forward to meeting with you at the next digital signage event. Or get in touch to discuss the demands of you digital signage needs.