Time was, using digital displays in vending machines was a tricky business. Screens were heavy and expensive to employ. As technology moves on and standards improve it is becoming easier to integrate screens with anything. Vending machines are no exception. Why bother though? Read more…
Over the past few weeks I have increasingly written about LCD and display related issues in the new PanelX blog rather than here in the DV blog. The idea of the PanelX website, which is currently fully sponsored by Digital View, is to provide a number of resources for anyone using LCD panels to build display systems. It is early days and we will keep developing these however to begin with we have LCD panel database, this is derived from the extensive information in the DV Controller Solution Generator, the LCD panel manufacturers directory and the blog.
So this leaves this blog which will increasingly be used for more digital media related topics such as content creation as well as some applications discussion.
There have been a number of blogs and articles recently considering the differences between consumer TV’s and commercial monitors for use in digital signage. Many interesting points have been raised and argued but to jump to the conclusion it seems very clear that for a lot of professionals there remain important differences despite the relentless pace of development in consumer products.
So what are these differences:
Furthermore with the introduction of 3D (with glasses) and connectivity increasingly focused on other consumer devices the chances are that the differences between consumer and commercial models may grow rather than reduce.
It came as a pleasant surprise recently to see AV professionals commenting in a forum state a preference for commercial monitors with RS-232 over alternative consumer models lacking RS-232.
Here at Digital View we have made great use of RS-232 over the years and continue to do so with standardized command sets and various utilities, for example:
- All our media players can be fully controlled by RS-232 commands and can equally send out RS-232 to other devices. This can be data or instructions and allows for remote device monitoring and control. In addition powerful and innovative interactive systems can be created.
- The DV LCD interface controller range has a significant RS-232 command set giving access to the extensive range of functions available.
It can sometimes be hard to explain the possible benefits to users, it is a bit like the rather unhelpful ‘your imagination is the limit’ promotional line – indeed, that is the challenge. One of the more common uses we see is to make custom button sets so a single button executes a number of commands. Another is for communication of monitoring data and our own DisplayMark digital signage display and temperature monitor is a good example.
At times it has looked like RS-232 was going away, certainly seeing it vanish from the consumer market was ominous. It is reassuring the professionals still understand and seek the benefits.
We’re very excited about an installation of monitors that Alfacam have built using Digital View technology. Using our powerful LCD Controller board, the SVH-1920, and the HD-2000 and IP-50 accessories, Alfacam have deployed these custom monitors in their OB trucks during the World Cup just as they did at the last Olympics. This is enabling them to drive LCD panels to display the feeds coming in from the games. Read more…
Integre at SID
At SID last week we put the new Integre chassis on display. This is designed for 32″ to 80″ LCD panels and can be used in landscape or portrait modes. As shown here it brings together a number of Digital View ingredients:
And what cannot be seen is the monitoring and reporting that is built into all of this enabling remote management and reporting.
All this adds up to a very easy to use package for display system integrators in the digital signage and AV display markets.
The Society for Information Displays (SID) held their annual SID conference and exhibition in Seattle, Washington last week. LCD panels have been the star of the show for many years now and this year was no exception – the surprise was the general absence of large OLED panels.
Not surprisingly 3D was very much in evidence both large and small for TV’s (with glasses) and mobile applications (without glasses). Also touch and multi-touch panels were well represented as were displays for e-books, for example E-Ink was showing it latest color electrophoretic displays, ie the technology used in the Amazon Kindle and similar .
A few non-LCD technologies that have been in development for a few years were on show including:
Other than that one novelty was a transparent 46″ LCD display from Samsung. This was being demonstrated for digital signage applications with a mock up retail window display – it was very effective and appeared to draw constant attention.
And Digital View – this year we put our new Integre integrated chassis centre stage. Integre is designed for display system integrators using Samsung LCD displays of 32″ to 82″ providing an easy to use interface, power and monitoring solution, see more details here (press release).
Recently we have been testing Samsung’s 43″ very wide LCD panel. With an aspect ratio of 4:1 and a resolution of 1920×480 this is a great panel for many digital signage applications.
Great for Digital Signage
For the interface we used a Digital View SVX-1920 controller. This is ideally suited to a panel like this and to usage in digital signage installations due to its high reliability and range of relevant features.
For the media player we tested with three models from the Digital View ViewStream range, the soon to be released ViewStream 320, the ViewStream 450 and the ViewStream 500. These all worked very well and are available as stand-alone and networked versions.
It works well, looks good and has a great novelty factor.
Shown here is a panel we connected up the other day 
for testing, a Sharp 1280 x 480 pixel display. This panel is certainly novel with a 8:3 aspect ratio and looks very suitable for a range of signage and instrumentation applications – we are considering using it with our media players and providing it as a display for digital signage applications such as in retail and museums.
For this test it was connected to a Digital View ALR-1400 LCD interface controller but it can also be matched with other Digital View controllers.
Details are on our controller solution generator here, the model is Sharp LQ123K1LG03.
As a proof of concept for the use of the RS-232 capability on our LCD controllers we recently made a small joystick, slider and button control board for our SVX-1920 controller (see picture), this connects to the controller RS-232 port. For this test we programmed the board for:
It works excellently, the PiP window size adjustment is very responsive and smooth using the slider and the position is easily and quickly adjusted with the joystick.
The idea behind this is to show a few of the ways that the RS-232 interface can be used to make a display much more than just a simple monitor by using some of the innovative features in Digital View controllers.
We will be putting this control board in a housing and also test with other other control presets for the buttons, slider and joystick. The SVX-1920 protocols for RS-232 are extensive so the range potential functions that this sort of interface board can be used with is considerable. Other Digital View controllers also support RS-232 so this capability is not limited to the SVX-1920.
Update: 
We added a housing as shown to make it easier to use the joystick for demonstration and testing.
