• Additional RS-232 command support
• DDC/CI command support for brightness, contrast, RGB color, input sources and more
• Additional video mode support
• Additional panel timing support
• Improved video mode recognition
• Improved HDMI sync detection
• Support for custom panel timing programming by users
• Various bug fixes

The controller support pages are at www.digitalview.com/support/lcd-controllers-support, if you have any comments of suggestions please let us know.

Today more than 30 LCD panels were added to the database and it is expected that another 50 or more will be added in the coming days. The CSG itself is accesible at www.digitalview.com/csg and the panel data is currently available at www.panelx.com.

As brand managers and marketing folks already know, creating a positive impression and a pleasurable/memorable experience converts into immense value for the organization or company delivering it. This value is evident in terms of people telling others and spreading good news, increased loyalty, buying preference, perceived value and more. Millions are spent every year designing environments in shops, malls, museums and all kinds of publicly accessible places precisely to inspire positive associations all in the hope of winning the hearts and minds of the buying public. A key way of making a bigger impact in these scenarios is to engage more senses. Interactivity achieves this aim. But how is this being delivered in the real world?

Designers really have a lot of scope when it comes to designing interactive environments. Interactivity doesn’t just have to be a touch screen like an iPad, it includes anything that you can touch, push, pull, hit, kick, step on, walk in front of,  sit on, you get the idea. This means that any object in an environment has the potential to be something that your or I might interact with in some way. Of course designers are thinking of why the interaction is meaningful and what the result of the interaction might be. This is the crucial point at which abstraction between technologies occurs. There are all kinds of tools and products that allow communication and control between devices. One such company called Urban Visuals have built an interactive game installation in the Science World museum in Vancouver (click here to find out more about this project) where they have combined screen, lights and buttons to create a fun experience for visitors. 14 VideoFlyer openframe screens are built into the furniture each with a store of different videos. Urban Visuals have written a game framework with the open source programming language ‘Processing’, and using a multiplexer can send commands to each screen whenever someone presses a corresponding button. Using this approach the design team have control of virtually anything they want to add to the environment, choosing whether to use it as a trigger or not and deciding what happens if it is. From video walls to lighting rig to water features, any interactive experience could be created.

I think what is exciting about this as a company that builds display products and systems is the idea that it doesn’t stop with the screen. Literally any design team can design an environment of which digital displays is a part, that can produce a unique and wonderous experience for all who enter it. As the above example shows, brands, retailers and museums are already using these techniques and the technology keeps improving.

So what next? Well, we interact with environments and a multitude of technologies delivers responses. But what if we could interact with devices that interact with the environment. I think as the gap between online experiences and environments close we will start to see more interactive options emerging using our mobile devices in conjunction with environments. This will open even more doors towards building experiences not just with individuals, but communities. What fun!

The demonstration as pictured here shows a video of a car rotating so the user can see a 360 degree view. The nearby touch pad with various colors is, as you might expect, a color selector for the car. While this would normally require a costly PC and touch screen we have used a 15″ VideoFlyer and our own touch solution mounted in a separate frame. The user touches the color of choice and immediately the video changes to show a view of the car in the color selected.

Very easy to put together, cost effective and reliable.

The DV marketing team based in UK are hard at work preparing a major change to the website to reflect the two main Digital View operating divisions, namely signage and display system solutions. This is very much a marketing activity intended to make navigation easier for visitors to our website, there are no structural changes and we remain a closely integrated group.

As such the way to ensure good quality results is to set and maintain standards for the media formats being used. By all means provide tools to make it easier to convert video to the required formats.

Digital View used to promote a flexible approach to file formats and technically this is still possible, but given the overriding requirement to ensure quality we switched to focus on a limited range of formats and provided transcoder tools to make it easy for customers – this is called DV Media Converter (http://www.digitalview.com/dv-media-converter).

We all know that in big cities in particular everyone is on the go and haven’t the time to pay attention to everything that is going on. As a result commuters and consumers have a natural tendency to block out what they perceive as unwanted noise. Of course digital signs that are well placed and display carefully planned content easily skip this hurdle, but how?

There are many applications for digital signs, and right now I want to look at the scenario where a shopper is browsing a retail environment. Signs are context specific, which is an important factor when rolling out a digital signage campaign however large or small. What do I mean by that? Well, simply that we must be sympathetic to what a viewer is doing at the time they see our messages.

In the process of deciding what content to show, first we have to consider what the viewer wants, how we can send a message that resonates with their desires and in so doing make sure that they are receptive to it. In the case of our retail environment we have a lot of context information available, and knowing that we are deploying shelf edge displays we can consider various options that might fit with predefined goals for in-store advertising and marketing activities.

If our shopper is looking to buy something, then we can use shelf edge digital displays to show them images and video of how good a particular product looks, or how good they will look with it on etc. Knowing that a shelf edge screen like the 10″ Display from Digital View is quite small and will sit on a shelf, we can be certain that the viewer will be quite close to both our screen and the products. This is a great opportunity to communicate brand messages and product benefits in a manner that will help the shopper appreciate the products better, understanding them more and being better informed to make a decision. Of course this is also an opportunity to make the sales pitch, and these decisions must be weighed with company guidelines on how to best look after customers.

To sum up, shelf edge displays can offer a personal and engaging experience for shoppers and certainly fulfill a niche part of the digital experience that marketing departments can offer. Considering both the company’s goals and the customer experience can lead to the design of campaigns that will greet the viewer with a message they are receptive to and in so doing improve the buying experience as well as sales objectives. Just don’t forget to put metrics in place to track how well you did!

1. The comfort for the viewer
2. Saving on operating costs during darker lighting conditions

For display systems built for situations where light will be variable (such as train stations, shopping malls, theme parks or any outdoor digital signage system) this is a big bonus.

The setup is easy too, just click a button for the lightest and the darkest conditions and the sensor will calibrate the display and from then on it will adjust the brightness of the backlight according to external lighting conditions. Simple really, but a great feature.

See more about Digital View’s LCD Controller accessories at http://www.digitalview.com/products/lcd-controller-accessories

Any display system project that is using high brightness displays is probably going to need to allow dimming of the backlight. A typical example of this would be a helicopter. The pilot needs to be able to see the display controls during the day, and for safety reasons this requires very high brightness displays. However, when he/she is flying by night the daylight settings may well be too bright, so being able to dim the backlight will reduce the brightness to more user friendly levels.

Digital View’s high end LCD Controllers support both analog and PWM (pulse width modulation) inverters, ensuring that your choice of display and inverter will be supported by the LCD controller you need. Also, in unusual scenarios where the inverter doesn’t have the correct cable for the LCD controller you want to use, Digital View can make one for you.

Another useful feature is that dimming can be controlled via RS-232, allowing extra control options and integration with your project goals. Dimming’s not so dim after all.