03 · 04 — Playback and displays
Two screens is a project. Forty is an operation.
Everything is manageable when you can see all the screens from where you are standing. The moment they are in different buildings, the question stops being "does it play" and becomes "how would I know if it did not".
Playback
Boring, on purpose.
The playback layer is the part we are least willing to be inventive about. A blank screen in a reception area is seen by everyone who walks past it.
Standard hardware
The system runs on ordinary signage playback equipment. We are not tied to a brand, we do not sell displays, and we take no margin on hardware — so the advice you get about what to buy is not a sales position.
Content cached locally
Scheduled content is stored on the device, so a network interruption does not empty the screen. Screens keep showing what they were told to show until they can be told something new.
Portrait or landscape
Both, per screen, with layouts designed for the shape rather than a landscape layout rotated and hoped for.
Recovery without a site visit
Screens come back on their own after a power cut and resume the right content. The measure of a signage system is what happens on the Monday after a long weekend.
Legibility first
Content is designed for the distance it is read from and the light in the room. A layout that works on a desk monitor is often unreadable from across a lobby, and we would rather say so during design than after installation.
Long-running by design
These screens run every day for years. Content is composed so that a static element is not burned into a panel over a long deployment, which is a design obligation rather than a setting.
Display management
One dashboard, every screen.
This is the difference between a signage system and a folder of videos on some media players.
Status at a glance
Which screens are online, when each last checked in, and what each is currently showing. The question "is the Rotterdam board actually displaying the new campaign" should be answerable from a desk in about four seconds.
Groups that mirror the organisation
By site, by building, by department, by screen type — and a screen can belong to more than one. Publishing, permissions and reporting all use the same grouping, so it is defined once.
Remote actions
Restart a screen, push a schedule change, take one out of service for maintenance, or put an urgent message on every screen in a building — without anyone driving anywhere.
Alerts when something stops
A screen that has not checked in should raise a flag rather than waiting to be noticed by a visitor. Who gets told, and how quickly, is set per group so a screen switched off deliberately overnight does not wake anyone up.
A record of what was published
What was scheduled, what changed, and who changed it. Useful for working out what happened last Tuesday, and necessary if a screen ever carries something an auditor or a regulator asks about.
Installation
We are the software half.
Mounting, cabling, power, network points and the physical realities of getting a display onto a wall are a trade, and the people who do it well have spent years doing it. We are glad to work alongside whoever you already use, and in most projects that is the right division of labour.
Where it helps, we will join the site survey — mostly to argue about sightlines and viewing distance, which are decisions that affect the software design more than people expect. A screen mounted too high or facing a window changes what the content has to be.
If you do not have an installer, we will help you find one and be in the conversation. We will not mark up their invoice.
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Bring us the screen nobody has updated since March.
Tell us what the screens have to say and who should be keeping them current. If the honest answer is that you do not need us, we will say that too.