Thinking of a Portrait screen?
Your questions answered.
Nothing pleases me more than seeing our education customers growing their digital signage estates with TrilbyTV.
Those such as St Anthonys Primary School in Kingshurst, Birmingham who have expanded from one screen in reception to four new screens located in Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, library and the staff room. Head Teacher Cieran Flaherty loves walking visitors past the screens to evidence the great work his pupils are achieving.
Or Brentwood Independent School who already run 18 digital signage screens with TrilbyTV. September 2019 will see the opening of a brand new school reception building where a 4 screen video wall will wow every visitor who views it.
Our passion at TrilbyTV has always been to show schools and colleges that digital signage is more than just a screen on the wall – It’s about evidencing all the great work achieved. Seeing our customers grow their signage estates is a real pat on the back for us.
One question I receive from our customers who are looking to grow their estates is about outside digital signage. Those upright kiosk type screens we see at Motorway Service Stations, on our high streets or in well-known retailers such as H&M.
So what’s involved when it comes to outdoor digital signage and does our platform even work in this environment? I know TrilbyTV will be great with a portrait screen, but as for the screen itself, I wanted to find out more so I made a call to our friends at Peerless AV and scheduled in a visit to their European headquarters in Watford.
Peerless AV has been manufacturing AV products over 75 years so they know what they are talking about. Their portfolio includes interactive kiosks and outdoor digital signage solutions such as their award-winning Xtreme High Bright Outdoor Displays and Smart City Kiosks.
I’d thought of some things to consider with these giant outdoor screens and the team at Peerless helps me understand more.
1. Protection from the elements such as rain, moisture and dust
The Peerless Xtreme High Bright Outdoor Displays feature an IP68 rating which means they are built to withstand the harshest of environments. IP stands for ‘Ingress Protection’ and IP ratings are used to define levels of a gadget’s resistance to things like dust, dirt and moisture. IP68 is the highest rating you can get when it comes to protecting your technology from solids such as dust and liquids like water. Solid resistance goes up to a high of 6 while liquids are marked on a scale of 0-8, with bigger numbers equalling better protection. Peerless AV absolutely have you covered when it comes to outdoor protection from the elements and so much so they are more than happy to dip one of their screens into a large fish tank while exhibiting at the worlds largest AV Show.
2. Screen glare from direct sunlight
The Xtreme High Bright Outdoors Displays cover glass is optically bonded. Optical bonding is where a protective cover glass is adhered directly to the display. This creates a single index of refraction, which eliminates internal reflection and increases the perceived contrast ratio cutting down on glare and providing amazing picture quality even in direct sunlight.
3. Security and protection
My Peerless hosts Mike and Tom showed me how tough their Xtreme High Bright Outdoors Displays were by hitting them as hard as they could. This is because the screens are IK10 rated indicating a degree of protection against external impacts. Again the screens have the highest rating giving their customers absolute peace of mind when it comes to protecting against vandalism and flying objects.
4. Internet Connectivity
Not so much a direct question for Peerless AV but certainly a point that needs thinking about. If your screen is to be located in a playground or outside area then its more than likely your current wireless signal will be unusable. A wireless access point could be installed outside to boost your current wifi signal but again you will need to think about this hardware having an IP68 rating. A hardwired connection could be utilised using an ethernet connection from the school but this usually means digging up the playground and could cost thousands of pounds.
5. Possible costs involved
Being honest it’s not cheap and sometimes I don’t think our education customers realise this. Just because you are a school it doesn’t mean you don’t need the same solution as the motorway services or high street retail store. You can’t simply screw a £350 Samsung TV screen onto a wall outside. Starting with the Peerless Xtreme High Bright Outdoors Displays 43”, 49” and 55” these range from £5751 – £7200 excluding VAT. Outdoor wall mounts start around £200 going up to £520 covering both portrait and widescreen installations. Then there are installation costs which would include two persons for a day totalling around £1000. Those looking at Portrait Digital Signage Board Kiosks including Single Xtreme High Bright Displays 49” and 55” can expect costs of around £9250. Installation costs would again need two persons but definitely over multiple days especially if hardwired solutions are needed and playgrounds need digging up.
The idea of promoting to parents and building a strong community is fantastic but realistically the costs are around £6000 – £8000 to install an outside digital signage solution that ticks all the boxes. More information on Peerless Xtreme High Bright Outdoor Displays and Smart City Kiosks can be found here – https://www.peerless-av.com/en-uk/professional.
6. Does TrilbyTV work seamlessly with outdoor digital signage solutions
With TrilbyTV being cloud based we simply needed to plug a device into the Peerless Xtreme High Bright Outdoor Display and connect to the wireless internet. To achieve this an ASUS ChromeBit was used which was an easy fit into the back of the screen.
Once connected to the Peerless office wifi it was as easy as opening the TrilbyTV Player App to see content playing and looking fantastic.
Then to test on one of the Peerless Smart City Kiosks which I’d passed on my way into the building. Again it was super simple to plug in the ASUS ChromeBit, connect to the wifi and have content playing. I’d set the ChromeBit to rotate to 270º to play Portrait content I had created in Adobes Spark Post iPad app. On this screen, TrilbyTV looked as good as any other digital signage solution on the market.
A very enjoyable day for TrilbyTV and a huge thanks to Mike and Tom from Peerless AV for their time and for answering our questions. Our advice would be, if you are thinking about outside digital signage then make sure you work with a company who has years of experience in delivering such solutions. A company just like Peerless AV.
