The 10 advantages of IAdea's complete digital signage solutions

Kiel, 04.06.2013 - IAdea's complete digital signage solutions are in use in thousands of networks. In addition to the free Digital Signage Software Manager Express, the SMIL Players and SMIL Signboards have 10 significant advantages:

1. remote controllability

One of the biggest advantages of digital signage is the ability to instantly change new content over long distances. IAdea offers customers the largest selection of professional content management systems for this purpose.

In addition to content delivery, IAdea products also give users the ability to perform system maintenance, including firmware upgrades, storage management, and even system reboots over the network.

2. flexible content

The challenge for digital signage integration is not just installation and maintenance, but also supporting the widest possible range of digital content and formats to create the most effective digital signage campaign.

IAdea devices support all major digital formats in digital signage, including MPEG-4/H.264, MPEG-2 video formats, as well as JPEG, PNG images, MP3 and AAC for audio content.

At the forefront of these open standards in digital signage that IAdea supports include the HTML5 web standard and Google Android API, both of which, in a unified platform, can deliver the most compelling viewer experiences.

3. easy installation

Digital signage installations in public spaces can sometimes be challenging, at least for the professional installer. To meet the stringent requirements for public space installation, IAdea devices offer a compact form factor, standards-compliant VESA mounts, and fanless cooling to meet your digital signage project needs.

4. Power-over-Ethernet (PoE)

Advanced "Power-over-Ethernet" technology, also known as PoE, allows installers to connect power and network with just one cable. This simplifies installation and maintenance for digital signage applications for locations where adding a power outlet is too expensive or even prohibited.

5. interactive sensor

Thanks to smart sensors on IAdea digital signage devices, users can interact via touch buttons, motion, or even full multi-touch panels using hand gestures.

6. customizable design

IAdea digital signage SMIL signboards with interchangeable front panels give customers the ability to perfectly match the SMIL signboard front to the installation environment.

7. information on demand

Digital signage can be more than a one-way street, but also a real value-add for customers. With the latest sensor technologies, content can be displayed on user demand. Not only does it provide more relevant information to the viewer, but it also creates important insights about user behavior and interest that can be used to provide even more targeted digital signage content.

8 SMIL

SMIL is an open standard from the W3C with the original intent of serving the IPTV industry. In 2009, a number of digital signage companies, including IAdea, began producing digital signage devices based on this open standard. Today, SMIL has become the most popular platform for digital signage because it provides much needed interoperability between software and hardware systems.

SMIL stands for "Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language." It is an XML-based markup language for describing playlists, schedules and screen layouts that form the basic building blocks of a digital signage network. Media files can be videos, images, background audio and, thanks to recent technical advances by IAdea, dynamic presentations in HTML, the standard on the Web. These objects can be embedded in timed sequences and parallel playlists, and even used for interactive playback control. SMIL also supports the use of XPath conditionals, which allows each piece to be turned on or off depending on player-dependent metadata or touch sensors.

SMIL timing allows repeated playback by time of day, day of week, or weekly/monthly rules. The Advocacy for SMIL website is an excellent resource for more technical information.

According to statistics from A-SMIL.org, published in 2011, the number of users on this website was almost 15,000, from over 127 countries. Germany, USA, France, Denmark and India are among the first countries. Visitor traffic increased 60% from 2010 to 2011 and grew almost ten times faster from 2009, the first year of publication.

One hardware manufacturer is estimated to have had nearly 100,000 screens with SMIL-enabled digital signage devices in operation in 2011 alone. A single software vendor had three projects each with more than 1,000 SMIL players in 2011 alone.

With growing momentum and consistent user growth, SMIL is increasingly becoming the choice for digital signage solutions. And taking advantage of its recent addition of support for the HTML5 content format, also touted as the "Flash killer" in the PC world, it appears that SMIL will continue to be a key technology for the digital signage industry.

9. HTML5

HTML5 is poised to become the next generation of digital content platform. Most of IAdea's current products support HTML5.

10. POPAI Digital Signage Standard

IAdea is a founding member of the Digital Signage Standards Committee at POPAI. The committee established and published the POPAI Screen Media Formats Standard, which provides guidance for digital signage content development. IAdea digital signage products support media formats based on this standard.