Lobby TV's

[Ryan Kelly]

Hello All,
The theater I currently TD has an expensive habit of paying a few hundred dollars every production on framed photos.
As we are a small theater, everyone is always complaining about saving money and skimping on expenses. I thought this would be a good money saving investment. Replacing our photo habit with TVs

The interesting part that I want to pursue is active advertising, we could inlay ads into the photos, or place an ad between every other photo of the production either of our dining partners or upcoming shows.

Question is, What TVs? Does anyone have any experience with cheap large flat screens? Preferably with a Slideshow function. I was looking at the digital displays hanging at my local McDonalds, but they are unbranded.

Does anyone have any suggestions how to run a slideshow, special software or just photo viewer running on a loop from a computer.

Thanks

-Ryan

 

[themuzicman]

I'd invest in some cheap, nice looking flat-screen LCD's from a known brand (Panasonic, LG, Sony, etc.) -- you can pick up half decent 32" for $300 a piece. Invest in a Mac Mini and throw everything into something like iPhoto and then get a VGA or HDMI splitter and run signal to the TV's. Make sure they are set as the secondary display on the computer, and you can retain full control on your main monitor, and use the TV's as a secondary display.

 

[Ryan Kelly]

I have an old Pentium 2 PC with a DVI out. I wouldn't mind recycling it to use as the engine running these displays. An HDMI splitter would only duplicate the image on two screens. I plan on mounting these screens in close proximity to one another. Is there a way to take one DVI out and essentially turn that into a dual display? I don't believe it is possible, especially with old hardware.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Digital signage.

If you are geeky enough, look into a package from Rensselaer Polytechnic called... damnit. Forget.

The client software ought to run on Raspberry Pi boards, which you can hook up via HDMI with one foot cables. About $50 per screen above the TV.

Sent from my SPH-L720

 

[Ryan Kelly]

It just so happens I have a 512mb Pi. I will look into that, I also looked at a Chromebox to run both screens. Little more hefty than a Pi, but much more expensive.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Concerto:

Overview - Concerto Digital Signage Project

Sent from my SPH-L720

 

[Dan0010]

just remember not sure how long you plan on leaving these displays on but the consumer Panasonic, lg, Samsung are not designed to be left on for periods of time. so if it only a couple hours a day like your watching tv then you're probably good. if it longer or you want more like mcdonalds than go commercial. mcdonalds i believe use nec (at least in some of them that I've seen).

 

[Jay Ashworth]

The NEC 4020 was the canonical digital signage display for some years; 3/8" bezel, and built like a sheet metal rock.

I think the P402 has replaced it, or something close to that. 4020's can be had on eBay for Way Too Much Shipping, on a fairly regular basis. P402s as well, but for closer to $600-1000. That's still a pretty good price.

Burger King and Arbys are using NEC displays in that class for their current digital menu board rollouts; I *think* McDs is too, but theirs might be industrial class Samsungs.

But indeed, if you're going to leave them powered up and running more than 4-5 hours a day, it's false economy to use a consumer set for this class of work.

 

[balderson04]

As far as front-of-house photo display goes, our (very) small theatre uses a set of digital photo frames. We can create a montage of 8X10 shots for each show, incorporating both show shots and head shots, running on three screens. We also have one that is dedicated to a set of photos of the renovating of our theatre from a carwash.

 

[Chris15]

Another open source option for the signage option is Xibo.
There is a RPi port that's mostly working, or a commercial android client (throw that on one of the android smart TV boxes and you're not out for much cash...)

 

[cpf]

While we're talking R-Pi signage options, how about Screenly Open Source Edition screenly. No programming/Linux/whatever experience required, just upload images/videos from your browser.

 

[Ryan Kelly]

Thanks for all the replies, you've given me something to think about

 

[Lextech]

I have had great luck with Bright Signs products for playback. I will also chime in and say do not get a consumer tv and think it will run forever. Digital Signage TVs are meant to run a prolonged amount time and often have great functions like built in timers that turn them on and off so they save energy and prolong life.

 

[SoundGuySPI]

I have had great luck with Bright Signs products for playback.

We use Bright Sign's for virtually every thing we can or when we cant use the BS we use Digital Video Machines from Alcorn McBride Both products hold up extremely well, we run them almost 24/hrs with zero issues.
They also make an HD version of the DVM

 

[JerseyMatt]

Coupla things.. I dabble in digital advertising for income using the Rise Vision platform. It will run on pretty much any x86/x64 mini computing box (I use Intel NUCs for my signs). There are also a few Android clients as well that run beautifully on RK3188 (quad-core) based media sticks. And honestly as far as display longevity, considering the cost of commercial units is easily three to four times the cost of a consumer unit, I would much rather gamble on the consumer units. Accidents/vandalism aside, I have consumer-grade displays with tens of thousands of continuous hours on them with no issue. The argument that in this type of application a consumer TV is somehow going to fail earlier is kinda lame - because it would have to be replaced 3-4 times for the higher cost of the commercial units to be offset. For large companies with thousands of locations that would potentially need a service rollout involving labor and mileage, sure. But to invest in commercial displays for something like this is simply a waste.

Now that said, I just installed four Vizio LED TV's in our playhouse - a small one in the lobby, a 55 inch at the side of the stage, a 55 inch in the basement (that's where pre-show coffee and the afterglow are held), and a 50 inch in our outside marquee. My original plan was to run these all off the Rise platform.. However, as it turns out the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) method prevails.. All of the inside monitors feed off of an HDMI matrix switch (each display can be independently switched to any of four inputs). They run primarily off a Raspberry Pi - it is set to boot up and automatically play the contents of a media folder in a continuous loop. The marquee runs off its own Pi with the same program.

For the most part, the content is created in Powerpoint, and then output as a video file (Powerpoint 2010 and later have this functionality built in). There are also regular photo and video slideshows that are inserted into the loop on the interior monitors. It is very effective for how simple it is. Granted it's not dynamic content that can be changed on the fly, but in this environment you don't really need that