Digital Signage HQ

The quality of content for digital signage displays varies broadly–from low-level, static images to blockbuster-worthy graphic effects. But what medium can be used for animation, video, and interactive design? The answer lies within 10 years of creative vision and envelope-pushing from Macromedia and Adobe, manifesting itself in a program called Flash. While it may be responsible for those annoying pop-ups and confusing websites, Flash is irreplacable in the digital signage industry because its versatility allows it to solve a myriad of problems. I’ve been the Creative Director for Captive Indoor Media for a few years now, and I know first-hand how Flash has helped us create great screen content. It has the ability to bring in dynamic information on the fly, such as retrieving live weather and news or auto-populating the correct, current numbers for a bank’s digital rateboard. Using the powerful and mature ActionScript language, you can build attractive presentations and interactive applications. Flash can be used to show video in all or part of the screen and you even have the ability to move or alter the video feed dynamically. It can even be used for touch-screen interfaces. I used Flash to build our corporate demo CD that we send to clients. The possibilities for digital signage are virtually endless, and as more retail video software providers abandon their built-in content creation tools in favor of the robust Flash9 (coming soon!), the importance of in-house Flash developers and designers will become appartent. We currently have several designers and programmers who know Flash inside and out and are already creating media using the latest language, ActionScript3, an engine that dramatically improves the performance of Flash content, especially pertaining to embedded video. With the digital signage industry growing by leaps and bounds, it’s crucial to find a provider that understands and embraces the expanding Flash medium, and can successfully use it to create impressive, dynamic screen content.

-Brandon Bass

(excerpt from) Picture This: Flashy Digital Signage
Jeff Sauer, Digital Content Producer
Oct 4, 2006 3:49 PM

THE FUTURE OF FLASH

This year marks Flash’s 10th anniversary, and its new owner, Adobe, is marking the occasion with a section of its website (adobe.com/products/flash/special/flashanniversary). The site reflects on Flash’s history and growth, offers tricks and tips from Flash developers, and has the winning Flash-enabled websites that visitors voted on from a number of influential Flash-driven websites from each of the last 10 years. There are some amazing websites, especially when viewed in the context of traditional HTML or even Java-scripted websites.

It probably won’t take too much looking at those sites to realize that Flash is extremely capable and presents information in a rich way. Indeed, it is far more mature and proficient at developing eye-catching content than any of the digital signage creation tools currently on the market. Of course, Flash doesn’t inherently have the scheduling component that digital signage products have, and while it does have serious network management tools, they are not specifically designed for signage infrastructures.

Still, there is an army of Flash developers and creators out there on an order of magnitude far in excess of any digital signage tool, and many are already working in the creative and web departments of companies that might be interested in using digital signage. Therefore, it’s inevitable that more Flash content will start to emerge as signage and information presentation reach the next level.

Nobody’s arguing these days that digital signage won’t be big, but thus far, it has been a slow road. That’s mainly because of the human costs, rather than the hardware costs. StrandVision smartly helps smaller potential users move past those inherent roadblocks. Leveraging existing Flash content and expertise could very well be the catalyst for getting larger companies to move, too.

None of that means that AV contractors need to become Flash developers; however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that contractors who enjoy success with digital signage will be the ones who understand the underlying technology and the possible solutions first — and that will probably include an understanding of the content itself and where it comes from.