The Future Software Blog
Post IBC 2009 - 22 September '09
View from the newbie working for a small but perfectly experienced
manufacturer at the largest broadcast show outside the USA., IBC 2009.
Well the show all went rather well really! We arrived... we set up...
we got loads of high quality leads...we survived the five days...and nights in Amsterdam and we came home again!!!
What more do you want from a show? I think the worst part was when we got back and the boss announced...”Well now
- this is where the hard work starts!” try telling my aching feet that!
So, what happened at the show? We introduced the latest update to our software,
version 3.7 and we also showed our newest broadcast product, the DigiSHOW SDIX, that we have recently supplied to ‘a well known broadcaster’.
The SDIX allows SDI and HD SDI playback, with field level synchronisation of up to five outputs, so you can’t see the join.
At IBC we were able to spend time with each visitor, giving them the benefit of the twenty plus
years that we have been developing software and more importantly, as we were in the Digital Signage Zone, the twelve years we have been supplying
our digital signage product range for. What was Digital Signage called all those years ago?
As a newbie myself, in this marketplace anyway, it was interesting to see people’s reactions when we
showed them how easy it was to use our product. Users do not need to use some strange programming language, they can just drag and drop as they do
with most of their existing Windows based products. The rich feature set and true flexibility of the product seemed to impress those who stopped
by at our booth – using DigiSHOW we showed four screens with synchronised output, nice smooth tickers and samples of our existing clients usage.
Being able to show IPTV, over the IBC broadband, onto numerous 46” screens in the DS Zone certainly helped.
One of the hot topics of IBC this year was 3D, and yes there were some fine exponents of the art,
with butterflies flying out of the screen towards you, with no need for those strange glasses. It looked great if you were in the right position,
but is it the best way to impart information? It’s a great attention grabber, so maybe for advertising signage it has a place but in these
difficult times do people really have the budgets to spend on those type of luxuries?
There was also a lot of talk at IBC about Software as a Service (SaaS) where a company hosts all
the data for their client, and sends the content that needs to be on display over the internet to each display live. We find that the majority
of our clients like to have full control over their content, so all the data is stored on their network, within their firewall, and under all
their security controls. It is not stored somewhere...anywhere by a third party company that impose monthly fees usually with monthly usage limits.
We have heard that if the system is managed by a third party any changes will have to be uploaded to the third party company before they can
manipulate them and send them back over the internet to update the displays. If a DigiSHOW user wants to change something, they can – there
and then, immediately if necessary, all controlled via Windows desktop from their existing network.
For added robustness, DigiSHOW works in such a way, that even if the internet and/or the
network goes down, the displays will continue playing the individual playlist that is allocated to that display, as it is all stored locally.
...So to keep the boss off my back – please give me, Tom McGuffie, a call to discuss your digital signage needs,
ideas, comments and questions on +44 (0) 1628 829 811