basic live content that can server), Blaze (digital sign Signage Manager Express) plug and play right out of the controller), Flashback (replay to provide simple, yet power-box. The NAB Show is likely to system) and others designed to ful, management of content, feature several other types of meet this need. These technolo- including full-blown playback easy-to-create and easy-to- gies are likely to be popular at schedules for videos, text and deploy content-management the NAB Show as digital adver- graphic messages using vari-systems for digital signage. tising systems proliferate from ous time-schedule templates.

Feeding into this need, of ultra-high-end applications to AIS’s system also will support
course, is the age-old require- a wide range of more modestly the xML-based SMIL (Syn-
ment for modest, cost-efficient, budgeted functions and loca- chronized Multimedia Integra-
multifunctional content delivery tions. Real-time news, statistics, tion Language) open standard.
systems that can host, control input audio, video, stills, crawls, Of course, there may be no
and play back media without ads and various kinds of video bigger trend at the NAB Show,
requiring the operator to have a clips are all now expected and cutting across almost all market
Ph. d. in engineering. Click familiar to consumers, and de- segments and technologies,
Effects (Booth SL10505) typifies ploying them is now possible than the drive toward green
companies addressing these at a modest cost using such tools, designed to reduce power
requirements. At the NAB Show, systems, allowing operators to consumption and waste, and
the company will show systems make nearly instant changes generally increase efficiency.
like Crossfire (digital media to their content as circum- Important strides in LEd displays
stances change. in the digital-signage category

On the media-play- have been going on in the last er front, companies couple of years aimed at greater such as American efficiency and power savings. Industrial Systems The fruits of those efforts will be (AIS) will be focusing seen at the NAB Show. Among on full Hd 1080p video them are the recently launched decoding, including Cobra 11 and Cobra 16 LEd full Point of Purchase displays for digital signage, from Advertising Institute Element Labs (Booth SL12816). (POPAI) screen media These LEds require about format compliance. one-fifth of the power con-These kinds of ad- sumption of some comparable vanced, industrial- displays, eliminating the use of grade, network-man- fans and air conditioning, mak-aged digital-signage ing them a particularly green playback systems offering. They are also lighter also feature sophisti- weight and thinner than previ-cated software con- ous systems in this category, trol technology (AIS’s helping to ease deployment software is called and installation. ●

Out-of-Home Media Mobile TV Show Highlights Content Production & Post Broadcast IPTV