One thing that keeps me interested in my career is that our industry is ever-evolving as technologies are introduced and evolve over time. After 17 years of working in the world of Pro AV distribution, I never stop learning new things. Most recently, I was tasked with learning about dvLED to help support our sales team and customers on projects. While I still have a lot to learn, here are some key takeaways that I can share based on what I have learned thus far.
Pixel Pitch & Viewing Distance
The term pixel pitch was new to me, but it is one of the key factors to think about when designing a dvLED display project. Simply put, pixel pitch is the measurement, in mm, between the individual LEDs or pixels, measured from the center of one LED to the center of the LED adjacent to it. Naturally, as the pixel pitch value decreases, the resolution in a fixed size cabinet increases and allows for a closer optimal minimum viewing distance.
For this reason, it is important that you discuss with the client where the closest viewer will be in relation to the display so that you can choose a pixel pitch that is appropriate for the specific application, remembering that as pixel pitch decreases, the equipment cost increases. As a general rule of thumb that has been shared with me, you can multiply the pixel pitch by 10 to give you the approximate closest viewing distance in feet. For example, the recommended minimum viewing distance for a 2.5-pixel pitch wall would be 25 feet.
Resolution
If you are like me, then often when you think about display resolution for common applications it is typically 1080p (1920×1080), WUXGA (1920×1200), or 4K (3840×2160), understanding that there are many others, but these are most common. With flat panel displays and projectors, the image size can vary while the resolution remains constant. For example, a 4K display can be 55” in diagonal, 98” in diagonal, or several other sizes, but the resolution will always be 4K. With projection, a native WUXGA projector, whether displaying a 110” diagonal image, a 216” diagonal image, or any size for that matter, the resolution will always be 1920×1200.
This is not the case with dvLED, as the individual LEDs (or “pixels”) mounted on the surface of the module are a fixed size, so that when the size of a dvLED display changes, so does the resolution. To illustrate this, let’s look at a dvLED panel that is 16:9, 27.5” in diagonal with a pixel pitch of 1.58. The resolution of this panel is 384×216. If you require a 1920×1080 display, you will need 25 panels in a 5×5 array making a 137.5” diagonal display, while if you require a 4K 3840×2160 display, you will need 100 panels in a 10×10 array making a 275” diagonal display, requiring four times the real estate!
Structural Considerations
In many cases, dvLED displays will either be wall-mounted or flown, although sometimes they can be ground stacked with the appropriate stacking hardware. Depending upon the size of the display, they can get quite heavy. For example, a recent 165” diagonal display (6×6 array) I quoted weighed just shy of 500lbs, and a 275” display (10×10 array) weighed over 1300 lbs. It is absolutely crucial that the structure or wall on which you are mounting the dvLED or the structure from which you are rigging can support the load.
Additionally, in order for a successful installation, the dvLED cabinets need to be perfectly aligned along the x, y, and z axes so there are no visible seams between the individual panels that make up the display. Since most walls will have some imperfections and not be perfectly flat, you will be faced with either using shims or exploring mounting hardware that provides post-installation adjustment of all three axes.
Power and Data
Unlike a traditional flat panel or projector, the display does not have a single power cord with dvLED. Instead, depending upon the size and resolution of the display, multiple AC circuits are required. If we go back to the 165” 6×6 array I referenced earlier, this display required six dedicated 110v/10A outlets. In this case, each AC circuit is powering six panels with a main connection to the first, then daisy-chaining with power jumpers to the next five.
In addition to power, every dvLED display requires multiple data connections between the display and the dvLED controller/processor using data cabling, such as Cat6. The number of data runs will vary based on the overall resolution of the display, but you can expect that the manufacturer will advise you during the proposal stage on the required cabling and power requirements for the specific project.
I am seeing more and more projects come across my desk that involve dvLED, and there has been dramatic growth in overall product sales in the category over this last year. There is no reason to believe that these trends will not continue, and I look forward to continuing my education on the subject.
Over the past year, our daily lives have become increasingly focused on the health and safety of ourselves and those around us. With the importance of face coverings and frequent hand washing, it’s essential to clean a clean environment for each and every hotel guest and staff member. When soap and water are not readily available, the CDC encourages the use of hand sanitizer with at least 60 perfect alcohol upon entry of a public space. As a key measure in protecting yourself and others, frequent hand sanitation provides a safer public environment by keeping germs under control.
With Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Units from RC Stars, the safety of guests and staff is a top priority. The auto-dispensers provide touchless sanitation while displaying customizable information and graphics, bringing convenience and cleanliness to any hotel space. With metal body housing, tempered protection glass, and water-resistant casing, Digital Hand Sanitizing Units from RC Stars provide top-of-the-line construction in a sleek exterior. Available in both freestanding and wall-mounted dispensers, the kiosks are equipped with Remote Management Software, delivering content updates to your web browser when sanitizer levels are running low.
Freestanding vs. Wall-Mounted Units
Ideal for high-traffic locations, the 21.5-inch freestanding model stands seamlessly in any space. The kiosk is maneuverable and can be reconfigured to assist with traffic slow and sanitation, providing lobbies guests with convenient access to hand sanitation.
Perfect for smaller areas, the 21.5-inch wall-mounted unit is an excellent choice for saving space. With a sleek, contemporary design and durable construction, this kiosk is a health-conscious addition to any wall.
The Best Places to Use Your Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Unit
Lobbies
Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Units from RC Stars are an excellent addition to any hotel lobby. With customizable text and images, the kiosk provides guests with hotel news and information while encouraging proper hand sanitation. Ideal for high traffic areas, the freestanding unit allows for frequent reconfiguration to assist with traffic flow, guaranteeing a simple and sanitary experience for guests upon entry. Take a further look into the freestanding unit here.
Fitness Centers
With zero-contact hand sanitation, hand sanitizing units are ideal for a health-conscious fitness center. Available in a freestanding unit for open areas or a wall-mounted unit for confined spaces, these kiosks are perfect for providing guests with important information while encouraging frequent hand sanitation. With customizable information and graphics, digital signage units are ideal for displaying your mask policy, instructions for sanitizing equipment, or simply requiring hand sanitation upon entry.
Elevator Hallways
With a variety of frequently touched surfaces, it’s important to ensure proper hand sanitation in elevator hallways. With space-saving construction, the wall-mounted digital signage unit delivers convenient, touchless hand sanitation. Equipped with Remote Management Software, each unit delivers content updates to your web browser when sanitizer levels are low, providing easy management of multiple kiosks.
With the RC Stars Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Unit, creating a safe and healthy environment for hotel guests is simple and efficient. Whether the unit is installed in a lobby, fitness center, or elevator hallway, guests and staff members will enjoy the convenience of digital signage and hand sanitation in a compact, sleek kiosk.
In today’s world, it’s more important than ever to ensure proper sanitation and cleanliness of public spaces. By encouraging hand sanitation upon entering and exiting a space, you’ll create a safer, cleaner environment for yourself and others.
According to the CDC, washing your hands or using hand sanitizer containing at least 60 percent alcohol are essential steps in avoiding sickness and protecting others. Hand sanitation is especially important in public spaces when soap and water are not available, specifically before eating and after handling or adjusting your mask.
And with digital signage hand sanitizing units, you’ll keep germs under control while displaying helpful and important information for users.
Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Units
With digital signage hand sanitizing units from RC Stars, hand sanitation is simple and convenient. The touchless auto-dispensers display customizable information and images, encouraging users to properly sanitize their hands upon entering an indoor space. Perfect for a wide variety of applications, these zero-contact sanitation kiosks are ideal for lobbies, gyms, schools, shops, and other points of service.
Available in 21.5-inch wall-mounted and freestanding units, digital signage sanitizing units from RC Stars deliver durability and functionality in a sleek exterior. With metal body housing, tempered protection glass, and water-resistant casing, you’ll enjoy zero-contact sanitation and top-of-the-line construction. Not to mention, the Remote Management Software connects the kiosk to Wifi and delivers content updates to your web browser, so you’ll stay up to date when sanitizer levels are running low. And with a volume indicator on the unit itself, you’ll enjoy simple and convenient refilling of your unit.
Freestanding vs. Wall-Mounted Dispensers
The Freestanding Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Unit from RC Stars is an ideal addition to any live event. With a convenient stand for your sanitizing unit, this kiosk can be placed anywhere in a space and can be reconfigured to assist with traffic flow and sanitization.
If you’re looking for a space-saving station, the Wall-Mounted Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Unit is perfect for smaller areas, as the unit hangs seamlessly on any wall. Delivering a sleek and contemporary aesthetic, this wall-mounted unit is an efficient and health-conscious addition to any public area.
Where to Use Your Hand Sanitizing Unit
School Buildings
With zero-contact sanitation, these digital signage kiosks are perfect for ensuring proper cleanliness of students and faculty upon entering a building. Available in both wall-mounted and freestanding units, the stations are ideal for school lobbies, cafeterias, and classrooms, as they fit seamlessly into any space.
Not to mention, our sanitizing units are perfect for college buildings, as they allow students to read important university information while cleaning their hands.
Doctor’s Office
With a high traffic volume throughout the day and potential exposure to illness, it’s essential to ensure that patients and staff are properly sanitizing their hands upon entry. And with customizable digital signage, these kiosks provide patients with necessary sign-in and office information while allowing them to sanitize before an appointment.
Shops and Malls
Delivering digital signage and sanitization in a compact kiosk, these units are ideal for displaying sales and advertisements while ensuring the health and safety of employees and customers. With customizable display images, digital signage units from RC Stars are perfect for alerting customers of featured products, explaining current and upcoming sales, or simply encouraging hand sanitation upon entry.
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With the RC Stars Digital Signage Hand Sanitizing Unit, you’ll ensure greater health of safety in any public space. Whether you plan to install your unit in a school building, office, or any other point of service, you’ll enjoy the convenience of digital signage and hand sanitation in a compact, sleek kiosk.
2021 is here, which means we have had a chance to say goodbye to what was a challenging 2020 officially. We are all hopeful that 2021 will be a year filled with opportunity. But it will not come without some uncertainty, and that will hold true for the AV industry as a whole. As an integrator, this does not mean you can’t plan to scale your business. Yet, prediction and preparation are not mutually exclusive!
There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected your business in some way, shape, or form. For some, the impact may not have been as severe, but for others, tough decisions were made to keep businesses alive. Those decisions were likely in the form of reducing headcount, most often from the outsourced technicians.
Now that we have rolled into 2021 with some optimism and renewed energy. It’s time to start moving into growth mode. One of the fastest ways is by augmenting your staff through outsourcing and reduce risk. This is the simple practice of augmenting your labor force to help assist your skilled W2 technicians/project leads out in the field.
This form of outsourcing has become very popular in recent years. The need to augment technicians through an outsourcing program was accelerated due to the pandemic’s impact. With technician augmentation capability, you no longer have to pass on jobs due to lack of employees, keeping your calendar full for 2021.
Now is not the time to lose control!
You have spent a considerable amount of time and effort building your business, so it is understandable that the reputation you have made through your relationships and proof of performance means everything.
They are possibly the biggest reasons for your success. By using technician augmentation it could be perfect for your business as you wade through uncertain times. Let me explain: Augmentation and supplementation are two very different things.
Augmentation gives you access to technicians that will work alongside and take direction from your on-site staff members, whereas supplementation is relinquishing an entire job to be outsourced.
It is often vital to consider technician augmentation rather than supplementation to ensure that specific processes are followed, control is maintained, and the project outcomes are as you desire. Technician help allows you to perform the job YOUR way.
We all understand the importance of kids being in school from an academic and social perspective, and it’s clear an aggressive effort is being made to get kids back on the school bus! In preparation for the upcoming school year, technology implementation will be crucial to accommodating in-room distanced and virtual learning.
So what does that have to do with technician augmentation? Well, it’s simple. Whether public, charter, or private, most schools have at least a handful of classrooms and often hundreds, if not thousands per district. Most of these classrooms are cookie-cutter in terms of technology deployment for clear reasons.
Teachers and students are trained on how to interact with the same systems, no matter what room they are in. An assisted technician staff best fills this type of repeatable work. From wire-pulling to display mounting to disposal of waste, outsourcing technicians in multi-room environments can prove to be very cost-effective and very efficient—no more hiring and firing based on a single job.
You can take comfort knowing your organization can complete the work without incurring any unwanted pre and post burden. We should all have a shared enthusiasm for what is next in our industry. The collective ability to adapt and overcome in 2020 has been remarkable, but there are more audible calls to come. The AV industry will continue to shift and change rapidly, as it did in 2020 (let’s never speak of it again). I cannot stress enough the importance of making sure outsourced Technician Assistance is a Key Part of Your 2021 Business Strategy.
Just as the tragedy of 9/11 changed our lives forever, most of us agree the Corona Virus pandemic will be just as impactful. Not only will businesses and governments slowly and carefully reopen offices and public gathering spaces, and but will be tasked ongoing to provide a “safe place” for employees and customers. In other words, it won’t just end with this pandemic but rather place a duty of care liability on employers and government well into the distant future.
The practices and methods to best create a safe workplace or public gathering are being explored and implemented. Almo Corporation endeavors to provide solutions for not only our own operations and employees but for our reseller customers as well. We have created a basket of Health & Safety products & tools such as PPE, decontaminating “Fogger” Kits, Digital Signage Hand Sanitizer Kiosks, etc.
One set of solutions we offer are single-entry, level 1 triage Temperature Scanning Systems to facilitate a safe entry into a business or public space. In short, single-entry solutions must provide technology that efficiently supports a safe assessment of a person desiring entry. In the beginning, we interviewed a number of potential end-users regarding perceived needs in search of a solution. Two points consistently surfaced. First, all agreed that they need a solution; and secondly, none of them knew exactly what they needed.
The first point is obvious. Employers and businesses agree that a safe work or gathering environment is paramount to moving forward in the post COVID-19 world. This won’t be the last battle we’ll face as a society so having technology that supports a reasonable solution for the present and future is needed. In response this summer, a “bull rush” of products flooded the market with a myriad of products. Most of these products performed as designed but are not flexible beyond a “Pass-Fail” assessment. Some may be able to pass signals to open doors and measure faces with masks on but can’t adapt to new processes or reporting needs. They are what they are.
Fortunately, the full opening of offices and business have been somewhat delayed giving time to develop and evolve safe entry practices. The market is anxious to buy yet hesitant to invest in one-trick ponies that won’t provide flexibility down the road as needs change. Our search focused on finding solutions that not only serve the immediate needs of today but those in the future as well. Our search has found solutions that not only provide reliable single-entry Level 1 triage body temperature scanning but support processes and reporting as well. Processes such as matching employee pre-questionnaires with temp scanning and in-out tracking are accommodated. And back-end reporting for administrative purposes is provided as well.
Our search settled on software platforms functioning on small format touch displays and tablets coupled with a temperature scan facial camera or wrist-sensing arrays. One such solution uses tablets from Mimo, a manufacturing partner known for high quality displays and tablets with PCAP touch. They partnered with a software platform from Revel Digital. These tablets attach the temp scanning arrays via pogo pins. The pogo pin connection scheme provide USB connectivity and power for the temp scanning arrays. Revel Digital, in turn, provided the Android-based programming and CMS to not only control the temp scanning process but provide reporting and digital signage capabilities as well.
We have other hardware platforms and hardware solutions to offer our dealers and their end-users. The key to our solutions is the ability to customize to end-user requirements now and in the future. We have a team of specialists that can assist dealers in the end-user interviews to determine requirements and solutions. These are not short sell-cycle hardware solutions. It includes SaaS (Software as a Service) license fees in addition to hardware purchase. These solutions can adapt as end-user needs evolve. Our Almo Sales Reps and Specialists stand ready to start putting solutions together.
What other products can you see businesses needing to implement in order to provide a sense of security to returning workers and customers?
When we typically consider pro AV systems design and integration, we immediately think indoors. Truth is, most of us do nearly all our projects inside the confines of buildings, with walls and ceilings. Boardrooms, conference rooms, huddle spaces, and auditoriums are just a few of the things we all do so well… but wouldn’t it be great if we could expand our horizons (and those of our customers)? Well now we can, and it’s time to start thinking outdoors!
There are a ton of available spaces, that today are more important than ever. Let’s say there is a patio or deck area that literally begs for a display. How about along the path beside a building? Outside the entranceway? Considering the unfortunate situation we find ourselves in thanks to COVID, our industry is now tasked with creating new outdoor areas… that not only had not been previously thought of, but now must be. This will be part of our “new normal”. Keep in mind that today outdoor spaces are more universally preferred in many areas around the country due to restrictions, comfort of guests, etc. Lump this under addressing health and safety concerns while delivering an outdoor visual experience that keeps people safe. Think opportunities!
Those of you who design projects will probably think about the obstacles before anything else. There is heat and moisture. There is bright sunlight, reflections on the screen, and the resulting poor image quality. Therefore, you think it just won’t work and can’t give the end results you get inside. Worry not because Samsung and their new Terrace Pro TV comes to the rescue.
This is one of those cases where we examine the Terrace Pro TV and see how the features really do become tangible benefits. Nothing matters if the display will not withstand the environment. Rain or shine, you can enjoy year-round outdoor entertainment with an IP55 rating that assures protection from water and dust. Check the first requirements box.
The next concern should be image quality. If the image is inadequate or inferior, then the dollars spent are wasted. Nobody will even look at the display let alone enjoy it. This issue is addressed via the QLED 4K panel and over 2,000 nits of brightness. For the techies among you the QLED is a Samsung adaptation of Quantum Dot backlight technology but optimized to deliver what Samsung states as 100% Color Volume for a billion shades of brilliant color, without washing out in extreme brightness. By the way contrast is enhanced via direct full array backlighting system providing fine control of the lighting zones behind the screen. HDR10+ adjusts color and contrast scene-by-scene for a dynamic and immersive viewing experience. This ultimately means that Samsung has brought their top-notch home theater display technology into a commercial model, and an outdoor one at that. Will the display be noticed and appreciated? You bet and the adaptive picture capability optimizes picture settings based on surrounding lighting conditions. Check the second requirements box.
It doesn’t stop at IP ratings for outdoor use and stellar picture quality. This is also a Business TV, like Samsung’s previously launched BET-H series. These were intended to offer carefully vetted apps like Youtube, and integrate digital signage through the included Business TV App. It will hold the customer’s hand through choosing a pre-built template, entering their own content, and publishing them for an easy signage experience. Other features are turned into benefits that integrators can provide for their clients. The multi view feature lets them watch TV while displaying signage content from the App.
Remote control and connectivity are not an afterthought. There is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The wireless remote control is even IP56 rated to stands up to water and dust. Thinking about the ease of installation, the Terrace has HD Base-T already built-in, for one cable, clutter free connectivity to external devices. Simply plug in the included cable and you are good to go! Its built-in media bay provides additional support for media sticks and protection from water and dust. Samsung is also offering a (consumer) outdoor soundbar matched to the Terrace and Terrace Pro TV models to provide local audio.
What the Terrace Pro TV allows the user is an indoor viewing experience outdoors without a lot of cost and complexity. This gives the integrator the opportunity to tell clients a new story and one that they have not heard. You can extol the lengthy list of features but punctuate those with tangible benefits. If the objective is a project that visually stands out and becomes an experience, the Terrace Pro TV should be at the top of your considerations.
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