Security cameras have been around for a long time. And you see them
everywhere, the PVMs (Public View Monitors). These monitors are there tell that
there is surveillance and nothing else. However now, digital signage can add a
new dimension to the previously quite uninteresting and sometimes quite ugly
PVM. Now you can digital signage to make the PVM screen much more interesting,
flexible and useful to the customers than ever before.
Public View Monitors, PVM are common in stores and
other public places. The appearance of PVMs is not only a way to decrease theft
but also to get people to feel more secure. However, today’s large flat panel
monitors give an opportunity to combine security camera images with other messages.
This makes the screens more interesting. Adding other messages make it obvious that the
monitors do not only serve as a way to warn potential shoplifters and to assure
the customers that they are in a secure environment but also make the screens
more useful to whomever is watching them.
To the retail chains, the combined digital signage-
and security camera monitors creates an opportunity to advertise their offers
and to communicate with the customers. On top of this the monitors also get
more attention if the screens, on top of security camera monitoring, contain
other useful information such as weather reports, news or stock market
information. The MultiQ digital signage system contains all the tools needed to
make your PVM much more than just a PVM.
A simple way of increasing the value of the PVM to the
customers is to add a text ticker at the bottom or the top of the screen. The
ticker can contain manually added text or pull text directly from an RSS feed
on the Internet and only occupies a small fraction of the screen. There are RSS-feeds
available that covers news, weather, sports, economics and lots of other
subjects. RSS feeds are a valuable source of information ideal to digital
signage but still unknown to many people. The MultiQ digital signage system
pulls the RSS information directly from a source on the Internet and creates
the ticker on the screen. As the RSS feed is updated the ticker gets updated as
well. You can choose the appearance of your ticker when it comes to font size,
colors and speed (how fast the text moves across the screen).
The security camera part of the screen can present a
sequence of spots from several cameras as well as quad views containing four
simultaneous cameras. The spots can be arranged in any order and the selection
of each view can be chosen freely. You can have an unlimited number of full
screen camera spots and quad spots played in any combination you like.
A simple way to add information and advertising is to
mix the video from the cameras with other images and video clips. This can be
done in a pre-determined sequence or in a random way using shuffling between
the camera spots and the advertising spots.
It is possible to schedule when to monitor different
cameras. This makes it possible to automatically change between different views
at different times of the day or different weekdays. The scheduling feature is
of course valuable when it comes to deciding at what hours to display specific
advertising or when running advertising campaigns. Signs containing instant
messages can be added at short notice by the local staff.
Digital Signage allows the screen to be split into
several areas. One area can be used to monitor the security cameras while the
other areas can be used for advertising and information. This makes it possible
to display security camera images, advertising and messages simultaneously. You
can decide freely how to split the screen. I.e. that it is possible to
determine exactly the size of the area where you put the security camera
monitoring in relation to other messages. The PVM can occupy a large portion of
the screen or a very small part of the screen.
Live TV delivered by a streaming device can be used as
an alternative to camera monitoring and video clips. This way you can schedule live
TV events to be shown on the screen. In the MultiQ system, security camera
streams, live streams, video clips and images are all regarded as media spots
that can be mixed to play in the same sequence or be scheduled to play at any
time you like.
In most PVM applications the audio is not used. Then the
audio part of the MultiQ media players can be used to provide an in store radio
channel since the audio can be completely separated from the video. Hundreds of
songs can be stored in the media players.
By shuffling the songs, an in store radio channel is created that adds
to the atmosphere at any location.
You
can run a MultiQ PVM as a single unit (without the need for a central server)
that can be locally or remotely controlled and supervised via the Internet. Alternatively you can manage a number of
screens as a group (up to thousands of units) located at hundreds of sites
using a central server.
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| The MultiQ digital signage system lets you combine the security camera images with all kinds of messages on the same screen. It can also provide you with an in-store audio channel. |
Lars-Ingemar
Lundström
Documentation
and Training Manager, MultiQ
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