Tripleplay’s VOD Demand streaming, IPTV and Digital Signage software solution has been selected by Greensward Academy in Essex, UK, and will be implemented by XMA. In the latest high profile projects for the company, a server-based solution will provide access to a VOD streaming platform for up to 500 students while also delivering digital signage and live TV to ten screens around the Academy campus.
Matt Cooper, head of sales for Tripleplay, has been working with the Academy on the project:”Greensward will be supplying their students with a superb media experience with access to video content through our very stylish and modern user portal. The addition of digital signage and IPTV to communal areas around campus, enabled on the same server platform, will also ensure that the faculty has a direct communications line to students as and when they need it.”
But whilst Greensward might be keeping pace with the technological times, not all schools of higher education are walking the right path, says Tripleplay’s James Keen. “In all honesty, you get a lot of universities and colleges who attempt to develop their own solutions. Often the software they develop is sub-standard to what is already available, difficult to maintain while the developers are around, impossible to maintain once the developer leaves the institute and often don’t take into account the legality of how the system operates. Why are they doing this? At times because they don’t know a solution to their problem already exists, others because they think it will be cheaper than buying a ready-made product… often a false economy. As a manufacturer we have to take some blame; we obviously haven’t educated the market well enough. We are now getting out there more to meet not only the technical staff within HE and FE but also the educators, the librarians and, at times, the students. We have a number of modern mediums by which to communicate with this industry. We have to ensure we’re using them to keep the market up-to-speed.”
As regards the popularity of specific Tripleplay solutions, Keen notes that “our IP-based, server-based digital signage solution has been deployed across a number of universities and sixth forms around the world; it is proving popular owing to its low cost for expansion, simplicity to implement additional screens and flexibility in terms of playlist creation, zoning and management. One single server can service all faculties within a University; so long as a building is on the corporate network our solution can deliver content to it.
“We have also found our Digital Asset Management and Video Streaming platform, TripleChoice, is a popular product within HE and FE. We believe that this is owing to the security and controls built into the management interface by default, giving all organisations full control over what content is delivered where, to whom and by what means. We also have an advantage in this sector over many of our competitors as our server-based solution is on premier, securing data sovereignty and taking away some of the concerns our cloud-based competitors struggle to satisfy. It is also incredibly simple to use and is often deployed into library environments where the traditional, physical, video assets would have been catalogued and stored.”
