You can also be creative with modular LED screens to create custom sizes, shapes and aspect ratios for signage, or other display elements, both within the gym or in other areas of the school.
Higher screen resolutions beyond P3 are available from many suppliers, but prices go up dramatically placing these devices beyond the budgets of most schools.
Still, over time, costs will come down on higher resolutions as the category matures.
Today, P5 is the sweet spot for most gyms while offering much better viewing than the P13 spacing seen in many pro-sports franchise HD LED displays.
Leverage Large LED Screens into Multi-purpose Scoreboards
In professional sports venues and universities, the trend is building to replace purpose built, old-style scoreboards with more flexible and customizable scorekeeping systems that leverage investment in LED displays.
Solutions exist for this from inexpensive and limited software only offerings installed on a laptop to professional-franchise-level systems. These extremes are typically not the best fit for most schools as software only does not provide the full operational reliability school teams need and pro-franchise systems are beyond the funding abilities of most schools.
New offerings are now on the market providing similar features and functionality of systems that only professional franchises could previously afford – along with the demanded performance reliability.
These new systems are pre-packaged hardware and software solutions combined together in reliable server-style appliances, connect to virtually any large LED display and employ modern mobile touch screens and other simple user interfaces to make score and timekeeping easy to accomplish for even minimally trained operators or volunteers.
These pre-integrated systems can change from say, basketball to volleyball at the click of a mouse, turning the display into a completely new scoreboard. They also allow for simple user visual customization of colors, logos, text, etc. to match a team’s changing needs.
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In addition to multi-sport scorekeeping, new virtual scoreboard solutions leverage the extreme price reduction in HD cameras, live editing, video switching, content push, instant replay and slow motion.
These relatively cost effective options, as well as others like shot clocks, whistle integrations, ribbon boards, scorer tables and media streaming turn even a small school into a powerhouse presenter of a multi-media game day experience.
When the screen is not a scoreboard, typical presentation systems can be quickly switched to big screens for video, multi-media and other content display needs, making the total solution valuable for a wide range of uses.
System integrators can benefit by checking out these new opportunities in system design, to capture more projects and revenue from customers eager to make a switch to better and more modern system solutions.
Steve Olszewski is Vice President of Dimensional Communications, Inc. (DCI)
