Here is a closer look at some of BrightSign’s decisions that define its new digital signage player lineup:
Go Universal with Key Features: All new players integrate H.265 (HEVC playback features) and HTML5—which Hastings says is “pretty much standard today”—and meet CEA HDR 10 standards. The top two product lines (XD and XT) offer a hardware-accelerated H.265 video decoding engine capable of 4K HDR 10-bit video playback.
As far as H.265 decoding, “We see that really coming on strong in pretty much all video because it gives you lower file sizes and you can reduce the bandwidth required to distribute the video,” Hastings says.“In three to five years we think that you’ll rarely see an H.264 content distributed in the commercial world. It’s going to H.265.”
Including HDR 10 in the top two product lines is a forward-thinking move, Hastings says. “This is happening really hot and heavy. We’re building that technology because that is going to migrate [from consumer] to the commercial world.”
A look at how the features are distributed through the line (click image to enlarge):
Streaming Is Becoming More Important for Digital Signage Users: BrightSign is seeing a shift away from traditional video distribution toward streaming across several verticals, and it anticipates more. “Before people were only using kind of matrix switchers and now we’re seeing an IP trend,” Hastings says. “They’re starting to distribute video via IP. You see this a lot in sports stadiums; seeing live broadcast of the game distributed over IP” into a box in a digital menu board for instance.
Photos: Closer look at BrightSign’s 4 new lines
In that sports venue scenario, “if they had to run an actual distribution network it would be expensive and they wouldn’t do it,” he says. “With IP distribution you can take the feed already built in the broadcast booth and encode it. We’re also seeing a lot of live television distribution [at venues like] Buffalo Wild Wings and different sports bars.” Instead of using a matrix switcher, “we’re staring to see more and more [customers] take those TV feeds and distribute them over your regular good IP network and you can distribute data and video. So we think there is going to be a big change. We don’t think HDBasetT or matrix switchers will disappear but we think it will shrink over time.”
A look at the IP streaming features incorporated into HD, XD and XT lines:
Being Able to Add Peripherals Is Important: All models have an M.2 Wi-Fi interface. The XT and XD models offer a low-profile M.2 SSD interface connector for added storage. “It’s the same size essentially as a stick of gum and [can store] pretty much as much content as you can imagine,” Hastings says.
