Although Raspberry Pi has been used as a low cost platform to drive screen based signs before, one London company, Anders Electronics subsidiary TinyGreen PC, has gone the whole hog and turned it into a fully professional digital signage platform.
Raspberry Pi
“The digital signage industry isn’t ‘technical’ in the sense that the embedded industry is,” explained TinyGreen PC sales and marketing director, Paul Mullen. “They need a solution that works out of the box. There is a huge range of Wintel and Android digital signage players out there today, but we saw an opportunity to offer a product that bridges the gaps, between the technologies, offering a player with a rendering engine, that offers stunning playback quality with a very low cost of ownership.”
“The demand for this type of professional player comes from all quarters, from small shops, small businesses, schools and colleges, to large retailers with big rollouts. Specifically all projects, whatever their size, have to work within very tight budgets, that are sensitive to media player unit price,” he continued.
“Raspberry Pi has a hugely powerful graphics processor on board that is fully capable of matching a high end x86 PC in terms of graphics and video output,” Paul Mullen continued. “The challenge with any platform is to make it easy for the customer to create and display content. In partnership with Silver Curve, we’ve realised the potential of Raspberry Pi by delivering a graphics engine that harnesses the full power of this processor to display digital signage content quickly and smoothly. Features like multiple zones, multiple layers, smooth animation and cinematic effects such as depth of field are all integral to our player. We have already integrated three leading digital signage content management systems, signagelive, InStore Media and Gimasi Italy, onto the Raspberry Pi, giving users a fully professional platform for around £280.”
The players draw just 7W – minimal compared to a standard PC player, greatly reducing the cost of ownership. A UPS mode maintains the power supply from a battery for seven minutes in the event of temporary disconnection.
Gieves and Hawkes
Amongst the first retailers to adopt the player is Gieves & Hawkes, headquartered at No.1 Savile Row and offering men’s bespoke tailoring and ready to wear clothing with a proud British tradition. The company recently cemented its position as a global luxury brand, opening a concession in a London department store. A custom window display further enhanced the brand’s presence in store, incorporating digital screen technology to show a short film created for the Autumn/Winter 14 season and shot by filmmaker Eddie Wrey. AVMI installed a professional custom screen display using the very latest in video wall technology. The video wall uses 3 professional grade ultra slim 46” screens powered by a professional digital signage platform from INSM and an Aperture powered Solitaire Raspberry Pi Media Player from TinyGreenPC.
Leadership technologies
Paul Mullen concluded, “Anders strength is our ability to integrate leadership display technologies with best in class computing platforms to create exciting customer interactive display experiences. More and more our customers across many areas, expect to find multitouch, multimedia and interactive displays that satisfy their information needs fast, easily and enjoyably. Meeting these expectations with the best possible digital signage solutions requires a successful mix of the right key components; the LCD display, the touch interface, the embedded computer, the network, and software. From 7” Android retail tablets to 85” multitouch monitors, Anders understands each and every one of these components, and can integrate them to create powerful and easily configurable digital signage solutions. The new Raspberry Pi media player is the latest example of Anders creativity and innovation in integrating computing platforms and displays.”
