Corporate Marketing Video

[Mark Suszko]

Setting aside the legalities of the programming, what you probably will end up using is a hard drive-based MPEG2 playback unit, feeding the various TV’s using a streaming video signal over CAT-5 cable. You can search the term “Digital Signage Systems” and find a lot of info. These can be updated by an internet connection overnight, fed new programming, adjusting the schedule and playlist (so you can alternate movies with say, ads for the service department specials of the month and etc.).Sony makes one of these, there are many other sources, DOREMI and some others… you could use AppleTV or something by ELGATO maybe… One MPEG player unit can output to many monitors if you run the signal thru a distribution amplifier first, then run coax to each location.

Another way to go, if the wiring runs are a problem, is to put one of the MPEG players everywhere the monitors are, locally, and have them connect to the internet for system updates.

You could also go old-school, and send from one MPEG player or a BluRay or DVD to all the TV’s using a standard def RF modulator and simple coax cable to their over-the-air analog TV tuners (if they even HAVE one now). If coax is a problem, I have heard of using cat4 network cable and baluns to send TV signals a long way for very cheap.

One other cheapo way to go: $30 DVD player on each monitor, you can cram 8 hours of SD quality programming on a DVD you can burn yourself. Change out the programmign by swapping disks. The quality of that may not be great. Spend around $100 each for BluRay players and you have that time and quality problem solved, as they have a much larger capacity. But you’ll need a bluray burner and authoring software, obviously.

[Noah Kadner]

Yeah if the coax/or what have you wiring is possible I’d go with a Mac Mini (or a PC if needed politically) and do a live playout/playlist sorta thing. Tons of apps out there that will do this. But yeah- you’ll be getting the dealership into massive legal risk should anyone ever happen into the dealership wondering how you licensed all that content. Might be simpler to just have two monitors in each waiting room. One showing cable TV and the other just offers.

Noah

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[Grinner Hester]

just a loopable dvd player and a screen if I’m understanding correctly.

[Mark Suszko]

Grinner, he’s got to feed six different buildings. So he either needs to run dedicated cable everywhere , or put point-source players everywhere.

[Brent Dunn]

Do you really have 8 hours of footage, or just 1 or 2 hours that you can loop?

Unless they want to pay an AV contractor to set up a system, I think the BluRay players in each building looping would probably work. My Doctor’s office has a set up on multiple floors in their building doing something like this. It was part of their construction. I think it all is played from a computer system.

Brent Dunn
Owner / Director / Editor
DunnRight Films
DunnRight Video.com
Video Marketing Toolbox.net

Sony EX-1,
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 7D
Mac Pro Tower, Quad Core,
with Final Cut Studio

HP i7 Quad laptop
Adobe CS-5 Production Suite

[Ademola Tella]

Wao! Twelve words that said it all! That’s the way I’ll do mine if I have to. Years of experience and exposure, I like guys like you.
Cheers!