I get a number of emails from the community every week asking me questions that I really am not very equipped to answer.
Thankfully, we have a community here and around The 8BIT Network which means that I don’t feel the pressure at all to be the go-to source for everything.
*Whew!*
I received an email about “digital signage” and I thought I’d post the email here. Your thoughts would be appreciated!
From Karina Lopez,
First off let me say that I greatly appreciate everything you guys do! The 8 bit network has informed me soo much and has made me realize I am not alone in this church media guru world of ours! So thank you!
Well, my name is Karina Lopez and I currently work, or rather intern, as a Media/Music Intern at a church in a small town in Florida. My church is considered one of the largest in our area with about 200-300 in attendance every Sunday morning. We run on solely volunteers for our media ministry, except recently me as an intern. And I have a different sound guy every week pretty much.
I’m blessed to have them but its pretty hard sometimes. I’ve been an intern for about 3 years now. (Wow! Just realized how long that is.) I am currently in college getting a Bachelors in Worship Ministry, Media Technology and I’m just tryin to learn as much as possible about all aspects of media ministry in church today.
But on to my question…sorry to babble. I just found out that my church wants to put up some digital signage in the lobby and have looping announcements playing constantly.
How do I go about figuring out how to do this the cheapest possible, with the best quality and longevity?
We might even want to have live updates! Also play some mpgs or dvds. We use Media Shout so maybe there is a way to incorporate presentation software. I’ve heard of churches using an iPod Touch but Maybe in a year or so I may be approached or if I’m not there they may be looking to live feed the services.
What do you guys do/use at your church? And what have you seen or heard done at other churches? ANy suggestions? Thanks again!!
Karina
Community, Your Turn!
Love your thoughts on helping Karina out…!
Morehart says
I have seen churches use Apple TV and utilize the Flickr built in feature. You can create a slideshow from a flickr photo set. That is a bonus b/c the info does not have to be on the database it can just be on flickr and you can access it anywhere. With this you can also set up different tv’s w/ different apple tv’s to run different announcements.
Of course you then have to but the flat panel TV’s.
The only learning curve really is sizing up the graphic with the TV.
Neil Nuttall says
I remember a couple of months ago one of the CITRT guys tweeting something about this. Good thing I added it to my favourites. Here’s the link to his blog post: http://dustin.thedrewerys.com/2010/03/digital-signage/
John Saddington says
thanks!
Adam Lehman says
Not real sure but did some googling:
http://ask.metafilter.com/48082/Need-info-on-cheap-Digital-Signage
http://www.simpledigitalsignage.com/
http://www.mediasignage.com/
PhillipGibb says
hmmm, this was under consideration when we moved to a new location – and because of the already established LCD screens littered around the venue that we were renting.
but alas we did not go that route.
Otherwise, we stream quips (is that what you call them?) or a slideshow out from ProPresentor4 to the screen we have in the creche – until the band fires up. Until the Coffee stopped being served in the same room this served well as a kind of digital signage between services.
My thought for a possible solution is to either play out a Pre produced DVD to multiple LCDs mounted at appropriate locations, or to use something like PP4 with the quips/slide show. Using something like PP4 gives you the ability to interact with the LCD and fire off messages.
Using PP4 can mean that you can integrate with a live feed if needed.
Karina Lopez says
thanks everyone who has/will comment! I really greatly apprieciate your help! Neil thanks for that blog post…will be def looking into that; Adam thanks for googling…ove free stuff!; Phillip and Morehart thanks for your tips! ANd thanks John for posting it for the community! 🙂 I’ll let you know what we end up doing!
greenhornet79 says
I upload a slideshow to a computer with media shout and feed it to our lobby tvs. During services I switch the feed over to our live service feed.
mark says
Lots of software solutions but anyone got any hardware solution ideas specifically with regrads to switching sources and destinations of feeds?
Shawn says
You could try setting up a display (LCD or LED flat panel) and run a signal from the computer displaying the desired content. Here’s the device that may help run the vga from a distance over cat5 cable. http://amzn.to/ak9YYX Hall Research Technologies has more professional resources, but will probably cost much more.
Larry says
MediaSignage ROCKS!!! It is FREE and has AMAZING tools.
Yes, completely FREE Digital Signage (http://MediaSignage.com)