Founded
2004Software developed since
2000
Award winning company
• Microsoft. NET Awards
• Solution of the Year – NEC Partner Awards
• Deloitte – 3:a Rising Star
Our partners
ARM
Founded in 1990
Joint venture between Acorn, Apple and VLSI (now part of Philips)
License processor architecture – do not manufacture themselves
Architecture combines high processing power with low power consumption
Ideal for small computing devices – mobile phones and tablet computers
Almost every mobile phone or tablet computer on the market today uses an ARM core processor
Development driven by this market and has been on incredible trajectory
ARM in Digital Signage – why?
Potentially offers:
Relatively cheap Media Players
Compact size
Low footprint
Bryan Crotaz, CTO Silver Curve
Instoremedia partner:
17 years of digital signage expertise
Projects include St Pancras, Heathrow T5, Lord’s scoreboards
Vendor choice consultants for M&S project
Consultancy + software development
ARM in Digital Signage – How to harness the power
Hardware acceleration:
As well as rendering media, Instoremedia media players communicate with a central server and
with each other over a LAN
They know what to play, when to play it, and they report their health
This requires processor power
Fortunately computers have two processors – a CPU and a GPU
Hardware acceleration pushes graphical processing to the GPU
So the CPU is free to do everything else
ARM in Digital Signage – any catch?
Still has lower processing power than other architectures, although developing
A relatively minor problem – some of the more processor heavy formats will require a PC
based Media Player. Some other functionality may be reduced or lost.
Operating System – A Media Player should be dedicated to its task
PC based operating systems such as Windows have an embedded standard or can be
otherwise customised
ARM operating systems for use on mobile phones and tablets do not
This means customising the operating system on a phone or tablet is generally not possible
There are some dedicated Media Player devices available
The Pi!
Incredibly low impact – 7W power usage with GPIO and wi-fi turned on!
OPS and standalone forms available
Outputs 1080p at 60 Hz over HDMI
Available for both Instoremedia enterprise and Instoremedia NOW!
Compatible with metadata rules based scheduling
ARM in Digital Signage – Aperture
Aperture is a dedicated, digital signage Operating System and Rendering Engine
for the Raspberry Pi and based on Linux
Maximises hardware acceleration
Renders h264 video combined with real time animation
Renders dynamic templates, including touch or other interactive content in qml
Next Steps?
ARM processor architecture will keep developing, driven by the mobile phone and tablet market
We expect that we will be able to personalise the shopping experience using ARM media players
Gender recognition
Smartphone to screen interactivity - Beacon interactivity