Become a digital signage expert

Digital Signage appears to be taking over the world. Flat screen displays with advertising or informational messages are everywhere. But how often have you seen one that doesn’t look quite right?

According to US industry body, the Digital Signage Experts Group (http://www.dseg.org), that’s because digital signage depends on the interplay of numerous different technologies, and the expertise and understanding of all these is often lacking.

“The problem we face ... is that digital signage appears quite simple on the surface, but becomes a tangled web of interconnected and complex technologies that all act together in unison to produce the image we see on screen,” it says.

“The challenge this poses for the designers, installers, content creators, advertising/marketing people and service providers alike ... is one of immersion and full understanding of what it is really all about.  The group argues that many companies understand parts of the puzzle - displays, networking, software, content etc - but few understand the whole picture of what digital signage requires.

Eugene Razbash of CombTel, leading supplier of IPTV and Digital Signage solutions considers "training investment is very important ... the better the understanding operators have of their systems, the better results they're able to deliver

DSEG was established “to provide impartial and agnostic education and certification standards programs for the complex digital signage industry, and the technologies driving it” and to this end it offers a series of online courses in the technologies of digital signage.

The introductory Digital Signage Certified Experts course is designed to quickly bring audiovisual, information technology, advertising, out-of-home marketing and content creation professionals up to speed so they can “prosper in the booming digital signage market.”

DSEG promises that the course will “allow you to master the formulas for successful design, hardware and software selection, deployment, content creation and ROI/ROO for digital signage rollouts.” It “delves deeply into the scale and scope of the digital signage market/industry and examines the seven key elements of digital signage.”

A second course, the Digital Signage Network Experts course, goes beyond the basic introduction to look at networking digital signage devices. It “provides a path of discovery into the mysteries of network communications and Internet protocols and reveals the secrets of ports, throttling, bandwidth, along with network security and policies.”

The third module, the Digital Signage Display Experts course, focuses on calibration of displays to achieve optimum performance. According to DSEG, “It is a fact of life that video display devices never perform at their peak as they are delivered from a manufacturer. Proof of this is the patchwork quilt of images that you will encounter in any big box store or video wall display.”

“Proper calibration is a must and goes beyond simply adjusting some settings on a display. Each display type has its own personality and responds to inputs and environments in different ways. Understanding the nuances of each technology and how to address them to provide the perfect picture is a requirement.”

The final course, Speed II, is aimed at “project managers and supply professionals who want to succeed with digital signage and dynamic place-based media.” It defines the non-technical elements that “make digital signage happen” with emphasis on areas that can assure the sustainable success of the medium and its use.

All the courses are delivered online. Each consists of a slide presentation with commentary and culminates in an automated examination. After successful completion of the exam, students receive a PDF certificate of attainment via email. Prices for the courses range from $US195 to $US295 and they must be completed within 30 days of purchase, although, the DSEG web site says that this limit “can be extended at the discretion of our staff.”

For more information:

• www.dseg.org
• IPTV NEWS

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