With the InfoComm’09 coming to an end today one wants to draw a conclusion from the show. As we are used to bad news about the display industry by now we are on the lookout for good news wherever we can find it.

Norbert Hildebrand
Insight Media Analyst

One of the obvious trends over the last few years that has been seen as the future savior of the AV industry and a substantial growth engine is Digital Signage. As a result, we combed the isles of InfoComm in search for Digital Signage and not only was it easy to spot some signs, but many major flat panel manufacturers were making Digital Signage their main message.

If this wasn’t clear enough, InfoComm had set up a digital signage pavilion where many dedicated companies showed their products from LED walls and flat panel displays to network control and content creation software.

The strongest push for Digital Signage came from the LCD manufacturers. When asked, all of them were quick with their answers and pointing out their newest products in this field. Most of manufacturers were pushing LCD based digital signs to the forefront of their corporate message. Not only predominantly placed in the booth but in some cases towering over the booth with their immense size and brightness.

Samsung showed a thin bezel design (2.4mm right / bottom and 4.3mm top / left for a total of 6.7mm) that allows them to stack LCD displays in a rack system achieving a video wall set up with very acceptable optical performance. All displays were connected by daisy chaining RJ45 cable running from a single network computer. LG showed many displays in simulated application situations around their booth, many of them aiming at digital signage applications. This certainly conveyed the message of the importance of digital signage in their corporate strategy.

When asked about their business model all of them pointed to their AV channel partners as the primary sales mechanism. While some of them may sell large projects directly, others will not compete with their own sales network and refuse to sell projects directly. This is certainly good news for the AV channel folks out there.

Other products like the enormous 103" Panasonic PDP display and LED walls are certainly addressing similar applications in the Digital Signage arena but are clearly differentiated from the LCD walls discussed above.

In total, one has to acknowledge the large variety of applications in this space and it can be expected that not all applications are equally suited for the various display technologies. As we all know some technologies are clear leaders in certain applications, but based on the observations on the show floor Digital Signage is not far behind in following the consumer space into an overall LCD dominance. So the interesting question is, which niche markets and display technologies can resist the LCD takeover and for how long.

We will be looking at this question in future issues of Large Display Report and in-depth reports.

So what is happening with projection? While rear projection cubes were still visible and the companies are showing them proudly as state of the art display technology for control room applications, LCD seems to be aiming strongly at this market. But tiles LCD solutions will find uses in lower-cost control room or security applications, so may not steal that much business from cubes.

When asked about Digital Signage applications, the projector manufacturers took a component supplier stance rather than the driver of the end-solution. Quite in contrast of the LCD manufacturers who all are seeing themselves as some type of system provider. Even though most of them do not have the manpower or products to support total installations, at least they have the attitude.

So how are the manufacturers doing in this field? Most of the LCD manufacturers see good growth rates in Digital Signage even though North America is still a little bit behind Europe in overall adoption. It is great to write about good news for a change.