Something often overlooked in Digital Signage offerings is audio.  DS offers a great way to engage and inform customers but sound is something that can follow the customer as they move around the area, be it a shopping mall, on-hold music or a reception area. CampaignManager 2009 includes a new audio-only player (Dappler*) along side the regular Digital Signage client.  This means that you can now create your own "Radio Station" with music, information or ads playing.  Using Pooling (see below) you can go as far as creating your own Radio Channel.  Pooling allows you to create patterns so that you could (for example) play your company jingle at the top and bottom of each hour and have the intervening slots filled with music and info drawn at random from large "Pools".  This gives the real impression that the customer is listening to an actual live radio station and not just Windows Media Player on "Shuffle".  

Dappler means you can very easily create your own in-store or in-company radio by drag and drop.  The songs will never repeat until the Pool is exhausted and will never play in the same order (unless you want them to!).  Think of it as "You-FM" in a box!

*Dappler will be released with CampaignManager 2009.  If you would like a pre-release copy, please contact us.

It's been an embarrasingly long time since we posted here on the blog.  2008 has been a great year which saw the release of our current version "CampaignManager 2008".  CM 2008 introduced full screen-zoning capability as well as great improvements in the service back-end.  Digital Signage Software is more than getting media from A to B and our long history in working with customer networks large and small has been instrumental in the changes made for our 2008 version. 

For a full list of changes, check out the release notes.

Just around the corner is CampaignManager 2009.  We will release CM 2009 before the end of the year.  There are some really exciting new features and I'd like to take the opportunity to talk about one of them in particular.  Pooling as we've named it introduces an entirely new concept of managing media.  Typically, when creating a new Campaign, one adds media items to a play list and that playlist then loops around.  For many networks, this is all that is required.  However, sometimes there is a need to get a little more complex.  What if you want to have the Campaign play a file at random from a group of files... And what if you wanted that group of files to be different depending on what day it is?  Well, Pooling enables all sorts of scenarios and more.  With Pooling, you create a "Pool" which is basically a group of (usually) related files.  For example, they could be adverts.  You can create an unlimited amount of pools and each pool can have thousands of files within it.  Once the Pool has been created you need to create a "Pool Pattern".  Have a look at the image below:

The horizontal bar represents a block of time.  By default; one hour.  This is our Pool Pattern.  Within the pattern you can see different "Pool Blocks".  These Blocks are references to the Pools you have created.  So, in the example above, we start of the hour with 2 minutes and 25 seconds of content from the "Advertisement" pool.  I could have dozens of advertisements in this pool.  The software will pick them at random and play five items from the pool.  Next, the "Pop Music" pool which is selected in the screen shot.  Note the vertical bars within the blocks above.  Some have one colour, and the second item has two.  This indicates that the block has been split so that the pool it draws from at run time changes depending on the time of day.  Note the "Block Summary" in the lower right of the image.  This particular block has been altered so that between 6:15am and 9:10am it will draw content from the "My Soft Music" pool instead of the "Rock Music".

As you can see, (if you're still with me!) Pooling is a very powerful tool that allows for highly directed content based on time of day.  The great thing is that once you have created a pool pattern and added it to a Campaign, you never have to touch it again; you simply update the contents of the pool and that automatically propegates out to your network.

Not everyone will need Pooling, but for some users with complex schedules, Pooling provides an especially powerful and easy to use tool.

We plan to release a new set of online video tutorials that will demonstrate pooling and all our new features for CampaignManager 2009.  We'll blog very soon on the other features coming down the track for version 2009 such as Multi Player per PC support and Satellite support!

A short post to say we'll be attending the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas next week.  We'll be showcasing our new version of CampaignManager at the Advantech stand and basically checking out the other stands.  If you're going to be in Las Vegas next week so drop by and say hello. 

While I'm posting, check out these two short vids of an interesting deployment we're doing for a major supermarket chain.  It shows how CM can be integrated with Queue Management Systems.

Here's a picture:

and here are some (rather poor in quality I'm afraid) vids:

Some images from our stand at ISE (Integrated Systems Europe).  As you can see, Team Euro played up on Ryarc's heritage :).  At the stand we demonstrated CampaignManager's system integration by showing CM running inside EuroSign, and integrated display and PC and by linking up with Quividi Audience Measuring and analysis system.  Based on the gender of the people in front of the screen, the system can determine males from females and CampaignManager then displays the appropriate ad automatically. 

Kangaroos need not apply.

Pictured (left to right) are Jan Seutens (Business Development Manager, Ryarc EMEA), Oliver Duizabo (CEO Quividi) , Gert Jan van Engelen (Technical Sales Ryarc EMEA), Stefaan Leroux (Technical Sales Ryarc EMEA) and Hans Vogel (GP Systems).

In the lower right of the picture you can see Radiant Europe's Eurosign product.  An integrated display and PC device that comes with CampaignManager installed.

Amsterdam, January 28th 2008.

Leading Digital Signage technology provider Ryarc Media Systems from Sydney, Australia, opens it’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) division.

Operating from The Netherlands, Ryarc EMEA will run the Sales and Support activities in region.

Ryarc Media Systems is a digital signage software company whose technology powers distributed media applications around the globe. Ryarc’s core product is CampaignManager, an end-to-end Digital Signage management platform. The Ryarc team has been working on creating the CampaignManager product since 2001. Each year, Ryarc delivers over a billion impressions worldwide to an impressive blue chip customer base.

References include the Indian FUTURE TV retail network, where CampaignManager powers a roll-out of 10K screens, Microsoft corporation, the largest chain of Australian pharmacies, Fitness First, the Irish Permanent TSB bank, National Guard installations in the US, and many other medium to large deployments worldwide.

“2007 was a really great year for our company.  We've done superbly in our part of the world, but Europe remains relatively untapped market for our product.  With the launch of Ryarc EMEA, our European region customers can now expect the excellent after sales and technical support our Asia Pacific customers have come to expect.  The team we've put together have many years experience in Digital Signage and a great track record.  Together, that have a combined experience of over 50 years.  Our mission is to become the default choice for customers wanting to manage digital signage”.

The CampaignManager Digital Signage and Narrowcasting platform is an powerful and scalable solution that seamlessly integrates into any workflow environment where mission-critical signage is required.

Campaign Manager handles all modern media formats including HD video, live RSS feeds, real-time data updates, audience and system interactivity and offers media-on-demand capability.

Ryarc’s Zusa! module manages screen saver signage for desktop-based corporate communication and kiosk systems that run a core application.

Ryarc officially launches it’s EMEA activities during ISE 2008 in the Amsterdam RAI. 

At the occasion Ryarc EMEA will also sign the first distribution agreements with selected partners across Europe and the Middle East.

RYARC MEDIA SYSTEMS – ISE2008 -Boot M182

Ryarc BV

Gasthuisstraat 75

5708 HJ Helmond

The Netherlands

Tel    +31 (0)492 525 868

Fax   +31 (0)492 392 259

emea@ryarc.com