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!