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Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM
Business Intelligence: Wired vs. Wireless: Evaluate Your Needs Before Purchasing Digital Signage Equipment
By Richard Cawdery, Product Manager, Adder
You've finally got the funding to purchase your new AV equipment, but should you go with a wired or wireless solution? When it comes to digital signage, there are several ways of delivering content to screens. One of the most popular ways is to use standard-style computers or purpose-built players for playout sources, and then to use some form of video distribution technology to connect the playout source to the screens. The most appropriate method of delivering the video signal from the playout source to the screens will depend upon your application, budget, and screen arrangement. With all of the recent developments in the wireless arena, you may be steering toward the newer wireless technology, but there are still many reasons to stick with good, old-fashioned wired technology.
In most cases, a wired solution is more cost-effective than wireless. In addition to cost benefits, there are many other reasons to choose a wired solution. In simple applications, a standard video cable from the playout server to the screen may suffice, but this approach becomes too limited if you want to drive multiple screens or extend the signals over a distance. Commonly, the transmission distance required for typical systems will be less than 300ft. (100 meters), and a very suitable technology to use for this is analog video extension via Cat-5, -5e, -6, or -7 cable. Cat cable is ubiquitous, easy as well as inexpensive to wire, and often already installed in buildings.
In other situations, the transmission distances will be more than 300ft., and the different twist rates of the wires in a Cat cable start to cause video color split on the video display. The quality of the video picture is very important in digital signage, and so for distances between 300ft. and 1000ft. (300 meters), a transmission system that supports deskew is usually necessary. This is why digital-signage video-transmission systems tend to have two styles of receiver units: those with deskew and those without deskew. With a wired solution, the video clarity is exact, undistorted, and delivered in realtime.
Cat-distribution systems fit the need for many digital-signage applications — although there are some instances where a wireless technology may be more suitable. Wireless technology enables screens to be moved around more readily; therefore, it is more suitable for temporary displays. Although it is more flexible than a wired system, it is more costly and the video picture is less perfect due to the video compression needed for the wireless transmission. Plus, while both wireless and wired technologies can suffer from interference caused by electromagnetic radiation, wireless signals are affected more often.
The type of distribution technology that you choose to deliver the content from your playout servers to your screens will depend on what you are trying to achieve. If you need flexibility and are prepared to make some compromises on video quality to achieve it, then a wireless solution may be the best choice. However, if you are looking for a cost-effective solution that delivers top video quality and clarity, a video distribution system using Cat cable is hard to beat.
