Gear: Park Media Latest Firm To Go Android

October 12, 2012 by Dave Haynes

I don’t hear or read much about Park Media, but the signage software company has been around for several years now and is still cranking out product.

The firm has just announced it has joined the small but growing number of providers using the Android platform to deliver a solution.

The company’s Sign Center 5 now drives Android?based media players as well as providing more  support for PCs running Linux.

“This release,” says the San Francisco-based firm, “allows DOOH Network Operators and Services Providers to leverage Park Media’s proven enterprise-­grade DOOH software platform for use with both PC and Android?based platforms – all from a single server, and with the same back?end features and capabilities available to players running on either operating system.

The intriguing news is the PMA?100 media player, which has a $249 MSRP. It runs Android 4.0 OS (Ice Cream Sandwich), handles 1080p HD video, HTML5 content, multi­zone screen layouts, alpha compositing, external content feeds, and other media playback capabilities.

It also has expandable storage, built in wifi and lan, and support for support for RS232-­based display and peripheral control. That last bit is important because that means “cheap” solid state players can also do the important operating stuff like force screens back on – one of the arguments for instead using a full PC.

“Sign Center 5 will help our customers drive down both capital costs and operational overhead,” says Park Media President Brad Trotter. “The affordable yet extremely capable solid-­state Android media player will reduce up front costs as well as maintenance and replacement costs associated with more expensive PC-­based solutions.”

If you have a software company or are a solutions provider in the space, and you are not looking at these Android and ARM devices, you really do need to.  They will never fully supplant PCs and they come with some baggage (manufacturer quality, many Android versions), but they do two really important things: reduce capital costs and eliminate moving parts).

 

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