Smart Displays On The Rise: Updated Report On SoC In Digital Signage

October 29, 2018 by Dave Haynes

About 18 months ago, Sixteen:Nine first looked at the state of smart displays and raised the question of whether digital signage displays with embedded System on Chip (SoC) players inside represented the future path for the industry.

In early 2017, almost every sign pointed to widespread adoption. Today, it is clear that adoption is happening.

All of the leading leading professional display manufacturers now ship digital signage displays with some sort of embedded media players – though almost all of them do it a bit differently.

Those display companies, and the software companies that have adopted or tuned their platforms to work with embedded players, are all reporting smart displays are very significant and growing parts of their businesses.

50% Or More Of Business Now

It represents 50% or more of the business for some well-established software companies, and numerous companies contacted for this report reported steadily growing percentages of their business migrating away from PCs and dedicated player boxes to all-in-one displays. One company said 80% of its deployments now use SoC displays.

In 2014-15, rollouts were counted by the dozens or 100s. Now there are numerous networks on SoC that number in the 1,000s, and individual sites (like sports and entertainment venues) using 100s. The Utah Jazz arena in Salt Lake City has, for example, 600+.

This updated and refreshed report looks at where things now stand, and most importantly, does serious lab-based testing on how the displays and their processors perform. That work, as well as sections on areas like security, were done by my friends at Prague-based SignageOS, a start-up specifically focused on building software bridges between CMS platforms and SoC devices. They also helped with graphic design.

The testing revealed many things, and generally showed the newest generations of smart displays are worthy options to PCs.

Click To Download And Save File (Link Below)

The report is free to download and there are now strings or hooks attached. Just click here and save the file.

I considered seeking sponsorships to cover off the time spent, but opted instead to keep it clean and neutral. 20-plus companies provided their insight – on the record or privately – for this updated report.

 

  1. Seems like you are proving the Soc’s domination in digital displays, lol. Do Utah Jazz arena uses all 600+ displays of Soc?

  2. Jan Dockal says:

    Actually yes, according to Samsung blog post more than 600 displays are SOC. https://insights.samsung.com/2018/06/06/the-utah-jazz-creates-the-ultimate-fan-experience-with-digital-signage/

  3. John C. Wang says:

    Great work, Dave, except that it should have included IAdea in the Android 7.1 category. We are one of the leaders in continued improvement of platform performance. It would be great if you can amend the report with this information.

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