My TechDecisions ep 122 - MultiSync® Message Series

Zach Comeau (Associate Editor/Host):

0:00
My name is Zach Comeau and you're listening to the My TechDecisions podcast.

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0:37
Hey folks, welcome back to the My TechDecisions Podcast.

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Like I said, my name is Zach and I'm your host.

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Today's episode is about the digital signage industry and how new products are being designed to fit very specific use cases and help IT professionals better manage and deliver content.

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To talk about this is Ben Hardy, a Senior Product Manager at Sharp NEC Display Solutions.

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Ben and I talk about how digital signage is evolving to meet the demands of the market and how the company's new multi seek message series of displays can give organizations the flexibility they need when it comes to digital displays.

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Before we get to Ben, here's a quick reminder that the My TechDecisions podcast is available on iTunes and the Google Play Store.

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Download and subscribe to your weekly interviews with technology experts that can help you make the right decisions for your organization.

1:28
And now, here's Ben Hardy.

1:33
So, Ben, how has the digital signage market evolved over the last few years?

Ben Hardy (Senior Product Manager at Sharp):

1:39
Oh, man, that's a big question.

1:41
So digital signage market as a whole, it's really changed a lot based on I think application mainly we've found that just through market data, through research and stuff like that there's really become a separation in in between like what is considered more of a presentation type of device and what is considered what is considered more so a a public display and and obviously those kind of presentation corporate based devices are are going to be different and and they're going to be designed differently.

2:13
They're going to have different applications, different target markets and stuff like that for really what solution they're they're trying to provide to whoever the customer is.

2:23
You know corporate, corporate based or presentation based displays.

2:26
I mean that's like you know a front room presentation device, control room, type of screens, educational products, huddle spaces, interactive boardrooms, stuff like that.

2:35
Whereas public displays you can, you can sort of dig a bit deeper there and talk about when a screen is used for advertising purposes for example.

2:44
So when it's used as a form of visual marketing communication to promote or or sell a product, you know retail brown branding, sales boards and restaurants, stuff like that.

2:56
Or kind of another step I guess sidestep would be if it's used for entertainment purposes.

3:02
We find that a lot of a lot of customers, I mean they don't necessarily just want to buy a TV and and stick it in a in a bar because there's long run times and stuff like that or sticking it in a restaurant, you know the the bigger restaurants where they're they're using TV's, March Madness is going on right now, right?

3:16
So there's a lot of granted things are closed down but if if this was a more normal year, you know places would be packed, there'd be a lot of games that were going on.

3:22
And we're finding that a lot of times screens are also being used for entertainment purposes.

3:26
That's sort of a another type of application or really informational.

3:30
So one of the displays is used to kind of deliver certain types of critical content.

3:36
So think of like an airport, think of command and control, stuff like that, financial tickers, QSR, menu boards, things like that.

3:47
So there's really more sort of segmentation between what the screen is really going into and then kind of on top of that.

3:57
And we've seen many more in particular over the past few years kind of blurred lines between sort of previous segmentation of of what public displays kind of were defined as before to kind of where they're defined as now.

4:14
Whereas I mean you know I I've been in the industry now for almost 12 years and and when I started there was kind of like one type of one type of like new digital signage product, you know digital signage and and and commercial displays were kind of just kind of getting their feet under them still you know they were around but they they really hadn't boomed yet.

4:33
And so there was, there were digital signage products and those were like the 700 nits 24/7 over engineered all the bells and whistles types of products.

4:42
Since then obviously things have evolved a lot.

4:45
There was a segment or I guess a time segment let's say you know maybe five years ago where there was kind of lines drawn in the sand between what was entry and what was kind of mainstream and what was professional.

4:56
And that even more so now has kind of merged a bit more into just this, this general mainstream type of segment in the market.

5:07
And and that you know in turn really takes up the the most volume, the volume in the market because it's, you know it's, it's broad.

5:16
I mean there's there's different types of mainstream products and and they can be positioned for different types of applications based on the the customers sort of needs and wants.

5:25
Yeah.

5:25
So I mean it's, you know, short answer, it's, it's very much evolved long long weighted answer is, is kind of what I just went through.

5:34
It really depends on on where it's going into, what it's being used for, what the customer needs and so forth.

Comeau:

5:41
Yeah.

5:41
Now how are those needs of customers changing and how is digital signage becoming more flexible as a result?

Hardy:

5:48
Yeah.

5:49
So I honestly think that I, I think the customers are becoming more aware and and more educated of what's out there.

5:58
I don't necessarily necessarily think their, their needs are changing, but I think that product development as a whole has changed more so to meet their needs.

6:07
So it's not like quality is, is has really changed in the marketplace.

6:11
You know there's there's still a kind of defined line between right, I guess a big difference between putting a TV on a wall and and then putting a commercial display on a wall.

6:22
But I I I think that from a from a customer's perspective like I said they're, they're, they're they're technical acumen on on what the digital signage products are that are in the market based on their particular application is, is what's changing most.

6:38
So I mean like I said and and I don't mean to go back to it, but you know back 12 years ago there was one type of commercial display, it was this you know big type of commercial display.

6:48
You get it you you, you put it on the wall and it lasts forever.

6:51
But there was a a big price point for that and obviously ASPs are changing, expectations are changing for for price points and things like that.

6:59
And you know we as a manufacturer obviously have to adapt our our plans and and we have to kind of evolve our new product lines to be able to to fit those those focused new changing needs of the of the of the market based on the customer.

7:13
So I mean you know not every product needs to run 24/7, not every product needs to support portrait capabilities, not every product needs eight different inputs.

7:24
You know, no, no one's really always, always using all of that.

7:28
So you know in particular for this new product line that that that we've been developing, we really took a lot of the feedback and and we took a lot of the knowledge that we've been seeing and that we've been hearing from in the market and and developed a product line that I think fits those needs pretty appropriately now because like I said you know the mainstream segment is broad.

7:51
And so.

7:51
So what we've gone ahead and done is we've kind of created a a more so tiered type of approach where you know if if you need checkbox A, B and C then this product's good.

8:00
If you need checkbox A, B, C and D then you know then you're going to have to go to this product and if you need more than that we get another product for that too.

8:06
So yeah, I I don't know if customer needs have really changed.

8:09
I think customers are getting more clever.

8:11
I think that they're they're finding new ways to display content and and and that being said we have also had to adapt for for that type of purpose as well.

8:22
I believe that you you actually did a a podcast with some some colleagues of mine previously based on Intel SDM and and that's that's another evolution.

8:32
And from from OPS what we what we kind of previously had before and you know our our, our, our sort of stance at NEC is to always give the customer the, the modularity type of approach.

8:45
So that if they do have a particular installation or a product need that the base product may not fulfil.

8:52
We want to sort of empower the customer to allow them to sort of add different peripherals to really make their product a solution and and that's that's kind of you know I'm not going to dig into SDM I know you've talked about that ad nauseam with some of my colleagues but that's kind of the the basis of that as well.

Comeau:

9:08
So I'm assuming you're mentioning or you're referencing the multi sync message series.

9:12
So let's let's get into that and tell us about it in you know what new products are are in that that that new group of the new series.

Hardy:

9:21
Yeah yeah absolutely.

9:22
So we've been doing a lot of product development over the last and like I said like 2 ½, three years.

9:29
You know when we've sort of seen a lot of these these changes occur and we've we've kind of recognized that that customer needs are changing.

9:37
You know they they aren't necessarily, they don't need, they don't.

9:42
We kind of, I don't want to say we over engineer but we put a lot of engineering under our displays and there's features, functions and stuff like that that may not ever get used.

9:50
And so what we wanted to do is we kind of wanted to separate what is needed, you know what's necessary for for a majority of installations and and then what isn't.

10:01
And so we wanted to focus on really what the customer needs most, what's most important to them and then we want to build a series of products kind of around that and and so, So what we've ended up with now is like I said before, a kind of a tiered product approach in what we're calling the Message series, but really encapsulates that mainstream type of segment that I talked about before.

10:25
And and that's going to be the ME series, which is, which is kind of the Message series essential, the M series which would be a step up from there, which is really the the Message series kind of mainstream and then the MA series which is the the Message series advanced.

10:40
And and you know, throughout the entire process we wanted to also stay true to who NEC is and what NEC is known for.

10:49
So I'd like to talk about sort of pillars of design, you know, kind of main type, main type of points to always focus on through the design process.

10:59
And and in all three of those, if there was let's say 3 pillars each or so in all three of those it was also it was maintaining reliability.

11:06
So maintaining the reliability that that NEC is known for a while also for the ME series, you know making sure it's cost conscious and and and commercial and checks and boxes that are really necessary like you know full external control and and and portrait orientation and full metal chassis and stuff like that.

11:22
Whereas the M series, you know that reliability of course is, is something to maintain but that's where it gets a bit more professional.

11:28
That's where you need to have like 24/7 capabilities or high haze panels.

11:33
That's a, that's a thing that's high haze is more of a.

11:37
It's like when the display panel is has more of a matte type of finish and then therefore it's not going to necessarily reflect all of the incidental or ambient lights and you can't see the image on your screen, it's going to scatter it because obviously if you're just seeing your own reflection in the display, what's the point of having the display up there in the 1st place, you're not really getting your message across.

11:56
And then above that would be the advanced and that's where we have features such as you know like MST, Daisy chains, multi-screen transport.

12:05
We have 8K support through this line, they're all 4K products.

12:08
We have 8K support through this line through DP 1.4, HDMI Daisy chain, multi picture mode, which means that you can have multiple simultaneous images on the display at once.

12:18
So we're kind of breaking, you can have sort of a quad type of display type of thing going in there if you have a command control application or something like that.

12:26
But that's more of the advanced professional and and reliable again I would say for those types of pillars of of design.

12:35
So we wanted to maintain like I said the reliability and then kind of get a give a almost a step up and step down approach.

12:41
And then the the customer, the customer themselves could kind of pick and choose based on you know what their needs are.

12:48
Not everything you know is going to need Daisy chain or I didn't mention but wide color gamut in our MA series not everybody is going to need what what we have is called our spectra view engine which is basically our our color critical.

13:05
It's it's our it's our color critical chipset that's within the product that allows you know ultimate adjustability like not everyone needs that and so we don't need to put that in every product.

13:14
And so that's that's kind of what that's for.

13:16
Not everyone needs 24/7 you know and that's sort of that middle tier if they if they do but they don't need all the bells and whistles.

13:21
Some people just want to screen on the wall.

13:22
They want to be able to schedule it.

13:23
They want to be able to control it.

13:25
They want to be able to talk to it from an external location and they want it to to to stay up and and to look good that's where really where that low end would be.

13:33
So yeah that that that's really the message series kind of taking a step back.

13:39
I mean they're all, I kind of talked a bit more positioning there, but they're all, they're all four cable products really 43 inch up to 65 inch for the M&M series, 43 inch up to 55 inch for the MA series.

13:53
All of them can do landscape portrait.

13:55
All of them have full external control control system Cam paddability, all have full metal chassis.

14:00
So it gives them more of that sort of robust true commercial type of feel as opposed to some you know cheaper composite or PVC type of build or something like that.

14:09
The M series and the MA series are 24/7.

14:13
They have the integrated fans.

14:14
So we have you know we've our lifeblood is really to make sure that your NEC products on the wall are are going to stay how they, how they they're going to maintain and they're going to they're going to keep the image that you want up there for a long period of time.

14:29
So we do have integrated temperature sensors that are really connected to thermodynamic fans and that's that's an automatic type process in the M and the MA series.

14:38
You know, if a product were to ever get a little bit too hot, you can have the screens automatically send out an e-mail to IT director, whoever it is that's managing the network.

14:47
And also instead of instead of some, some you know, competitive screens out there that don't necessarily have an active type of cooling, active type of cooling system within their products.

14:58
You know, if it gets too hot in our products, our fans will turn on, it'll suck that hot air out of there.

15:02
Whereas the only other way to lower the BTU count and therefore the heat is to in in other series would be to lower the brightness then you're just taking away from the image entirely which is not what we want to do.

15:13
So we still do have a bit of that over engineering into our our 24/7 products because we have to you know like I said that's that's kind of our lifeblood that's that's that reliability right there. Sorry about that.

Comeau:

15:28
You know what applications were were these displays on for?

Hardy:

15:32
Oh man applications are are are very broad.

15:37
I mean if we're if we're going to be just talking about the message series as a whole like I said there's there's that sort of distinction between presentation focused and and and digital signage focused these these were were developed with with digital signage type of focus in mind to start.

15:53
But I mean there's there's all different types of applications whether it's for advertising, entertainment or or informational.

15:59
I mean the the higher end stuff would really be more so.

16:03
So the MA series would be really be more so for the QSR type of menu boards, the financial tickers, if there's ever high end retail because you can take advantage of that white colour game and you can take advantage of really our spectra sview engine technology that allows you to really get your colours where they need to be from an advertising perspective or from a branding perspective.

16:24
The M series which is kind of the step down from there which is still 24/7, you know that that's really good for like higher education, hallways, corporate signage, stuff like that where you need 24/7 functionality where you gonna maybe battle some some incidental light and you want to make sure that your image is always crisp and clear and clean.

16:43
And then the the ME series is really kind of mainly everything else.

16:47
It could fit into a lot of places because that is our our cost conscious type of product.

16:51
It could fit into K12, I could fit in the House of worship.

16:54
It can fit into to really some of these other verticals where they just really want a screen on the wall to show promotional boards or something like that.

17:01
So it it it, it's really collectively across the entire message series product line.

17:09
It really could fit into just about any signage based application and that's what we designed it for.

17:16
You know instead of trying to push every little feature that we've ever had or we've ever designed or that's new into one product and then kind of price this out for certain verticals.

17:27
We wanted to have this this step up, step down approach that allows you to you know pick your product based on on, on your needs.

17:34
And you know on top of that all of these products they do have that modularity which is the the SDN and the Raspberry Pi compute module.

17:44
So there's a kind of clever type of electrical, mechanical design where we have a slot on the side of each of the units where you can house either an SDMS and a Raspberry Pi compute module or kind of take out the middle middle piece there and you could put an SDML there.

18:01
So we do give you that modularity for each of the product lines.

18:05
Then in case you want to incorporate you know any of the Intel based PCs or anything like that that are in that SDM form factor, SDI, HD based TE, ATSENTSE tuner.

18:18
But on top of that we're looking into other types of peripherals like SIMP, 2110, NDI, things like that.

18:24
And I know that Chris and George I believe was previously talked about this and how they use you know SDM is really the evolution of OPS because you know it gives us larger bandwidth capabilities, uses PCIE Express meaning it's kind of easier to design to and and so forth.

18:40
So we do give that flexibility for all three of these lines as well.

Comeau:

18:45
Great.

18:46
So how do these fit into the overall NSC portfolio?

Hardy:

18:51
Yeah, Wow.

18:52
So it it actually it it, it kind of takes over a a big chunk of of our our current portfolio.

18:58
So we've had our and I I'm I'm gonna say smaller format, but I mean sort of smaller size, large format for us which is 32 inch and above.

19:07
But in particular here we're talking about 32 to 65 inch.

19:10
We've had our our CE and our V series for quite some time and so those are essentially going to be transitioning to this ME, M or MA.

19:20
So we have kind of two lines that are going to be merging or I guess separating into kind of three different lines.

19:27
It allowed us to kind of bridge some gaps that we quite frankly had in our lineup mainly on the lower end where you know we had customers that wanted to run a a simple screen and portrait, but we couldn't necessarily support that with their lowest end product.

19:42
And then sometimes from our end we'd we'd kind of come out-of-the-box swinging a bit too high from what the customer was expecting to pay for something like that with our with our older C Series.

19:52
So, yeah, so, so this is going to, this is going to take over a a big portion of really our, our mainstream or sorry our, our main, our main product lineup that would fit into that mainstream segment And it does contain obviously the 55 inch panel size which is the the,

20:12
biggest pan of size, not the biggest but the most volume driving panel size in the market.

20:17
So that that does contain that for all three of these product lines too.

20:21
And then then we know that you know 49 and 43 and 65 is also huge and the others are growing.

20:26
So it's a it's a big portion and we expect you know to to do really great things with this, this new product line and and hopefully better position ourselves and better position our customers and really also give them and you know make sure that they also know that that that all these products have that maintained NEC reliability.

Comeau:

20:44
Yeah.

20:44
So our our audience is you know IT guys, IT managers, CIOs, etcetera.

20:51
So how does this kind of take the burden off of their shoulders when when they're you know looking for for the right, you know digital display for or whatever project they have going on.

Hardy:

20:59
Yeah, Yeah.

21:00
So, so that was that was also a a focus for all of these lines is that we wanted to be able to empower sort of IT managers in the IT crowd to be able to communicate to these devices basically as if they're talking, they're they're standing right there with their remote control.

21:16
And because you know obviously you don't, you're not going to be in front of every single display, but they won't.

21:20
But anything you can essentially do from the remote control, you can do externally now.

21:24
Just based on our our HEX commands over TCPIP communication or RS232, whatever they're running.

21:31
You know most of these IT managers obviously is going to be TCPIP, but it's going to be full feedback as far as how the commands go.

21:37
So you know you can ping each display every five seconds.

21:41
You want to to say hey, are you on, it's going to come back and say yeah, I'm on all good, don't worry about it.

21:46
So we wanted to make sure that that robustness was still built into all of our product lines, so that really the IT crowd and IT management or IT managers would be able to really keep tabs in all of these products throughout their IT infrastructure.

22:01
So yeah, all of that ME, M, MA and then every, every product really beyond that beyond our our message series has that type of capability.

Comeau:

22:11
And when are these available?

Hardy:

22:15
So that's a great question.

22:16
So we've actually announced the entire product line back on three one.

22:21
So these products are are going to be hitting the shores here over the next couple months.

22:26
Like I said ME, M and MA all really start at 43 inch.

22:30
The ME and the M go up to 65 and the MA then has a 43, 49 and 55 which really is the majority of the sizes that are needed in the market for these digital sinage types of installation.

22:41
So we're getting real excited for them to hit the shores and and and hit the and hear the feedback because we've like I said done a lot of behind the scenes development on these.

22:51
And then I believe that we came out with a really strong product line here.

Comeau:

22:55
Great.

22:57
Ben, thanks very much.

22:58
We appreciate your time.

Hardy:

22:59
Cool.

23:00
Thanks.

23:00
Anytime.

23:01
Zach, good talking to you.

23:02
Good seeing you.

Comeau:

23:03
You as well.

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23:06
Thanks for listening to another episode of the My TechDecisions podcast, where it's our mission to help you make technology decisions for your company.

23:13
If you would like to learn more, head to mytechdecisions.com or follow us on Twitter @MyTechDecisions.

23:19
You can also follow me on Twitter @ZWComeau.

23:23
Until next time.

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