The First 48 Hours

[causticbuddhist]

Well my first screen has been up and running for about 48 hours now in a new hotel here and no complaints.

Media signage is replacing an HTML version of a display board I cooked up for the hotel while I was their chief engineer.

The first 14 hours or so, I saw the player restart itself twice but for the last 34 hours everything has been running smooth as a button.  The single scene is very simplistic (a small looped video, a weather component, an Embedded RSS feed and three HTML components) but serves there need very well.

Honestly the flexibility was the part that received the biggest thumbs up, of course my cost of free was a no brainer also (this is my test project and I know the owners and operators of the property).  The thought of a second revenue stream (selling ad time with my small cut of their profit) was well welcomed and the guest satisfaction of having the arrival and departure times of the local airport visibly shown in a high traffic area is outstanding.

I already have two more properties interested in me doing work for them!

Well a real world example at work.  Thanks Media Signage I might have just found my new calling 

[Barry]

How did you obtain the airport info? ;

[causticbuddhist]

Lucky for me the airport here publishes a dynamic version on their website, so I used the HTML component here and looped it every 30 seconds or so to update it.

I've also been playing with the FIDS (Flight Information Display System) components from newbielink:http://www.flightstats.com [nonactive] and they work well in Media signage but cost a small amount and since I was doing the first one for free I used what I could to reduce the overall cost.

Eventually (meaning when I figure out how) I want to get the XML feeds straight from the airlines and feed that into an RSS reader or something similar.

I'll post a screen shot sometime tomorrow and keep ya'll updated.

[causticbuddhist]

Attached is an actual remote screen capture of one of one of my time lines.



The far left and right screen divisions are html components mirroring the airports FIDS, the top center is a mp4 video, below that is a html component, third down is a rotating picture showing the airlines logos/flight delay statuses, and then a simple three day weather component.

Last night the property had a large charity event...so I showed them a proof of concept that they can rotate through different scenes at any given time (cooked up a quick scene about the charity event) and had it play for 5 minutes on the hour and 2 minutes on the half hour during the event.  They loved it and now understand the concept of day-parting.

Currently:

• I have a very strong interest in the project from a Houston hotel, and slight interest from 3 other hotels.  Doing one project for free has generated a decent amount of interest in the software.
• They are interested in a kiosk type display!  So I started working on a smoke and mirrors concept to show off to them.  Basically it would have a dual display (touch screen) that when touched would kick in another time line with the kiosk functions.  This concept generated a lot of interest in the management and even a discussion about rolling it out in all their properties, about 300 in total, depending on cost.
  Also if any of ya'll know someone interested in helping me code this kiosk for a commission rate (I'm doing all this out of pocket currently) I'd be interested in hearing from them.
• They also have interest in setting up some kind of display inside their elevators...this one is stumping me at the moment (my first concept is simply a digital frame) but I'm exploring it in depth.