screen media news 6.23.2010

A well run digital signage network increases advertising revenue, especially in airports. Digital Signage Universe-The Blog reports today on The Screen Forum, a UK-based organization dedicated to information sharing and networking within the digital signage industry. An interesting statistic was reported: In 2009, 4.37 billion ticketed passengers took to the sky worldwide. The US represented about 30% of the worldwide passenger traffic with more than 1.3 billion ticketed passengers.  Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, one of the world's largest domestic-based transportation hubs, handled more than 87 million passengers in 2009.

London's Heathrow airport, the world's largest international airport, handled more than 62 million international passengers in 2008. "What's happening at London's Heathrow airport is quite astonishing," said Erik Bottema, Director of Aviator North America, a division of Kinetic Worldwide. "From a media perspective, Heathrow is two-thirds of the size of Atlanta's airport, but it's generating approximately 10 times the advertising revenue." Perhaps Heathrow Airport is a prime example of what can happen when a digital signage network is implemented properly. it will be interesting to see what happens when airports, train and bus stations across American embrace digital signage technology. Read the full article here.

AUO, Samsung and LG gearing up their facilities for AMOLED production.
DisplayBlog tells us today, Taiwan-based AU Optronics (AUO) is mod­i­fy­ing its Gen 3.5 low-temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) fab­ri­ca­tion plant for small/medium AMOLED panel pro­duc­tion. The mod­i­fi­ca­tion is expected to be final­ized at the end of the third quar­ter and AMOLED panel trial pro­duc­tion is planned to com­mence at the end of 2010. Although AUO suc­cess­fully man­u­fac­tured large-size AMOLED sam­ple pan­els at its Gen 6 fab, for the tech­nol­ogy to mature it will require an addi­tional two to three years. Read Jin's full article here.

Confused by DOOH? Let's stick with digital signage.
Daniel Parisien of Digital Signage Digest writes of the compulsive need to remain digital signage. He says, "There is a lot of discussion going on in recent weeks surrounding the term digital out-of-home compared to digital signage. Some say digital out-of-home is a subset of digital signage where DOOH is related to advertising networks. Others say digital signage is not related to advertising and is a different category than digital out-of-home. Veterans to this space must remember the cyclical nature of our industry and the compulsive need gurus-of-the-week have to give a new name to digital signage." Read Daniel's full article here, at Digital Signage Digest.

Thoroughbred auction company Fasig-Tipton Co. Inc. deploys a mobile digital signage network.
According to Digital Signage Today, Fasig-Tipton contracted with Hammond Communications Group to design, implement and manage the mobile network, which is built on the Scala 5 software platform. Hammond was challenged to create a cost-effective, mobile, solid-state network that could input many sources of content and redistribute the content to 65 LCD screens positioned throughout a 1-square-mile facility. The network includes two servers and more than 20 media players, providing 720p channels and supporting multiple content sources, including VGA, DVI, HDMI, SD/SDI, HD/SDI, HD cameras, live Internet streaming, OFT and satellite. Read the article in its entirety here.