Repeat Signage Media Wall software displaying artwork, pictures of donors and Microsoft Word document of donor names (blanked out for security).
Main image above courtesy of Sharp NEC Displays
Repeat Signage Media Wall software turns donating into an art, with a hospital wall of thanks
Repeat Software worked with a US based digital artwork installation company to set up a ‘donor wall’ in a large US hospital. This was a 6 screen installation to display thank you messages to people and organisations that had donated money to the hospital.
The Donor Wall project plan was to create a work of art that displayed beautiful background images that spanned all 6 screens and then to change some or all of the screens simultaneously every 15 seconds. Along with the background images, Microsoft Word documents with the names of people who had donated, and also images of patients, donors and doctors, needed to be displayed on individual screens.
Since this project was completed, and is still successfully displaying the US hospital donor wall, Repeat Signage has an in-built spreadsheet grid and page-turning PDF feature to give more flexibility on the types of documents that can be displayed.
Donor Background 1: There were several background images that needed to span the screens.
Every 15 seconds, one or more of the screens then change to display different pictures and donor lists
One of the benefits to the installation company was the single PC with 1 Repeat Signage Media Wall software licence, rather than having to use 6 separate player computers and six licences. The system and presentation was set up at their site before the final installation.
A timeline was created showing all 6 monitors and when presentations change
The client needed a very specific play list, including periods where some of the images changed every 5 seconds.
A timeline diagram was created to show what was needed to be displayed on each of the 6 monitors over a 24 minute period.
The Microsoft Word documents which contained the donor’s names needed to be updated by the hospital’s staff frequently and the donor wall being updated automatically from the Word documents on their network.
For privacy and security we have removed the list of donors from this image.
On installation at the hospital, the PC had to be placed around 100 feet away from the screens, which required video signal senders to be used on each monitor cable. The installation company installed a webcam pointing at the screen so they could see what was happening from the room that housed the PC.
Repeat Signage Media Wall edition, designed to create a small media/video walls, had at that time had only been tested with 4 screens. When testing this we found that updating several of these monitors at the same instant caused delays with our existing Pictures and Flash banner controls.
The Repeat Software team added a new high performance fader to our Flash banner control called ‘FADER 01’, which you will see if you insert a Flash banner control into a Repeat Signage presentation.
Screenshot of Repeat Signage setting up areas for the presentations
We set up a presentation that was 4160x2880 pixels with 6 Flash banner ‘FADER 01’ controls sized and positioned to match the physical positions of the screens.
The next technical issue was getting the screens to change simultaneously. We started by testing a presentation with each of the 6 controls having separate play lists of pictures and Word documents. Because of the large number of pixels on the main screens, i.e. 1920x1080, and changing these, then there was a noticeable delay between screens changing. So the Repeat Software team added the ‘Controller’ control which allows the individual play lists of each of the Flash banner controls to be synchronized.
The background image in the Repeat Signage presentation had to look like this
So we were left with two choices in order to put these bits of the background images in the play lists of each of the Flash banner controls. Either manually cut out each of the parts of the background image so that each of the controls had its own piece or allow the manual cropping of images in Repeat Signage
Repeat Signage Media Wall software successfully running 24/7, since December 2013
The finished project. This system has been in place at the hospital, successfully running 24/7 since 2013.
One of the things clients like about Repeat Software in our company’s willingness to customise Repeat Signage to fit clients needs. Doing this particular project meant changing several parts of the system, including manually cropping of pictures, display of Microsoft Word documents in picture based controls and the introduction of the Controller.
We are happy to discuss new features and implement those which will have a wider benefit to our existing and future clients. We also welcome working with system integrators and new Repeat Signage reseller partners.
More information on Repeat Signage Media Wall software.
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