Display technology trends and predictions for the commercial digital signage market
News in the commercial display market has traditionally gone to "he who can design the largest screen." But from a business perspective, there is a lot going on behind the bright glow of LCD. Here are some trends from 2010 that have emerged specifically from the commercial grade display market and some predictions for the market in 2011.
The future of LED and 3D in digital signage. There was a lot of movement in the consumer space with LED (backlit displays) and 3D in 2010, but the professional display market is still in a growth phase when it comes to these emerging display technologies.
Keith Yanke, product manager at NEC Display Solutions, predicts however that there will be a large push in 2011 to move to LED-backlit displays.
3D is more of a specialty application. Again, it was the rage in the consumer space this year, but since public digital signage can‘t require viewers to wear glasses, the market has taken to autostereoscopic 3D, or "no glasses" technology. The 3D effect gets better with these displays every year, but is far from perfect. Look for display companies to continue partnerships with third party 3D suppliers while finding applications where 3D makes the most sense.
Touch straight from the manufacturer.
"As we migrate from using dumb mobile phones to smartphones and iPads, we‘re quickly becoming a society that wants to interact with displays," Yanke said.
NEC, along with several other manufacturers, launched lines of entry-level commercial grade displays this year, telling us something we probably already knew: there are a lot of people out there who want to install digital signage that get sticker shock when quotes roll in. With many SMB-type customers on a limited budget, entry level lines of screens provide the reliability and manufacturer‘s warranty of a commercial grade at a price that is better associated with consumer grade products.
LG has had its Stretch Screen on the market for a couple years now, and just this year NEC released the X431BT, a similar 43-inch wide screen with a 16:4 aspect ratio. The screen size has a lot of promise given its strange size and novelty, especially in the gaming and QSR spaces. But due to the odd size and the custom-type manufacturing involved, the price for these screens is more than their full 16:9 size brethren, leading most buyers to opt for bigger screens for the same price. We‘re out of the recession, but 2010 still remained a year of practicality for most decision-makers, not novelty.
Digital signage bundle solutions.
Product lines expanded to suit market demand.
"We found that not every application needs everything, but not every application can get by on a low-cost screen," Yanke said. "There was definitely a need for a good, better, best scenario."