One of the major uses of digital signage displays is in presenting restaurant menus, price lists, timetables, room bookings, and other tabular information in an attractive manner and updating it instantly as situations change. In many cases that information is already stored and managed on external computers in common office productivity programs such as Excel or in an online resource over a network.

To facilitate the transfer of information, Sedao added a new FTP export feature and a selection of intelligent templates to the QuickChange digital signage system. This turns the management and updating of content flowing into the digital signage system from the host data computer a trivial and transparent task. Untrained operators simply manage their spreadsheets and databases in the normal way and the information is automatically transferred onto the display, to be presented instantly on a professional-quality graphic image.

With the addition of FTP targets the freshly updated content can also be displayed on devices other than Windows-based digital signage displays, extending the network and range of applications to include almost any type of digital display, including digital picture frames, PDAs and iPhones, Web sites, and Linux-based digital signage players.

“Digital signage is no longer simply about a single large flat panel display in a corridor or office that shows a revolving set of images. With these new features in QuickChange anyone can easily manage an extensive system that delivers dynamic content in a professional-quality graphics confident that the same content is instantly updated on a whole set of coordinated but diverse display devices,” says David Oades, Sedao’s managing director. “So the same information can be presented to the viewer in the most readily digestible manner. And it’s all made so simple that operators do not have to learn how to use a new system or even think about the layout or structure of the digital signage system; they just carry on working in their normal manner on their familiar office productivity programs such as Excel and QuickChange does the rest.”