Digital signs are popping up everywhere. Falling prices for flat panel monitors, along with low-cost desktop and notebook computers, are fueling the drive to place informational displays in airports, restaurants, health clubs, churches and movie theaters. For experienced video producers, animators, multimedia programmers, Web designers and other A/V professionals, it’s a chance to ride the next big technology wave.

There’s a big problem, however. Your traditional software tools, such as Director, Dreamweaver, PowerPoint and Premiere, aren’t optimized for this new environment, where different areas of the screen may run independently of one another. And how could you dynamically key the content to a particular location? If the sun is out in California and it’s raining in Florida, you may want the California screens to feature sunglasses and the Florida screens to feature umbrellas. Whether you’re pumping out content to one screen or multiple screens, you’ll need a specialized application configured expressly for digital signs.

That’s where InfoCaster 2.0 from Harris comes in. Odds are at least one of the systems you’ve seen in public was running a layout created within InfoCaster. Think of it as a desktop publishing program for digital signs. You divide the screen into different regions, and each region can have multiple layers that may include graphics, video, text, logos or 3D animations. Supported video formats include MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVI and WMV. A z-ordering setting lets you select which content is displayed in the foreground and which is displayed in the background.

This application’s greatest strength is its support for a broad range of content. For example, when creating a region on a page, you can define the region in nine different ways. These include still regions for static text or graphics (such as labels or logos), video regions that play video clips or live video, roll regions that scroll text or graphics vertically, crawl regions that scroll text or graphics horizontally and animated regions that play animated text or graphics. Once you’ve set the parameters for a region, you can quickly add or change the content it displays. Think of the regions as content holders that function independently of the content they hold.

InfoCaster 2.0 depends heavily on its built-in content editors. Many of the region types have more than one content editor. The video region has two editors. The first is the Video Clip Quick Editor. It lets you set the in-and-out points for a video clip, as well as the video’s display size within the region. You can also use this editor to assign a graphic overlay to the video. The second editor is the Live Video Quick Editor. It lets you assign a live video signal to a region. By selecting a duration for the live video and matching it with a video source, you can schedule live video for specific times of the day.

Each page layout window includes a sequencer function, which schedules the playback of the page or the items within a region of the page. It looks and functions like a timeline, and provides the ability for internal or external events to trigger other events. New to version 2.0, a trigger event can be a time, temperature or final frame of a video clip. These options make it easy to tailor content for different times, for different types of weather or to conditionally daisy-chain your video presentations. To manage large numbers of playback systems simultaneously, you’ll need the optional InfoCaster Network Manager server.

Given the potential complexity of the layouts, I found InfoCaster to be relatively easy to use. Most functions are available within the main program, though you do have to exit the program and run a separate utility to change some settings, such as selecting the video output. You can preview your layouts on the computer screen, or route them to an external display via an S-Video or SDI connection.

While InfoCaster 2.0 can be expensive once you start piling on the options, it offers a level of creative control, automated flexibility and precise scheduling you won’t find with budget-priced solutions. If you want the content on your digital signs to compare favorably with the competition, it can provide the necessary software tools to level the playing field.

Video Region
Create a video region to display video clips or live video. Supported video formats include MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVI and WMV.

Animated Region
Create an animated region to play animated text or graphics. Use the z-ordering setting to select which content is displayed in the foreground.

Still Region
Create a still region for static text or graphics. These might include labels or logos. Four different content editors let you edit the text or graphics, select an external data source, or design a layout for the region.

Crawl Region
Create a crawl region to scroll text or graphics horizontally. Two different crawl content editors let you edit the text, format the text, change the speed of the crawl and draw graphics.

Roll Region
Create a roll region to scroll text or graphics vertically. Three different roll content editors let you edit the text, add columns or tables, or select an external data source for the text.

Whether you’re pumping out content to one or more screens, you’ll need a specialized application configured expressly for digital signs. InfoCaster 2.0 acts as a desktop publishing program for just this type of use.