Is using a consumer TV streaming appliance like Roku limiting your digital signage options?
Using a Roku-style USB “stick” or digital media player is the simplest way to get video to stream to a TV monitor. The price of these appliances is relatively inexpensive ($30 – $100). You can connect with or without wires and use a remote or app to control programming.
It’s a great solution for streaming TV and movies or using monitors for digital signage for few individual units.
Controlling Your Digital Displays
Imagine you have a school campus with a monitor in every classroom, and anywhere that people hang out. You need the morning video news broadcast everywhere, lunch menus in the cafeteria, building directories by the entrances and elevators, and special programming in common areas.
Roku uses DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) technology that enables sharing of content between devices connected over a local network.
However, on a building, campus, or district-wide scale, media management can get unwieldy. And as a consumer device, anyone with a remote or an app on their phone can control a Roku box. That’s great for your home, but maybe not so great for your office, school, or business.
In a situation where you have more than a few monitors to control, a proper enterprise-level video server is recommended.
With a video server you can control the content, and the power, of all of these screens, by location and time of day, from a simple web portal. The only such option we know of, that works with Roku, is our own DEVOS Enterprise Video System.
Roku with DEVOS vs SignStick with DEVOS
Let’s say you have, or will get Roku boxes, and you get a DEVOS video server to get more out of your digital display system.
You can display a live stream, video on demand, PowerPoint slides, and RSS feeds. As you can see from the chart below, your media management is better, but it’s still not the best option.
But when you use SignSticks instead of Roku boxes with our DEVOS server, there are a few more capabilities that make creating and managing your display content even easier.
These features include complete ethernet interface and use of all the digital signage templates. You have centralized control in the DEVOS web portal of all of your devices and playlists. The SignStick can also display Google Slides, web pages, and emergency text and video messages, where the Roku interface cannot.
In short, the power of the SignStick lies in it’s native connection to a DEVOS Enterprise Video Server. Whether cloud, on premise, or hybrid system, it’s value shows with the simplification of your digital signage and video distribution system.
DEVOS Digital Signage Bundles Include…
- White glove support and training
- Software updates
- Bigger packages available with more savings
More Than Signage
The fact that you can stream, store, and serve hundreds of hours of video, may be secondary to your digital signage goals. However, DEVOS clients are pleasantly surprised by the incredible resource available to them as a result of their initial investment.
Read More About How SignStick® Makes Digital Signage Easy or Learn More About DEVOS EVS.
