Guide to Digital Signage Content Creation

Digital signage content creation – Your options

This guide will explain the 3 key types of digital signage content which most digital signage content providers can create for you.

This guide does not currently include information on ‘off the peg’ content such as RSS news and weather feeds or generic video clips.

Three key types of digital signage content are:

Digital signage background templates

Background Templates are often used for screens with multiple zones or windows of content. If you are playing one window of content full screen they are not necessary but can still be used. Background Templates are the image files which sit at the back of the screen on which the video content is scheduled.

You will probably have some generic templates included free with your digital signage software. You may want to purchase custom branded background templates to give a more profressional look to your screen.

You would normally just have one template per company, branded with their logo and colour scheme.

Normal digital signage content creation

Normal Content is a video such as .MPEG-2 or .WMV which does not change once we have finished creating it. It may be animated but the content of the video always stays the same. If you require changes in the content, such as amending an image or some text, we must do this in our video editing software and then re-export the video as a MPEG-2 or WMV file again for you to play.

Dynamic digital signage content creation

Dynamic Flash Content on the other hand comes in the form of a flash (.SWF). The content looks similar to normal video content but the images and text in the video can be changed easily in real time by a shop assistant or AV company managing the project. For example, if you had an animated special offer which reads “Apples Buy One Get One Free” the shop assistant could easily change the special offer text, even though it is an animated part of the video. More advanced dynamic content can also display content from databases and allow you to change images in the videos, as well as text.

Digital signage content creation prices

Normal content would involve a one-off cost for initial creation. We then charge a yearly fee for x number of updates per month.

Dynamic content is roughly double the price of normal content, however there is no charge for updating the content as that is done by you or your client.

If you or your customers have a content budget, Switched-on Media can usually work backwards from that amount and work out a content package to suit specific needs and budgets.

How do customers tell us about what they want in their initial content and about updates to existing content?

Your customers would log in to our login website. When a customer logs in and is recognised as your customer the site is branded with your company logo. Once logged in, they fill in a custom online form with information about their digital signage content creation. Customers log back in when they want updates. With normal content we complete updates and send the revised file to the customer. With dynamic content, as soon as they make a change in the online form their content will update in real time on the screen without our intervention (assuming the player computer has an internet connection)

I hope this guide gives you an idea of your digital signage content creation options. Please contact us for more information.

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