Digital Signage Portal

Discussion on Desktop vs Embedded Solutions.

We all know what a desktop PC is - you're probably using one to read this Internet post so I'll move on talking about Embedded PC's instead.

Embedded PC's are very similar to desktop PC's however they differ in the following ways:

They are generally designed for ruggered and harsh environments (e.g. trucks, industrial factories) to improve system reliability.

They are small, and can be located and installed almost anywhere.

They consume less power and don't have any fans. The heat is dissipated through the actual casing. This means that the casing does become considerably hot.

Requires special Operating System software. An example of this is Windows XP Embedded.

Both hardware and software are optimised and tranportable to meet the application requirements. In the case of digital signage players, the main requirement is to display video content.

Non-PC Solution is better than other PC Solutions in the market because PC Solutions tend to have:

1. High service cost: PC uses fan for heat ventilation, uses moving parts such as HDD, these components may cause malfunction and increase maintenance cost.

2. High failure rate: Without UPS protection, PC will easily cause OS/HDD boot failure due to power blackout.

3. High maintenance: PC OS needs periodic register clean or OS recovery.

Utilize DMP technology, Ceres-86's design has made Digital Signage appliance an easier device like TV, just turn it on and it starts. Comparison of an example on PC base TV, your PC will need to install TV card and wait OS boot and then TV program execution. More complicated procedure causes problems more frequently.

The "Digital Media Processor" technology is a high performance audio/video decoder processor. Unlike the PC based hardware systems' construction on heavy, bulky CPU heat sink and mass memory, the Digital Media Processor is fanless and uses less memory while provides even more stable audio/video performance and keeps your cost competitive.

http://www.corndigital.com/news/dmp_solution.htm

I tend to agree, that a non-pc solution is better the choice (for numerous other reasons other than noted by Sandy).

However a challenge with the embedded solution is the high initial startup cost. Its true if you look at it from a technical stand point and weigh out all the benefits of PC vs. embedded, but try sell this concept to a store owner who knows as much about hardware as I do knitting.

But for someone like Joe who owns a takeaway shop and already has a PC with a second hand 42" plasma he just purchased with his savings, I don't see why he cannot buff up something with what he already has.

Its also evident that the newer technologies are being transferred to the embedded systems - players now have digital video outputs for the more demanding larer high definition screens.

What I would like to know is how advanced will these things become in 1, 3, or even 5 years time? We've seen the evolution of the PC in the past 5-10 years (not much other than the race for the quickest chipsets if you ask me), from video tapes to DVD players to Hard Disk players, Internet and what you can do with it these days .. put all this together and your mind will start to wonder.