Windows-powered digital signage players provide a powerful and affordable hardware option for anyone designing a digital signage system. Windows can power multi-screen video walls to shopping mall digital kiosks. It’s a good fit for a wide array of signage applications, and for that reason, it’s one of the most popular choices for organizations that use digital signage.
Create Windows-based digital signage with Rise Vision!
Windows-powered digital signage players are very popular and are commonly used throughout the world. Let’s go over some of the benefits!
Microsoft Windows has been powering digital signage around the world since the late 20th century. Many businesses and institutions have relied on Microsoft digital signage players to power their signage campaigns for decades, proving it to be a trusted leader worldwide.
Many IT departments around the world have chosen Microsoft as their go-to software and services provider for all their IT needs. IT department staff are trained to install and troubleshoot Microsoft software and are familiar with how to integrate different devices and other software with Microsoft technology and features.
Using a different technology for your digital signage system (if you’re already using Microsoft) may cause unnecessary friction with current IT workflows and processes. There can be some licensing advantages and discounts by sticking with Windows for all IT needs.
If your organization relies on outsourced IT contractors, Microsoft software is by far the most common technology used and implemented by outside contractors. Not only can this keep costs down, but you may also have trouble finding IT contractors who support other technologies and features.
Digital signage players on Windows are very secure, assuming you keep your operating system up to date. Security should be a big concern for anyone designing a digital signage system for their business, school, or organization. A hacked digital signage campaign is not only embarrassing, but sensitive data can also be stolen.
If you plan on doing interactive or touch-screen digital signage, Windows is highly supportive of interactive displays. Simply put, the drivers that are required for interactive and touchscreen displays can be easily found and installed. At this point in time, other media player operating systems don’t support interactive digital signs as well as Microsoft.
Next to Windows, Linux-powered digital signage players make up a large share of the market. While we love Linux, not many people are familiar with the Linux operating system, and it can be more difficult to troubleshoot operating system and digital signage software problems.
Additionally, the Linux operating system tends to be less intuitive to most people since very few people use Linux in their day-to-day work. The added cost we’ve found is that many of our customers will spend many more hours configuring their Linux-based digital signage systems than those who have chosen Windows.
Windows-based digital signage players are the go-to choice when you need to power a multi-screen video wall. Other operating systems can power multi-screen video walls, but the setup and troubleshooting can be very difficult. We typically recommend using Windows digital signage for multi-screen setups.
“In one simple click, I can instantly add my content to multiple TV's. If I need to update a slide, no problem; I could do it from home and the material would update instantly. Rise Vision is a huge time saver and so user-friendly!”
There are hundreds of new and used Windows-based digital signage players available. We recommend choosing newer digital signage media players over used ones simply because they’re more likely to have hardware powerful enough to display videos and animations cleanly.
When choosing your Windows digital signage player, be extra careful that you are actually purchasing one that runs on the Windows operating system and not Linux. Many digital signage media players will be pre-configured with either Windows or Linux, and it’s easy to miss that detail upon checkout. Be sure to double-check your order before finalizing your purchase.
Digital signage systems must use commercial digital signage displays. Consumer-grade computer displays and TVs are not designed to handle the 24/7 operation that digital signage demands.
We recommend choosing a display between 48 inches and 65 inches (diagonal dimension). Any display that’s larger or smaller than this dimensional envelope will not be practical for running a digital signage campaign.
Generally, you will need to pair one display with one media player. However, if you plan on building a video wall or video grid, you’ll need to purchase multiple displays as well as a support structure. Read this article to learn more about how to build a video wall.
To get started with Rise Vision digital signage software, you’ll first need to pick a template from our website or from this page and then sign up for a free Rise Vision trial account.
After picking a template and then creating a Rise Vision trial account, it's time to activate your display.
To share Rise Vision to digital signage, you need a digital signage display or TV and a digital signage media player if it isn't built into the TV.
Remember to continue communicating better by subscribing to our free weekly template recommendations and be sure to attend one of our free weekly training sessions. Also, we’re standing by if there’s any problem, feel free to contact us anytime.
“The software is easy to use and you can learn to navigate the program quickly. We use it as an in-house marketing tool to drive people to our outlets and let them know about upcoming events, specials, and general information/directions.”
