Digital Signage on Lift TV's

[VEX]

I have 6 lifts, across 3 shaft group with a total of 12 very small screens (circa 12" or 15" diag) in, fed from lift control cable in Compsite video.

I have been challenged with upgrading them, for bigger screens live video (sky / bbc news) and digital signage, ticker-tape / side banner type infomation.

I can do the screens and cabling and there is power and sky boxes that are currently being used. Is there any, simplish digital signage boxes that would take a USB Stick / Memory card and a HDMI / Composite live video input and merge the lot into a single info-graphic with live video running in the background.

I can deal with the install, just looking for collective knowledge / experience for hardware solutions.

V.

[Murph7355]

Are the current feeds (Sky etc) in your control room and the screens simply fed by composite? So you're aiming to put bigger, composite fed screens in the lifts?

Presumably it's a commercial set up? Whose lifts are they and are they under maintenance with them?

Not this part of the lifts specifically, but I did some work on data with lifts recently...the manufacturers get a bit snarly with tinkering with their kit IME (partly understandably).

Have you looked at BrightSign kit? I *think* these might do what you want and know the AV guys at the place I was at rated them.

[VEX]

Thanks Murphy.

The lifts are out of contract with the manufacturers and they are supported by a 3rd party engineering team now. The system would basically be an upgrade to what is already there and I need to do some tests as to what signals I can get down the pair that is used in the lift umbilical. It is composite at the moment, but we could possibly go with a modulated Freeview HD signal.

I'll have a look at Brightsign next and see if I can make it fly.

Thanks again.

V.

[Murph7355]

Are the 3rd party OK with you making mods? Out of contract or not, people get very nervous around lifts (am sure you'll have this covered...but would think the original manufacturers will still have some involvement at some point ).

What do you have presented at the control room end?

[VEX]

They should be fine with it as they have no interest in the up-grade. The manufacture were to, I had them shut down every lift car in turn one christmas to I could work with them on the roof of the cars to sort the original signal quality issue (circa 2016). That was a little scary!

At the head of the shaft group, in the control room (2 cars per group and 2 tv's per car) we just have a single Sky box feeding an active, composite video splitter.

Having looked at the Brightscreen stuff I think there may be an option to run one brightscreen and one sky / live video feed from our satellite headend to all the shaft groups and possibly onto the screens as a freeview HD signal, then using bathroom tv's in the cars to view.

Its certainly an interesting challenge, in 12year old liftcars without re-cabling.

Just the stuff I love.

V.

[Power Junkie]

Can you check if the coax is able to carry an SDI signal? If it can then it's very simple to use any HD hdmi output signage unit with an hdmi to sdi converter. if you want a live feed from Sky etc make sure the brightsign etc has that input. Other than that if you have or can get a cat6a feed into each then you could use the likes of LG's built in signage system as part of the WebOS backend over IP.

Edited by Power Junkie on Thursday 2nd July 19:35

[VEX]

Good call, thanks, I wondered along those lines.

It isn’t traditional coax in the lift shard, but is 75 ohm cable within the lift umbilical.

Next stage is to try a proof of concept and carry out some trials.

[Power Junkie]

Sdi can usually work over it depending on quality, So definitely worth a try. The Blackmagic design kit is good and not too expensive.
If you can get cat6A down then HDBT could also work then Da it out.

[VEX]

That’s the reason for the challenge, not way there is a data feed to the lifts, 12year old install, probably a 15years old spec!

And it’s 15storeys high, so traditional data cable wouldn’t work because of the thousands of movements the cable & car goes through every day. Then multiply that by 6 lifts! Is quite a big cost.

I am have two ideas.
single signage box with live feed in
HD Freeview Encoder
Split 6 ways and out to the lifts on the coax used by the sky box feeds.
Freeview down the coax
Freeview HD screens.
Just don’t know how lossy the cable will be.

Or as us have suggested.
Single or multiple signage box
HDMI to SDI concert
Down to lift
SDI to HDMI convert
HDMI split into screens (2 per car)

First is easier by far and needs no conversion or splitting in the car. But the unknown is how much we will loose down the cable.

Thanks again though, lots to play with.

[Power Junkie]

Freeview encoding can work. I have used it many times successfully, I usually use Vision encoders. The good thing with that system is you can add in line amps if needed.

[VEX]

I've used them lots in homes where we need to cost effectively share Sky boxes around a house. I have found the Triax ones really good for this, especially as they have RF2 IR control built in too.

Need to check to see how lossy the umbilical cable as part of the test process for this to be a good solution.

Many thanks again.

V.

[Murph7355]

VEX said:

...
single signage box with live feed in
HD Freeview Encoder
Split 6 ways and out to the lifts on the coax used by the sky box feeds.
Freeview down the coax
Freeview HD screens.
Just don’t know how lossy the cable will be.
....

I might be misunderstanding what you wrote here...

Wouldn't you do something like:

(Freeview/Sky source @ HDMI)+(Ticker tape/whatever extras @ USB/network) -> Brightsign or similar -> HDMI out -> HDMI/composite convertor -> screens

?

[VEX]

Sort of, but the cost of feeding 6 lifts with 2 TV's per lift suddenly ramps up quite dramatically.

Its just because I know the current configuration there is the opportunity to use one digital signage box and share it to all screens. HD Freeview is very cost effective and can be split multiple times quite easily.

HDMI splitting and over any kind of distance can be troublesome, especially when limited by cables.

V.