Visionary Solutions designed to fit your business
Digital Signage Solutions
www.pro.sony.eu/digitalsignage
DIGITAL SIGNAGE SOLUTIONS
Sony is serious about digital signage
It's the product of converging technologies: computing, communications and digital media. And the world is just waking up to its potential.
Sony is serious about digital signage because it is changing the way businesses and organisations communicate in public spaces. It satisfies a demand for immediacy and relevance. It caters for increasingly short attention spans.
Digital signage educates. It informs. It entertains. It sells. And it guides the way. It is dynamic. It has the power to influence. And it grabs attention in a way that no other medium can, with vibrant still and moving images, in any quality including high definition. It is instant, universal communication. Always up to date. Always relevant.
It's the mass medium for the connected age
Ziris 7 is Sony's enterprise-strength digital signage software, built to release the full potential of this new and exciting visual medium and optimised for ease of use. And it's ready to take the medium of digital signage to the next level. Ziris 7 is modular software, with components that act together to create a rich environment for making, delivering and displaying eye-catching digital signage content.
DIGITAL SIGNAGE SOLUTIONS
How does it work?
Digital signage can be as simple as a screen connected to a computer, but with networks it can become an influential mass medium.
ZIRIS USAGE
Digital Advertising and poster replacement Digital advertising has a multitude of advantages over paper posters. Adverts update instantly. Printing costs disappear and there's no need to climb up ladders to glue posters to a board. By running a loop of five or six adverts, agencies can effectively sell the same space several times. Advertisers benefit through being able to update their adverts more frequently, and viewers have a better experience because they see a sequence of images instead of a single, static poster. And of course, paper posters can't show video. Active signs In large buildings and stadiums, it's important that people know where they're going  especially when there are large numbers. As traffic ebbs and flows, and as events start and finish, digital signs can show the way, changing as conditions demand. At the same time, they can inform and advise with up to the minute news and traffic reports or they can simply show adverts for nearby facilities. In emergencies, Ziris can override existing Schedules and show relevant content immediately. Digital menus Backlit menu boards do a great job in restaurants and cafes, but they're difficult to update and impossible to change throughout the day. Ziris digital signage changes all this by updating screen content at different times of the day. Breakfast, lunch and evening menus can be automatically shown at the appropriate times. And because digital signage works over networks, a restaurant chain can organise menus centrally and have them sent to hundreds of locations. Ziris can even send different menus to selected restaurants, where there might be regional variations. And of course, high definition screens can incorporate video for a much more effective menu experience. Information boards Digital signage is an attention-grabbing, connected medium, and it's ideal for bringing information to mass audiences. In airports, stations, shopping malls or any public space, digital signage is the way to communicate. Ziris has the flexibility to send the same information to hundreds of screens, or different content to each one. Always up to date and always relevant. You can even "grab" content from websites  a completely automatic way to update your digital screens. Branded television Ziris is able to place live content from digital television into its screen displays. This is perfect for waiting rooms and queue management where the main part of the screen might be a news or sports channel, and the surrounding area could be used for advertising and information. A great way to keep customers entertained and informed.
Digital signage screens normally show a mixture of images, video and information. Sony Ziris 7 software allows agencies and content managers to create attractive screen layouts and deliver it to remote screens. Each screen can be divided into separate areas, each showing any of a selection of media types. These can include video, still images, text, HTML or even live digital television. Screen areas and the content they contain can be resized and moved relative to each other.
The main part of the display could be a high definition promotional video, while special offers or information like traffic reports are shown around the main image. Full-screen images are effective as well. Ziris makes it easy to design stunning screen content. Ziris screen content can change over time, and a set of related changes (to images, video or information) are stored in a Slideshow. There is no limit to the number of Slideshows. Slideshows are organised for playout by putting them into a Schedule: a list of timed events. They can also be sent to specific screens or groups of screens.
Ziris works over almost any kind of network  even country or world-wide. It is an extremely capable organiser and will ensure that Slideshows are received by remote players in good time. Content is sent before it is played and not as it is played to maximise the efficient use of network bandwidth. Only changes to Slideshows are sent to avoid repetition. In the event of a network failure, Ziris players switch to Default Content  material that has been uploaded previously  until normal service is resumed.
ZIRIS BENEFITS
End-to-end Sony solution with integrated hardware and software Ziris gives you the opportunity to buy an integrated hardware and software digital signage system from one of the world's greatest technology companies: Sony. With Ziris, everything works together, because each element knows about all the other parts. Each component in the Ziris Suite works in harmony with the others, and Ziris is aware of the characteristics and performance of all the hardware devices (screens, players, etc.) that it connects to. Unlimited numbers of screens There is simply no limit to the number of screens in a Ziris network. Ziris has been built from scratch to be scalable, and to be as easy to use in large network as a small one. The use of digital signage is going to expand enormously and Ziris is ready for it. Full HD resolution HD screens are now cost effective and look wonderful, and Ziris makes full use of this by working with pristine HD video and high-quality images. In every single way, a Ziris-controlled screen is more compelling than a paper poster. Ten layer compositions Sometimes you can't beat the simplicity of a full-screen image or video, but for more complicated multi-use screen layouts, or perhaps just to create a novel effect, Ziris has multiple graphics layers for creating innovative compositions. With enough layers to satisfy the most demanding artists, Ziris will never limit your creativity. Metadata-driven content delivery Ziris saves time and effort by allowing automatic content delivery to selected sites. Even within an individual Slideshow, different screen objects can be sent to individual screens or groups of screens. For example, a national campaign might dictate the overall layout of a screen, but there might be some local content that needs to go to specific locations. Ziris uses metadata tags label content so that it gets to the right place without any human intervention. Works over any network topology With Ziris, it doesn't matter what kind of network you have. It's been designed with all kinds of networks in mind and can be configured to work even with difficult connections like 3G. Ziris will always make the best use of whatever network you have. Engineered for extreme ease of use Ziris has been completely reworked with a new, unified interface and a streamlined workflow for content creators and administrators. Designed to be as intuitive as familiar office software, it's now easier than ever to create and display world-class content with Ziris.
DIGITAL SIGNAGE SOLUTIONS
Ziris Create 7
The creative hub of the Ziris software suite
Sony Ziris Create 7 is the core of the Ziris ecosystem, with a streamlined workflow designed to deliver some of the most sophisticated digital signage content ever seen. Ziris Create 7 users assemble the elements of a digital signage presentation using a powerful timeline tool, where content in multiple layers can be placed around, above and below each other for creative, attentiongrabbing screen compositions. Each timeline represents a "Slideshow" which can be lodged in daily or weekly schedules  all with amazing ease and flexibility. Ziris Create 7 works with almost all types of media content, and can even schedule live TV channels (with suitable hardware attached to a Ziris View 7 player).
Ziris Manage 7 Ziris View 7
Monitoring and reporting software for even the largest screen networks
Reliability, uptime and reporting are essential for large-scale digital signage networks. Ziris Manage 7 does this by monitoring the performance of playout devices and screens, so that you can respond to alerts, wherever you are. Ziris Manage 7 talks directly to Sony hardware devices (Sony displays and hardware players) and software (Ziris View 7) and other key components, to give a real-time overview of the state of the network. Errors, if they occur, generate alerts which can be escalated to email or SMS. Through an easy-to-navigate tree-like interface, Ziris Manage 7 simplifies the process of monitoring large or small digital signage networks. With just a few clicks, users can "zoom in" on individual devices for a precise report of their status. Ziris Manage 7 also logs playout events: essential for generating reports for digital advertising clients. Ziris Manage 7 is a key component in the Ziris Software Suite, and illustrates the advantage of buying an integrated software and hardware signage solution from Sony.
Ziris's feature-rich software digital signage player
Ziris View 7 turns a Windows Vista® or Windows 7® PC into a digital signage player with outstanding capabilities. It is an integral part of the Sony's Ziris 7 integrated hardware and software digital signage ecosystem. Ziris View receives multi-layered content across a network from Ziris Create, formats it, and displays it on a screen. Material delivered over a WAN or LAN is stored on Ziris View's host computer until it is triggered by a Schedule for playout. Ziris View is fluent in most of the industry standard media formats  including MPEG-2 HD and H.264  and can incorporate live digital TV channels so that, for example, a live football match could be bordered by adverts and RSS feeds. Ziris View can display Flash and even material that is "grabbed" from a live website.
ZIRIS ARCHITECTURE
All Ziris applications except for Ziris View are web-based which means that there are no applications to install on client computers. Ziris is installed only on servers. Content Authors create Slideshows and Schedules in Ziris Create, which either sends completed content directly to Ziris View and hardware players across a small network, or to Ziris Transfer or Ziris Edge on a larger network. Ziris Transfer provides multiple concurrent data transfers to remote Ziris hardware and software players, offloading the task from Ziris Create. Where large groups of Ziris View players are located at a remote location, content is sent to Ziris Edge cache servers, where it is distributed to local players. These players pull their content using HTTP and are therefore able to work through firewalls. Ziris Manage monitors the performance of the network and all devices on it. Using an intuitive tree-based system, it is able to send configuration commands to either a single or a group of devices. Ziris Manage also reports on the playback of individual items, for reporting to advertisers and content owners. Designed for performance and reliability Digital signage stretches demands performance from every part of the system. Reliability has to be engineered in by design. And that's how Ziris is built. Used with Sony display screens, it is an integrated hardware and software ecosystem, scalable to any size, and any configuration.
