Digital signage must stress student content

Our college is about to become the definition of high-definition.

Students are buzzing about the 19 recently installed 42-46” HDTV screens across campus. Most students are wondering how many more of these things will show up. Heck, at the current growth rate, one would think HDTVs have the reproduction ability of jackrabbits.

The college may look like something out of “Brave New World” when all is said and done, because it plans on installing 90 of these HDTV screens in an initiative it is calling “digital signage.” The initial purchase and installation cost for this project will be more than $270,000.

Most of the televisions are capable of carrying full 1080p content (Jessica Simpson totally doesn’t know what that means, but she wants it).

So what programming is currently being shown on these obscenely expensive pieces of technological sexiness? Why, PowerPoint of course.

Yes, the same program that can be shown on that bulky yellow-stained monitor in your grandmother’s basement is being shown on televisions that cost the college an average of $3,100 each, according to Mike Waugh, director of Media Productions and Services.

This is the equivalent of buying an iPhone and using a midi ringtone. It is similar to buying a surround sound stereo system and watching a silent movie marathon. It has turned these screens into glorified bulletin boards.
Thankfully, new programming is on the way.

The college has already purchased Media Xtreme, a fully dedicated program for digital signage, to replace PowerPoint in the coming weeks. It has also enlisted the services of KeyWest technology to help produce independent CNN style channels, with programming in one corner and ascrolling news feed in another.

This should allow student organizations such as the Model United Nations and The Campus Ledger to acquire channels in various locations across campus. By producing exclusive content, student groups can interact with their peers in a way that seemed unimaginable even ten years ago. This would be a big step in helping our college become the community everyone has been pushing for it to be lately.

Televising Caviler sporting events would be a great tool for building school spirit. Many students are uninvolved in the college’s athletics because they know nothing about the teams. Televising baseball and volleyball games would be a nice start.

If the college really wants to take advantage of their new screens, it needs to invest in high-definition cameras. They can be pricey, but the quality difference is massive.

The college is moving in the right direction, and integrating HD content into our hallways is a logical move. But it needs to put original or compelling content on the screens as soon as possible, or many will program their brains to ignore the screens, a move usually reserved for the television series Cavemen.