September 8, 2010
Automation System Streamlines Digital Signage And Cable TV At Massasoit Community College
MASSASOIT, MA—Communication
has never been easier at Massasoit
Community College in Massasoit,
MA, now that MCC has installed a
new digital signage system with ties
into its cable TV system. New digital
imaging capabilities, video server,
and optional On Demand server have
brought simplicity and sophistication
to a system that once consisted of
note-covered cork boards and pushing
buttons on VCRs.
“I wanted a system that would
automate the college’s cable TV channel
and incorporate it into the bulletin
board system seamlessly,” said Ed
Krasnow, Massasoit’s director of TV,
radio, and instructional media. “It’s
really streamlined our workload.”
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Each monitor is divided into four quadrants in order to customize signage content for the
two Massasoit Community College campuses.
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Krasnow chose Cablecast Pro from
Tightrope Media Systems. Its simple
programming interface allows him
to drag and drop any digital video
file into its time slot and then takes
it from there. “When you put your
schedule together with this software,
it publishes itself to the station’s website
and to its on-air bulletin board,”
said Steve Israelsky, VP of sales and
chief marketing officer for Tightrope
Media. “Our Carousel software pulls
the program information and dynamically
creates promotional slides for the
shows throughout the day.”
The addition of the Video on
Demand server adds yet another
dimension to the picture. If Krasnow
wants to make a program available to
viewers whenever they want to watch
it, he simply checks a box in the user
interface.
MCC staff record all new programming
digitally, but they can also
schedule any non-digital content,
such as older videotape programming,
just as easily for playout. When
these analog programs are played,
the system automatically records
them digitally and store them on the
server for future use.
“The great thing about Cablecast
is it doesn’t have to be a specific
digital format,” said Justin Dorsey,
sales representative for HB Communications
in Waltham, Mass,
which designed and installed Massasoit’s
station automation system.
“In addition to MPEG2, Cablecast
SX Video Servers play most other
digital file formats such as MPEG4,
AVI, QuickTime, H.264, DV, and
DVCPro. When it comes to automating
cable head ends, Cablecast is
one of our go-to products. It’s really
designed from the ground up to work
in a cable access environment.”
Massasoit’s older bulletin board
technology made it an ideal candidate
for upgrading to Tightrope
Media System’s Carousel digital
signage technology, which can be
used together with the Cablecast Pro
software.
A network of 15 52-inch Viewsonic
LCD monitors hang in the
busiest hallways and favorite gathering
spots on both of Massasoit’s
campuses. Each monitor is connected
to a small Carousel 220 player that
accepts the digital feed from the system’s
head end, in this case located at
the Brockton Campus. Rather than
mount the player to the rear of each
monitor, Dorsey says they opted to
run Cat-5 extension cable to nearby
rooms or closets where they installed
the players. While most monitors are
taking the signal from a dedicated
player, some players are feeding
more than one monitor where the
content is the same. At the head end,
Cablecast Pro, which can handle up
to 200 channels of digital signage, is
rack mounted along with the playout
server, VOD server, and a variety of
playback and audio technology.
Signage content is customized for
each campus. By dividing each monitor
screen into four quadrants, Krasnow
can post universal information
in one quadrant, build specific data
in another, and perhaps run information
on class cancellations, club meetings
or sporting events in the others.
Even better, he doesn’t have to do all
the production work himself.
“My goal was not to have my
department create messages for
people,” Krasnow said, “but to have
every department in the college create
their own messages. I needed to have
computer novices, administrative
assistants, and staffers able to create
messages with relative ease.”
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