What product bundling is offered?
NEC live is available in two bundles:
1.The NEC Live Local bundle which includes NEC Live Artist and NEC Live Player licenses for manual distribution of content.
2.The NEC Live Network bundle which includes NEC Live Artist and NEC Live Communicate licenses.
3.The NEC Live Network Player bundle which includes a Media Player and NEC live Player license.
How do I create content for the Digital Signage network?
NEC Live has a leading content creation application known as NEC Live Artist which has a user interface similar to the Adobe development tools. NEC Live Artist works with objects, such as videos, text, tickers and sound. The Content Creator drags and drops the objects into the Artist editor for further customisation utilising the objects settings such as position, transparency, shadow and gradients. With the preview facility within Artist, the creator can iteratively develop the movie until satisfied with the result and ready to distribute.
How do I split the content on a public display?
NEC live supports several different channels during playback. Each channel plays independently with the content from each channel shown on the same display. You can then either define the channel in a split screen format or layered to achieve other objectives such as news feeds, company logos or adding special effects such as snow falling.
Which video formats are recommended?
It is recommended that Windows Media Video Format (MWV) and Quicktime are standardised upon due to the video quality and stability.
What should you consider when utilising sound as an affect?
Sound during playback can be derived from different sources; Sound Object, Music Object, Video, Flash or even from a Web Page. Issues to consider when using sound in your Digital Signage content are:
1.How frequently will the sound be utilised
2.How will people within the location of the display respond to the sound if it is repetitive
3.Are there copyright issues that you will need to address.
Can I have the content created approved before distributing to a point of display?
If you have decided that you want the security of knowing that content will not be displayed without approval of say the Marketing/Commercial Manager, then NEC Live Enterprise can be configured to work with NEC Live Artist and Communicate to provide multiple levels of approval prior to distribution of the digital signage content.
When distributing content to a point of display what file location options are available to NEC Live Update?
NEC Live Update works in conjunction with NEC Live Player. At a specified interval NEC Live Update can log onto either an FTP Server or shared network directory and compares the content to the content currently being played by NEC Live Player. If NEC Live Update identifies that the content on the FTP Server or shared network directory has changed, it will download all changed or new files to a temporary directory. NEC Live Update can be configured to look at more than one site or destination directory, with each location having its own update interval. This flexibility allows different types of content to be treated based upon the unique characteristics. For example, when sourcing Call Centre data the frequency of update will be higher than for normal video type presentation content.
Can I integrate information from my existing databases for presentation at the points of display in my Digital Signage network?
Yes NEC Live provides access to a range of database types allowing data to be read and output into a text file. The text file can then be retrieved at the point of display by NEC Live Update and included as either text, a ticker or a table object. The supported database servers are:
ASA DBLib 7.0, 8.0, 9.0
Firebird 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 (Embedded 1.5, 2.0)
IBM DB2
Interbase 5+, 6+
Microsoft ADO
Microsoft SQL 7+
MySQL 3.20+, 4.x, 5x (Embedded 4.x, 5.x)
Oracle 9i
PostgreSQL 6.5, 7.x, 8.x
SQLite 2.8, 3
Sybase ASE 12.5.
Can I obtain statistics and reports on my Digital Signage network?
Yes NEC Live Enterprise is a database application that log’s events, statistics and program status from which reports can be run. NEC Live Enterprise supports either a central MySQL or Microsoft SQL database server.