Audio

Apple TV as Digital Signage

A few months ago, I started looking at a digital signage solution for the HDTV’s in the Atrium at my church and found that most commercial products were outrageously expensive and did not meet every need that a church would have.  Most solutions started at 20k… Ouch!  So I started exploring other options…  There were a few basic needs [...]

A few months ago, I started looking at a digital signage solution for the HDTV’s in the Atrium at my church and found that most commercial products were outrageously expensive and did not meet every need that a church would have.  Most solutions started at 20k… Ouch!  So I started exploring other options…  There were a few basic needs we need to address:

1: Announcements throughout the week
2: A distributed music system to play music during the week
3: Live feeds on during the services (Video and Audio)
4: HD Compatiable

One option was to use Mediashout on a loop, run Itunes, and use a scan converter and RF modulator to send Audio and Video to the TV’s.  Of course, this was not really an option so we decided to go with AppleTV for the Video/Audio and Content System and DBXZonePro for the distributed audio system.   

The nice thing about the AppleTV is that it is cheap (under $300) and runs 24/7.   It is HD 1080p… It syncs Announcement slides and music from Itunes and/or a network folder.  And it has a nice transitional element between images.  

We take the component video output and split the signal to have multiple feeds for our HDTV’s.  We select which playlist of music we want to play and 2 minutes later, the screensaver with our selected images plays on the screen. That’s it!  I will write how we use the DBX ZonePro as our audio distribution system in a future post.  If you are using AppleTV in your church let me know how it is working or if you have any tips for us.