Vincent Serpico, Vice President of Development

How many of you remember the early days of the Internet? How many of you remember the times when a Web page would load in one browser, but load either incorrectly or not at all in another browser? The Web master (remember that term?) would remark that so-and-so browser does not support this-or-that HTML tags.

Houston…we have a problem.

When the Internet was in its infancy, everyone (except Newsweek) saw it’s potential. However, its success was dependent on standards. Fortunately, a standards committee was quickly formed which laid down standards which, “…allow devices, services, and applications to be interoperable across a wide and dispersed network of networks.” Standards didn’t just help the spread and adoption of the Internet, it was vital to its proliferation.

Houston…we have another problem.

Digital Signage is in its infancy. Everyone sees it’s potential. However, its success will be dependent on standards. Unfortunately, there is no standards committee. There are no industry-accepted standards, even loosely. The proliferation of Digital Signage will be largely dependent on these standards, so we better get crackin.

Let me give you just one example. Riddle me this: Which video format do you output to for consumption on a DS player? I’m sure half of you are shrugging your shoulders, and the other half are saying, “Whichever my DS player supports.” Right! And oh so wrong! How many of you have had to recreate videos just because you bought new hardware that did not support your current video content? How many of you have a test bed of videos in every format and codec you can pump out just to see which ones play best on the hardware you’re deploying to? This is an asinine waste of time.

Imagine a digital signage world where everyone can universally answer which video format you would output to for consumption on a DS player. Imagine hardware and software vendors supporting the standard. Imagine the huge productivity gains, and the prolific spread and adoption of our budding industry.

At Flypaper, we output no less than 10 video formats and codecs. Not because I love coding (I do!), but because there is no standard. I’d much rather spend my time adding even more cool features to the application than adding another codec because XYZ DS Player only supports some rarely-used codec.

While we’re on the topic of standards, how about the way different DS players handle SWF content loading and sizing? (Don’t get me started; I’m finishing up the blog.)

In summary, the digital signage industry needs standards. We need a Digital Signage Standards Committee composed of representatives from the various sectors of our industry. To facilitate the proliferation of digital signage, we need this committee sooner than later.

P.S. Standards are only half the equation. The other half is the need for open source and extensibility. But that’s a topic for another blog…