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The Home Depot Retools Employee Communication
Over the past two years, The Home Depot’s Television manager, Bruce Covey, was following a similar train of thought. The company was effectively using e-mail, web pages, and bulletin board reminders to its Atlanta Store Support Center’s 5,000 employees to attend events and take advantage of HR resources. However, e-mails are sometimes forgotten, bulletin boards overlooked, and handbills posted around the campus are time-consuming to maintain. The clear need was for a better way to get their attention, a sharper tool to reinforce the other messages.
Digital signage was an obvious alternative, but the high cost of running new Ethernet cable and adding servers for each display put the conventional solution out of reach.
The three-building campus had an existing RF backbone that carries a number of business, news, and weather channels throughout the facility. In addition, all the elevator bays had built-in cabinets for future TV installation. As an in-house employee communication channel would require a common message to the entire facility, broadcasting the content as a digital RF channel was the obvious conclusion. In this digital age, the components needed were already available off the shelf.
This led to the country’s first digital RF broadcasting system for employee communication, a solution that rests on three elements; collaborative content creation, digital processing, and RF display control.
As Bruce Covey explains, “We knew how to broadcast digital MPEG streams with mixed-media content for other applications. We knew that displays include MPEG players called tuners. The key was to harness the two together, so we partnered with X20 Media and Contemporary Research to create the solution.
Collaborative Content Creation
Home Depot’s team also knew that, whatever the delivery technology, content is 95% of the ongoing cost and maintenance of the system. If it is too expensive or complex to deliver fresh content all the time, people stop watching and the system will fail to meet its objective.
The team chose a collaborative approach to content, using the X2O Media XPresenter media player and software as the vehicle. This was a natural selection, as the existing HD-TV system uses the Vertigo X Media signage PC, which is the forerunner to the XPresenter.
The XPresenter was shipped with a custom template created for Home Depot. The multi-media engine incorporates several elements, including:
- Motion background
- AP Crawl automatically displays current news
- Video insertion window shows recorded content or live Weather Channel feed
- Graphics insertion window provided content derived from a PowerPoint files
Department managers throughout the corporate facility create PowerPoint messages using a standard Home Depot template. These are e-mailed to a few HD-TV staffers who do minor clean-up, inserting the content into a master presentation. Every hour, the XPresenter software imports the file from a network folder, converting the presentation to Targa-format images.
Actual Screen Image
By inviting managers to collaborate on content, the HD-TV department is able to generate fresh, relevant information with only minor effort on everyone’s part. The multi-media transitions follow a daily schedule – the player itself sits in an equipment rack, and requires no intervention for day-in, day-out operation.
Digital Processing
The XPresenter includes an onboard card that outputs the video as a digital SDI video stream. The SDI output flows to an EGT Prelude video processor that converts the stream to an ATSC MPEG-2 Transport Stream. The stream is then sent to a Blonder-Tongue digital RF modulator, and the digital TV channel is then combined with the other in-house cable channels.
A key decision was made that this point to use an SD (Standard Definition) video processor, instead of an HD processor. Present-day HD processors can cost upwards of $20,000 to $30,000, while the SD units average $8,000 or less. Bruce Covey notes that the pure digital-to-digital process results in a perfect, clear, noise-free image, superb even on a 50” plasma display. When HD processors inevitably come down to commercial price levels, they will consider a change. The XPresenter and Blonder equipment can already output full HDTV. For now, everyone is completely pleased with the solution.
RF Display Control
Contemporary Research invented the concept of open-architecture RF TV and display control technology. Their system is in use in large and small applications, from the AT&T Center in San Antonio and Wachovia Center in Philadelphia to factory floors and worship centers.
Their Display Express system delivers control data as a micro-channel between channels 4 and 5, so display control travels wherever the RF cable goes. A small controller at each display receives the micro-channel and manages display power, volume, channels, and the ability to lock out local front-panel display control from casual button-pushers.
PC-based Display Express software defines the system by filling in a few forms, creates one-click control presets, and runs the system via a daily schedule.
The HD-TV team notes that integration is simplicity itself. They can add new displays anywhere on the RF network by just setting a few switches on the controller, and connecting the displays to the RF coax. One Ethernet address drives the whole system, so the IT department is required for setup or maintenance.
Broadcasting Success
Elevator Bay Installation
Home Depot’s employee communication channel extends out to 52 23”– 25” LG displays mounted in elevator bays in the site’s three buildings, plus a 50” display in a large cafeteria area. Two displays have been recently added to the new Home Dept Museum.
In full operation for over six months, the new channel has been a successful tool for connecting staff to vital information and HR resources. Often, the presentations supplement Home Depot’s Web resources, calling attention to key hyperlinks, or upcoming Web conferences. Weather and news are always popular, as both can dramatically affect store sales.
In addition, Home Depot gains a versatile emergency alert system. Through Display Express, all displays can switch to a news or weather channel for moment-by-moment updates. Live broadcasts and custom “crawl” text can broadcast through the XPresenter player as well, so the HD-TV team has a variety of options at their disposal.
The Home Depot Television Manager Bruce Covey states, “The system works amazingly well.
Our annual free Flu Shot event normally attracts several hundred people. With the new signage channel, we served over 3,000.”
Typical System Components and Budgets
There are only a few components to a Display Express/X2O Media HDTV Digital Signage system.
| Content Origination |
MSRP |
X2O Media XPresenter with SDI Card
Check with X2O on price, there are several solutions above and below the stated MSRP |
$25,000 |
| EGT Quartet Single-Channel SD Encoder |
7,300 |
| Adtec MediaHUB HD (Alternate HD Encoder) |
9,999 |
| Drake TMQAMasi modulator |
600 |
| Drake DUC860 Digital Upconverter |
450 |
| Drake Rack Kit and power supply |
450 |
| Similar technology available from Blonder-Tongue (AQM) |
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| Head End Control |
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| SignStream Display Express PC |
3,000 |
| ICC-HE Control Head End |
1,650 |
| |
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| Total Head End (with SD Encoder): |
13,400 |
| Display Control |
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| ICC1-232 RS-232 Display Controller |
350 |
| ICC2-ATSC RS-232 HD Tuner/Controller |
1,125 |
Displays
Many makes and models can be integrated. Many sites use LG sets (almost all feature onboard RS-232 control). In addition, specific Sharp, Revolution HD models feature RS-232 control, and Philips/LG Smart Displays employ plug-in control cards.
Other sets offer IR control, select models that provide discrete power on and off control. For those interested, Contemporary Research can prepare estimates for solutions at your site.
Contact sales@crwww.com or call 888-972-2728
Alternative Solutions
Content can also be created by converting PowerPoint shows to ATSC videos, and using the SignStream Media Player for HDTV channel playback. See CR White Paper - Collaborative PowerPoint Origination for Corporate HDTV Digital Signage.
Ask for more information and request CR Catalog CD |
