About the product name:

About to be  renamed to the "Media Scheduler", since it has the ability to schedule MPEG videos, Targa stills, and soon MP3 audio clips.

Product features:

The scheduler is based on a weekly schedule, broken down to 24 hours per day. At a minimum, an hours worth of programming must be set up. Video clips or stills (and still sequences) can be mixed and looped within the hour. The schedule for that hour may then be copied to any other hour of that day, the whole day, or any other hour in any other day, etc. The schedule may be revised at any time without disturbing the current hour playing. At the top of any hour, the new schedule is read into the current hour, and any changes take into effect.

Stills:

Stills can be combined into sequences that play any given length of time for any still in the sequence. Example: still 1: 5 seconds, still 2: 7seconds, etc. The sequence itself can then loop for x numbers over an hour, or loop with other sequences or video clips.

MPEG1:

ISO standard digital video at 30 frames per second. Great for display on TV sets. When encoded from betacam tapes, quality is comparable to VHS, with the added benefit that there is no "wear" that occurs when playing tapes. The picture cannot degrade from constant use. Much cheaper to encode and store than MPEG2 (broadcast quality video).

MP3:

ISO standard digital audio at audio CD quality rates, at about a tenth the file size! The 2nd most popular search item on the engines after sex.

Uses:

A renowned hotel has just completed their beta trial of the software over the past 3 months, utilizing 3 systems, therefore 3 private TV channels. Channel 2 is for video information on the hotel, its’ history, townsite, wildlife, etc. Channel 3 is for restaurant information (stills only) of their numerous restaurants and menus. Channel 4 is for conference and meeting room information. Channels 2 and 3 have been operating flawlessly (24 hours a day) over the period, while Channel 4 is to be implemented in the next week, as training for creating the conference info was delayed. Any TV in the hotel receives these "private channels".

The Package:

The "scheduler" operates on regular PC hardware ( Pentium class) , with a hardware MPEG1 video, MP3 audio, and Targa still decoder inside. This board converts the digital audio and video signals to analog output, which are run through a mux, and into the (hotel, school, apartment building) cable TV network. Live audio may be fed to the mux for the still channels.

The scheduler PC can be plugged directly into 1 TV, therefore removing the requirement for a mux. Great for mall advertising, etc.

Cost:

Cost per "Scheduler" is $5000 Canadian, which includes the plug-in and play PC (monitor not included). Annual licenses are $1000, with the first years’ license included in the "Scheduler" purchase price. Scheduler "software only" (no PC or output board) is $1000/year for scheduling "remote" networked playback units.