Product guide

58 | Digital Signage & AV Product Guide | www.digitalview.com
www.digitalview.com
An Interacve Tour Of The
Natural History Museum...
Walking around the maze of galleries in that ne Victorian
building, what stands out is how old and new are so seamlessly
integrated - how dierent spaces and exhibits compliment each
other, and how the dierent media all combine to engage with
visitors of every age.
Even though many of the main exhibits are permanent - the
museum is constantly evolving and renewing the displays to
enhance the visitor experience. The challenge for the exhibits
team, as in every museum, is delivering all that innovaon on
next to no budget.
One of the key developments is the move towards more audio
and video presentaon. New technology is not only making
this cheaper to implement - but also more reliable and lower
cost to run. Once the hardware is installed, it can nowadays
be expected to run for at least 5 years without maintenance.
Add to that a pool of willing creave talent in local universies
happy to churn out engaging content in exchange for a line on
their resume, and suddenly you have a eecve plaorm for al-
most constant evoluon.
At The Natural History Museum this type of digital presenta-
on is central to their philosophy. They have hundreds of dif-
ferent video displays, projecon systems, touch screens and
audio tracks running at all mes. Cleverly recycling old systems,
combining old and new technology and constantly adding neat
interacve elements to ensure the delivery of engaging high
quality exhibits.
We toured some of their installaons with digital presentaon
technology supplier Digital View to see how The Natural His-
tory Museum uses their low cost and extremely exible digital
media players to achieve a host of these dierent video imple-
mentaons.
The Digital View products store high quality compressed video
and audio in playlists that can run on any display, either all the
me or on a schedule. For a museum, the key benets of this
type of technology are that it is compact (size of a paperback
book), silent (no fans or moving parts), extremely reliable (de-
signed for 100,000 hours of 24/7 playback) and very aordable
(interacve players from just £100).
The exibility comes from a simple socket on the side, which
allows for the connecon of dierent types of interacvity.
Buons, levers, moons sensors, oor mats and touch screens
can all be plugged in to trigger dierent video sequences. Play-
ers can be linked together to easily create video walls, and for
more complicated requirements a separate serial connector al-
lows for AMX and Crestron sequences to be programmed.
Touring the oor of the museum, we were able to see how dif-
ferent elements of this technology were being cleverly imple-
mented to inspiring eect.
Interacve Media Playback:
Using a touch buon to control the
ViewStream and trigger of video
sequences on.
Synchronized Media Playback:
Linking of 4 ViewStreams together
to create an eye-catching sequence
where media appears to ow across
dierent display.
Audio & Video:
Using a phone and projecon
system to create an integrated
visitor experience.
Controlled Media Playback:
Using the ViewStream to show
simple looping content. A moon
sensor then picks up an approaching
visitor to switch on the audio and
commence play out of the
informaon loop.
With more than 4 million annual visitors and over 20 million exhibits, the Natural History Museum is one of
London’s best and most famous family days out.
Earth Zone
Creepy Crawly Zone
Recycle Zone
Dino Exhibit