Menuboards To Go
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
OSM Solutions, Austin, Texas, has launched a new line of do-it-yourself digital menu board systems featuring BrightSign network-enabled HD210 digital signage players.
Available online at MenuBoardsToGo.com, the turnkey systems are shipped pre-configured and loaded with the customer’s content so there’s no software learning curve, no programming of the SDHC card, nothing to learn about networking or central servers and there are no compatibility issues.
The high-definition menu boards are ready to use as soon as they’re plugged in, which makes them a compelling menu board solution for quick serve restaurants, cafes, coffee houses, bakeries, cafeterias or any counter-service business. (To celebrate the launch, MenuBoardsToGo is offering a 15% discount on all self-install kits for the month of August.)
The new digital menu board kits are complete, all-in-one solutions that include the BrightSign solid-state HD210 Networked Media Player, an LG Commercial LCD Monitor with a choice of screen sizes ranging from 42″ to 65″, an LCD Mounting Bracket, an HDMI Cable and an SDHC Card. (With the afore-mentioned discount, a kit with a 42″ monitor costs $1,359.)
BrightSign management says that solid-state controllers are priced significantly lower than PC-based solutions and play a key role in keeping the cost of the MenuBoardsToGo systems very affordable. Because they don’t need a PC to deliver crystal-clear content, there are no moving parts to fail, thereby providing higher reliability and using substantially less power.
The media player delivers dedicated looping playback of multimedia content as well as multi-zone screen layouts, synchronization of multiple displays using Ethernet connections and full HD resolutions. The networked player also includes the tools users need to make delivering remote content to one or one-hundred units fast and easy.
Marc Rosenberg, owner of MenuBoardsToGo.com and a skilled digital menu board designer, says, “The BrightSign platform enables us to provide menu board systems to customers with the confidence that when they turn the menu board on for the first time, it’s going to be plug-n-play and look absolutely stellar.”
Rosenberg uses BrightSign’s BrightAuthor Software, a PC-based application included with BrightSign players, to create and publish content; and BrightSign Network, a subscription-based hosted networking service, to monitor deployed menu boards remotely.
“BrightAuthor simplifies scheduling and day-parting,” says Rosenberg. “With dayparting, a restaurant’s breakfast, lunch and dinner digital menu boards can be changed automatically throughout each day when service for that meal begins.”
“Clearly, this ready-to-use out-of-the-box approach is an idea whose time has come,” says Jeff Hastings, CEO of BrightSign in Saratoga, California. “It will appeal to the growing number of people in the food service industry who want to display eye-catching messages that are both timely and informative but, until now, have considered the deployment and management of digital menu boards as too technical and too costly.”
MenuboardsToGo also offers content design, remote menu board management/monitoring and full-service installation as added services.
OSM Solutions delivers hi-definition signage solutions for food service, retail, banking and info space installations.
August 3rd, 2011 at 09:42 @446
Yes, really easy to use – all you need to do to change your prices, is spend $1000 on a Photoshop license, spend a couple of weeks in training with Adobe, and download the FREE photoshop templates from MenuboardsToGo. Just what the average chip shop manager is going to want to do.