Under the theme “Collaborate. Attract. Engage.”, Samsung’s booth (#C-6319) will include a variety of next-generation technologies designed to promote more efficient content delivery and display management in corporate, hospitality, public, retail and at-home environments (among others). Highlighted by the integration of the Tizen operating system into many of its newest digital signage technologies, Samsung’s diverse line-up will demonstrate how booth visitors can drive greater engagement, and related sales, through clear, cost-effective message presentation.

“As the world’s leading total digital signage solutions provider, we strive to discover new avenues that help our partners deliver captivating content and a differentiated experience at every stage of the customer journey,” said Seog-gi Kim, Senior Vice President, Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “We are excited to introduce the latest expansion of our cutting-edge visual display lineup at InfoComm 2016, and showcase how these new technologies solve prominent challenges and drive growth in today’s fast-paced business environments.”

A Powerful, Fourth Generation Signage Platform : The Power of Tizen

Beginning in 2016, Samsung’s new P Series digital signage technologies will feature the enhanced fourth generation Samsung SMART Signage Platform (SSSP 4.0) powered by the Tizen operating system. With Tizen, SSSP will deliver more powerful graphic performance and seamless content playback to expand users’ visual display possibilities while creating a more vivid and memorable experience for their audiences.

The Tizen-powered, fourth-generation SSSP features an upgraded graphics engine to drive faster response time, interactions and loading speeds. The platform additionally enables users to manage display content more rapidly through an optional PC-less all-in-one screen.

The refined SSSP 4.0 platform allows users to build and launch web-based applications by offering HTML5 support and a comprehensive toolset, including Web Simulator and Tizen Emulator. The new platform’s versatility expands users’ content development capabilities while reducing activation time.

Comprehensive Enterprise Display Management

A key component of the improved SSSP 4.0 platform, Samsung’s MagicInfo Server 4.0 program enables users to manage their entire display network from any location through a centralized server. Reliable and easy to use, MagicInfo Server 4.0 integrates a dedicated Backup Player and DataLink content streaming functionalities to reduce the manual work required to share essential information.

The enhanced MagicInfo Server 4.0 program additionally offers enterprise users a more capable set of content creation, scheduling and deployment tools. Content managers can leverage an intuitive interface, including drag-and-drop content scheduling, to rapidly identify and implement updates. MagicInfo Server 4.0 further makes content programming easy through a design that does not require JavaScript or additional plug-ins to operate, reducing steps to save valuable time.

Durable Standalone Signage

Samsung’s new standalone displays (PHF and PMF Series) provide a slim, strong and simple signage solution for environments facing tight or irregular space limitations. Featuring a slim-depth design (29.9mm) and narrow bezel (6.9mm), the PHF and PMF displays are among the thinnest on the market and can accommodate a range of business settings. The Tizen-supported standalone displays are designed for uninterrupted 24/7 content delivery, and an integrated centralized infrared receiver (IR) further ensures continued performance in any environment.

A host of additional design features further enable the PHF and PMF Series displays to deliver clear, brilliant content regardless of location. A non-glare frontal panel reduces natural and ambient light reflection to ensure continuous readability.

Industry Leading Large-Sized Outdoor Displays

InfoComm attendees also will get the first look at Samsung’s new large-format OHF Series outdoor displays. Billed as industry’s leading large-sized outdoor signage, the OHF Series is available in a variety of sizes (46-, 55-, 75- and 85-inch models), with each boasting a slim-depth design for more impactful content delivery.

The OHF Series displays are equipped with SSSP 4.0 and powered by the Tizen operating system, ensuring faster and more reliable content development and delivery. An embedded power box condenses operational components to a single system, conserving space while streamlining management. Engineered for any outdoor environment, the OHF Series displays can withstand temperatures ranging from -30-50^oC without impeding content delivery. OHF Series viewers additionally benefit from external magic glass, 2,500nit brightness and a 5,000:1 contrast ratio that ensure messages can be seen clearly at any time and place.

Extreme Narrow-Bezel Video Walls

Optimized for a range of indoor retail, corporate and public-viewing applications, Samsung’s narrow bezel (1.7mm bezel-to-bezel) UHF-E video walls combine advanced color management capabilities with the visual enhancements of large-format signage to deliver clear and consistent content. The ultra-slim design eliminates distractions and keeps viewers focused on the display’s content rather than the display itself. Equipped with the same durability and color presentation components as its predecessors, the UHF-E video walls represent a sleek, stylish alternative capable of delivering uninterrupted content in any indoor setting.

Fine Pixel-Pitch LED Signage

Designed for corporate, control room and customer-facing environments, Samsung’s indoor SMART LED displays deliver compelling content and inspire collaboration at a lower total cost of ownership. These displays feature top-tier diodes and customizable pixel pitch compositions ranging from 1.5-2.5mm, providing seamless visibility while simultaneously accommodating users’ specific operational and branding needs. Combined with design elements that produce the same deep contrast, realistic picture quality and color consistency viewers expect from Samsung’s latest televisions, the LED signage portfolio offers users an extra edge to stand out within often-crowded indoor environments.

Superior Visibility

A customer, rushing to make the most of a short lunch break, pulls into the drive thru for a grab-and -go meal. Once she pulls up the ordering station, however, she realizes that the glare of the sun is making it impossible to read the menu. Frustrated, she orders some version of the usual, misses out on the special combo of the day, and vows to try the restaurant across the street next time. Outdoor digital displays have the ability to engage customers with compelling and relevant information—but only if that content can actually be seen.

One of the main concerns with early generation outdoor displays was the effect of brightness and glare on the readability of the content—something anyone who has ever tried to use a laptop outside can relate to. As Young Cho, a senior product manager from Samsung specializing in outdoor displays says: “The purpose of having the signage is to get the message through to the customer, so it’s important that the proper technology is implemented to make sure that any reflection is cancelled and people can actually see the content.”

This applies not only to the menu, but also to the order confirmation screen, since order accuracy is absolutely critical for customer satisfaction in the drive thru. Most indoor LCD displays have a brightness of 300 to 350 “nit”—a measure of luminance. For an outdoor display to be equally vivid in intense sunlight, outdoor digital signage must have at least 700-nit brightness.

Samsung’s OHD Series SMART Outdoor Signage provides this level of readability with LED backlighting, delivering vibrant content even in direct sunlight. These displays measure in at more than 2,500 nit, paired with energy-saving Auto Brightness sensors and an easily customizable brightness range.

High brightness is not enough, as glare from the sun also impairs visibility. Samsung’s outdoor signage is equipped with protective anti-reflection glass which reduces the total reflection to 0.5 percent and makes content clearly visible even under direct sunlight. Plus, the high contrast ratio of 5,000:1 creates an optimum viewing experience in any light, during any time of day or night. The displays are even equipped with circular polarizing technology, which means that customers wearing polarized sunglasses can view them without a problem.

Cost-Reducing Durability

With torrents of rain and wind swirling outside, your restaurant is empty. On days like this, you put your faith in the drive thru, where customers can grab a delicious meal without getting out of their cars and stepping into the pouring rain. Only two customers in, however, you realize that the graphics and text have shorted out in the inclement weather. The next day you wake up to a sunny sky and renewed hope, only to find that vandals have left a surprise message in bright yellow paint directly over your outdoor menuboard.

Now, instead of rejoicing over all of the sales you plan to recoup that day, you have to worry about the cost to repair your outdoor signage, along with worries about what your customers will think. By investing in outdoor digital signage with special tempered glass, you’re protecting against vandalism, spray paint, and hard impact—ensuring that promising mornings stay promising. You also decide it’s time to invest in outdoor signage that remains clear and high-performing in any weather.

“Digital signage has to resist the summer heat, winter’s freezing temperatures, pouring rain, and dust, among other things,” Cho says. “On top of all of that, it has to be protected from vandalism, so there’s a lot to consider.” Cho says that as a baseline, waterproof, IP-rated hardware is a must. Samsung’s IP56-rated, waterproof and dustproof design extends protection to the fan, drain hole, and power outlets, as well as the main display, while a steady cooling system eliminates the risk of overheating.

In addition to handling tough blows from vandals, Samsung’s outdoor digital signage is designed to handle tough blows from moody weather as well, with a temperature range of negative 22 degrees to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. By effectively protecting outdoor displays, owners can reduce repair costs and avoid risking lost sales opportunities resulting from inclement weather or environmental conditions.

Convenient Design

To make up for the past few days of lagging sales—and hopefully pay for the graffiti removal—the general manager has asked you, the IT manager, to immediately roll out a new LTO. He has also requested you update the calorie count for some of the menu items. With the old static signage, you would have had to go through a long process of designing, printing, and distributing the new content. With the new centralized content management system and digital outdoor displays, all of this work is simplified to a few clicks.

The ability to conveniently create, manage, and push out new content to outdoor digital displays is the final factor in building a successful outdoor display program. It’s particularly helpful if the same provider of the hardware can step in to provide this content-management software with a hard-to-beat, all-in-one system.

Samsung’s MagicInfo content management platform allows users to create, schedule, and deploy content to multiple displays in multiple locations. MagicInfo comes with a suite of creative tools, enabling brands to design eye-catching digital signage, all the way up to complex, interactive multimedia displays. The solution comes standard on Samsung SMART Signage products.

Furthermore, distribution of the created content can easily be distributed to the outdoor drive thru signage and managed in a centralized location due to an HDBaseT connection, which allows for smooth flow of content even over long distances. Samsung signage also comes with the industry’s first System-on-Chip (soc) embedded media player—the Samsung SMART Signage Platform (sssp)—which streamlines the process of uploading content and eliminates the need for external hardware to run digital content.

All of this is conveniently housed within a slim, stylish, compact design for easy installation. Measuring in at only 90.3 millimeters in depth, this signage includes an embedded media player, power box, cooling system, and more. With the clear benefits and increased selling power that outdoor digital displays bring, brands are looking for this trifecta of visibility, durability, and convenience to push their drive thru sales and accuracy to the next level.

Samsung continues to bring innovation to the next level with forward-thinking designs and capabilities, allowing restaurants to keep current customers happy while engaging the next generation. “We continue to study the dynamics of quick serves and the drive thru in order to develop optimized and impactful displays,” Cho says. “Our displays provide a unique business solution to fill the gap in the outdoor signage market by delivering industry-leading brightness and enhanced functionality, allowing business owners to create and deploy powerful and attractive messages easily.”

By harnessing the ability to relay information in creative, easily readable, and easily updated ways, outdoor digital displays are adding customer engagement and operator ease into the drive thru equation.

*This article contains content repurposed with permission from QSR magazine.

This growth may be attributed to Samsung’s recent moves: adding LED signage to its B2B display lineup, commercializing next-generation smart, transparent and mirror display solutions, and further strengthening its open platform. Continuing to attract the attention of businesses that need cutting-edge displays will help Samsung become No. 1 in the global commercial display market for nine consecutive years in 2016.

Winning Contracts Around the World

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) moved its head office into a new, landmark building in Bangkok on January 4. For the new building, Samsung supplied 230 Smart Signage displays to help SET provide comprehensive information related to stock exchanges. In addition, SET installed a video wall made of 36 55-inch Smart Signage displays to offer visitors a clear view of the status of exchanges and stock news. Based on its ten years of experience in the B2B display business in this region, Samsung plans to further expand its presence in neighboring countries, including Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

In mid-January, Samsung also signed a major contract with MSC Cruises, a Swiss shipbuilding giant, to create seven “smart” cruise ships over the next five years, supplying them with state-of-the-art B2B solutions. Initially Samsung will supply more than 6,600 devices to two cruise ships, including 95-inch Smart Signage displays, augmented reality (AR) mirrors, tablets and medical equipment. Construction on those first two ships will begin in early 2016.

The commercialization of futuristic products like transparent displays and mirror displays, which until recently looked like devices from sci-fi movies, has also become a reality. Last month, the BMW Driving Center in Korea installed a video wall made of six 55-inch transparent OLED displays from Samsung. Displaying a wide variety of information and videos, the wall invites visitors to enjoy the special features of the cars in a unique manner.

Furthermore, at an apparel shop operated by Samsung C&T Corporation, Samsung Mirror Display intelligently helps customers with their shopping. When customers try on a piece of clothing, this technology can show them photos of how they look from the sides and behind. It also can recommend the clothing options for customers by analyzing their gender, patterns and the colors of the clothes they are wearing.

In addition, Samsung is gaining attention from its plans to supply its Signage products to super-large landmarks in North America, Europe and Asia.

Three Advantages That Give Samsung a Major Competitive Edge

Three advantages are leading Samsung’s growth in its B2B display business in 2016. First of all, it added the LED Signage business to its portfolio to attract large outdoor facilities. Since last March when it acquired YESCO Electronics—a U.S.-based LED display manufacturer—Samsung has prepared new offerings that link those products with its own signage solutions. With significant advantages over existing models in terms of picture quality, reliability, and lifespan, Samsung’s LED Signage has proven to be a good fit for outdoor settings and large venues that specialize in sports and entertainment events. Combining the competitiveness of YESCO in LED Signage with Samsung’s capacity as the No.1 B2B display business in the world, the company expects its performance in the market will show significant progress starting this year.

Secondly, Samsung has been at the forefront of introducing futuristic display solutions. It recently commercialized new displays such as transparent OLED displays and mirror displays that provide consumers with a new shopping experience by displaying products and enriching their look in a unique way. To increase these advantages, Samsung plans to make retail environments even smarter by combining Smart Signage, Samsung Pay and its Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, allowing retailers to better predict the flow and demand of consumers and provide individualized information for them.

Finally, the rapid spread of its open-source B2B platform represents the third Samsung advantage. Since there are different kinds of systems, solutions and devices used by the typical business, an open display platform with reliable compatibility is a must. Samsung has long recognized the importance of software in the world of B2B displays in the development of its Samsung Smart Signage Platform (SSSP). Businesses can apply SSSP in the way that best suits various situations, fully optimizing their signage for the best operation of their products. 25 Samsung partners will be using SSSP in their exhibits at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2016 in Amsterdam from February 9 to 12, showing how the open display platform is spreading quickly.

Since 2008, Samsung has been the top company in the world in the commercial display market. According to IHS, a market researcher, Samsung’s global market share in the third quarter of 2015 accounted for 28.6 percent of unit sales, about three times higher than its closest competitor.

The global commercial display market has been posting an impressive annual growth rate of 19 percent on average, and is predicted to reach US$8.77 billion by 2019. By supplying its next-generation display solutions, Samsung intends to provide consumers with more information and change their way of making purchases.

Samsung’s 2016 ISE booth

“As Samsung manufactures the world’s most brilliant and powerful visual displays, we consistently seek new avenues to further refine our technology and enable our partners to offer new and differentiated experiences to their own customers,” said Seog-gi Kim, Senior Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “We’re looking forward to bringing our vision of the future to life at ISE 2016. As well as demonstrating how our complete display portfolio and latest technology will unlock new opportunities to deliver fresh, interactive content to our partners most important audiences.”

Samsung’s diverse line-up will range from large-scale video walls and crystal-clear LED signage to retail-friendly transparent OLED and mirror displays. All of which will help show visitors the value of immersive and informative viewing environments and how influential they can be in driving improved engagement and, ultimately, sales.

Powerful, Durable Outdoor Signage

Samsung’s outdoor signage suite enables businesses to share brilliant, highly-visible content in even the most challenging conditions. As highlighted by the OH55D display, Samsung’s outdoor technologies feature internal heating and cooling systems that adjust settings for continued performance in temperatures ranging from -30 to 50^o C. Furthermore, the OH55D display is IP56 certified to prevent damage from dust and water.

Easy to install in kiosks and other complex outdoor usage scenarios, the OH55D display maintains consistent 2,500 nit brightness and a 5,000:1 contrast ratio. Coupled with an embedded automatic brightness sensor that adjusts settings in real-time, users can be confident that their messages will be seen clearly with minimal impact from surrounding natural and ambient light sources.

Professional-Grade Video Walls

Samsung Video Wall at ISE 2016

Optimized for a range of indoor retail, corporate and public-viewing applications, Samsung’s professional-grade, narrow bezel (3.5mm bezel-to-bezel) UD55E-A video walls combine advanced color management capabilities with the visual enhancements of large-format signage, to deliver clear and consistent content. Each UD55E-A video wall undergoes rigorous factory calibration and tuning to prevent brightness and color accuracy irregularities, and ensures that viewers receive messages without visual distraction. As the industry’s first video walls to feature integrated DisplayPort (DP) 1.2 and HDMI ports, the UD55E-A displays accommodate UHD content across a variety of configurations.

ISE 2016 attendees can also get a first look at the industry’s slimmest video wall. Samsung’s UHF-E display features a thin bezel-to-bezel design (0.9mm on the upper and left sides, 0.5mm on the lower and right sides) that keeps viewers focused on the display’s content rather than the display itself. Equipped with the same durability and color presentation components as its predecessors, the UHF-E video wall represents a sleek, stylish alternative for delivering uninterrupted content in most indoor environments.

Fine Pixel-Pitch LED Signage

Designed for corporate, control room and customer-facing environments, Samsung’s indoor SMART LED displays deliver compelling content and inspire collaboration at a lower total cost of ownership. These displays feature top-tier diodes and customizable pixel pitch compositions ranging from 1.5 to 2.5mm, providing seamless visibility while simultaneously accommodating users’ specific operational needs. Combined with design elements that produce the same deep contrast, realistic picture quality and color consistency viewers expect from Samsung’s latest televisions, the LED signage portfolio offers users an extra edge to stand out within often-crowded indoor environments.

In addition, Samsung is spotlighting how its indoor LED signage represents a higher-performing and lower-maintenance alternative to legacy classroom and boardroom technologies. In lieu of projectors and analog boards, Samsung’s LED displays condense multiple pieces of equipment into a single signage solution that expands content sharing possibilities and enhances collaboration.

The Next-Generation Retail Store

Samsung Mirror Displays at ISE 2016

Through its “retail store of the future” exhibit, Samsung invites ISE attendees to view how interactive and sensory displays will drive new customer engagement. Samsung’s ML55E mirror displays and TO55F transparent OLED signage can be used for both promotional and welcome messaging. They can also function as a virtual catalogue of accessories and products. In fashion and cosmetics applications, shoppers also can use the mirror to digitally view how a particular product would look, to enable more informed purchasing decisions.

Samsung’s booth will showcase a wide range of future-focused technologies and applications, including:

• A replica hotel guest room, containing Samsung’s LYNK REACH centralized in-room content management system
• Touchscreen-enabled small signage that provides supplementary information and encourages seamless wayfinding in entertainment environments
• Interactive white board (IWB) displays that enable real-time content sharing and promote simultaneous group collaboration in boardroom and classroom settings
• A dedicated applications exhibit where several Samsung partners will demonstrate how the company’s display technologies enhanced their operations. This includes case studies using Samsung SMART Signage Platform (SSSP) content management and H.Browser hospitality connectivity systems.

Samsung Transparent OLED Display at ISE 2016

ISE is Europe’s largest annual professional AV and electronic systems event, and is expected to draw more than 60,000 attendees and exhibitors.