LCD Enclosures – Outdoor Protection for Digital Signage

Television has revolutionised our lives with most of us watching hour upon hour of it every week. A TV now sits in nearly every living room and thanks to the growing trend for outdoor digital signage – TV’s are now becoming a regular sight on our boulevards and in our shopping malls too.

Part of this has to do with the emergence of LCD (liquid crystal display) and plasmas that have replaced the traditional CRT (cathode ray tube). These new technologies are not only a lot lighter, thinner and less fragile they have dramatically dropped in price and have made the CRT completely obsolete.

LCDs and plasma TVs are now commonly used for the purposes of digital signage which emerged in the retail and advertising sectors but is now being utilized by all sorts of different industries.

These new LCD and plasma TV’s are mass-produced to such a level they are far cheaper than the CRT they have replaced had ever been. This is one reason why digital out of home media (DOOH), digital advertising and digital signage has expanded in recent years.

From information points in shopping malls to advertising hoardings outside retailers, outdoor digital signage is fast becoming a regular sight on our sidewalks. Using LCD and plasma TVs outdoors does however, come with some challenges.

However, despite their low cost, LCDs and plasmas still have to be protected when they are placed outdoors as the wind, rain and unwanted attention from vandals could finish off the LCD of plasma; permanently. Some LCD manufacturers produce specific outdoor LCD’s which offer mainly protection from the rain (using the NEMA 4 guidelines to demonstrate the protection it offers) and some anti-vandal technology.

However, for true protection from the elements there is no better method than using an LCD enclosure, these house standard LCDs allowing the use of any off-the-shelf TV for outdoor digital signage. This makes them very cost effective and housed in an LCD enclosure even the cheapest LCD or plasma will operate perfectly well in outdoor locations.