Protecting Outdoor Digital Signage – Choose an LCD enclosure

Digital signage is one of the fastest growing new advertising media. Its growth, for advertisers has exceeded even internet advertising which has begun to wane. And one of the latest challenges for digital advertisers has been taking the signage screens outside where they can receive a higher audience.

Outdoor locations have obvious advantages for digital signage users. No matter how many people will walk through a store, shopping center or other indoor location – far more will walk past outside.

And there is less competition too with outdoor digital signage only just starting to catch on, meaning there is more opportunity to get noticed with an outdoor digital signage screen.

Challenges of Protecting Outdoor Digital Signage

Placing a screen in an outdoor location does come with some difficulties and challenges that have to be overcome otherwise the screen can fail causing you to replace it and adding the price of another device to your ever dwindling return on investment.

The main challenges in using a TV screen for outdoor digital signage are:

• Rainfall and other weather
• Temperature
• Impacts/deliberate damage
• Sun readabilityProtection

A NEMA 4 LCD enclosure

There are multiple choices for choosing protection for these outdoor elements. Which method you choose can often be decided by cost or practicality.

The first option would be to invest in an all purpose outdoor TV screen. These devices are waterproof and should be durable enough to withstand most knock and impacts; outdoor TV screens should also be equipped with some internal cooling system too otherwise it will have to be housed in an LCD enclosure.

The biggest downside to using outdoor TV systems is the extraordinary costs attached. When you compare a standard or even commercial screen with one of these outdoor TVs the cost can be as much as ten times the amount.

LCD enclosures

LCD enclosures are a far more flexible and cost effective alternative. Any TV device from standard LCDs to commercial grade screens can be installed inside the enclosure which will offer the waterproofing and outdoor protection required.

These steel enclosures also house cooling and heating systems; providing the optimum temperature inside the enclosure. They can also be equipped with media players and other hardware (such as a compact PC) to control any media campaign.