On first sight, many people would not distinguish any difference between a commercial panel and a consumer television (TV).
You may be lead to question the higher initial price tag of professional panels when they look so much like televisions, but it is important not to confuse these two technologies, since their functions and applications vary greatly.
We've enumerated the main differences below
When consumer displays are used in a commercial environment the warranty may be null and void or, at best, it will revert to 90 days over the counter requiring the display to be shipped back or taken to a service center for repair.
Professional displays are long-term solutions, designed to work for many years without any compromise to picture quality or functionality. Three to five year parts and labor warranties are standard. On-site support and advanced exchange available.
Depending on the ambient light, it is necessary to have a minimum brightness level to guarantee sufficient visibility. Typically, airports and modern offices are flooded with light via glass atriums and facades, these and other equally bright spaces require displays to deliver brightness of 700cd/m² or even more, however, domestic televisions rarely surpass 300cd/m². Large format displays usually provide a high (≥700cd/m²) or moderate (350-500cd/m²) brightness output suitable for common light conditions, ensuring effortless readability even in challenging circumstances
Consumer displays cannot be operate in portrait mode due to ventilation and something call the Gravity Defect, which makes a portion of the panel to look blacked out and the rest to be blurry. On the other hand, commercial displays are designed to operate in both landscape and portrait modes.
For consumer televisions, grayscale is skewed for more of the bright white end of the scale relative to the narrow broadcast standards that they must meet. At wider angles, color fi delity and contrast decreases dramatically. Commercial displays will produce a full grayscale with good linear color tracking from black to white showing all 256 different levels of luminance (brightness). Most importantly, color fi delity will be much greater at larger angles, a very important consideration since your audience isn't always looking at the screen straight on.
Commercial displays are designed to deliver a flawless performance even when exposed to tough conditions.
Various heat protection, flow and dissipation design features control temperature of critical components to make sure they last. Static content is common for certain types of digital signage so better LCD cells and pixel-shifting are used to eliminate image retention.
The technologies above combined with quality components mean that many professional panels can run 16 hours/day and even 24/7. In contrast, TVs are designed for limited ontime operation (2-3 hours) with the intent of long off times.
Commercial displays incorporate the standard RS-232 external control/connector which allows advanced control of the panel remotely. They also have PC and video loop-through connector capability facilitating multiple display configurations (video-walls) from a single PC or video source. In addition they include industrial BNC locking connectors.
Using TVs for digital signage will result in constant maintenance and adjustments, while commercial displays will proactively prepare you for any potential issues thus eliminating downtime.
Replacing a non-functioning TV requires costly labor and equipment to swap the unit, during which time your message is no longer being communicated to your audience. As an investment for your business, commercial panels are designed to be a reliable asset, specially optimized to perform perfectly, fit for purpose, without any compromise to quality. Digital signage isn't simply an additional accessory to your business, it is your primary means of communcation and it has proven its worth as a permanent solution bringing significant business benefits.
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