Looking for cheap digital signage for your office or lobby?

So were we, and now I’ve got a great, inexpensive solution to share. We’ve had a decent 720p HD monitor hanging on the wall in our office lobby for some time now:

The problem is we were basically running a PowerPoint (not HD) from a computer through the wall and to be honest, it wasn’t the greatest quality.  That’s been our system for a while now, but we finally got a better solution in place this week.

I got a call from our IT department saying that they thought a Roku box (affiliate link) would accomplish the job via one of its new content providers, FrameChannel.  I was totally excited because I’ve been wanting to add a Roku at home since we got our new Samsung LCD.  Lightbulb clicked, and I realized that they were absolutely right, this was going to work really well.

FrameChannel is excellent, and allows you to display content from a ton of different providers, including Facebook, Twitter, and your own RSS:

The best part?  You can edit your content from any computer, because it’s all web-driven.  For more advanced control, it appears that the same company that powers FrameChannel also has a product called SignChannel, although it’s unclear whether or not the latter supports streaming via Roku.

So for about $100, we’ve got respectable digital signage in our lobby.  We’re using it to promote Facebook and Twitter, and also to showcase our visiting students each day.  Here are a couple of the custom images I’ve created for the TV:

Finally, here’s a look at the semi-finished product (we’re still finessing it a little bit):

The one thing I would like to do at this point is perhaps install a higher-quality, larger TV.  This ViewSonic monitor that we currently have doesn’t seem particularly well-suited for the size of the room.

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