TinyGreenPC has has been doing teeny solid-state micro PCs for a few years now, but the London, UK-based firm has announced a new digital signage player based on an the Raspberry Pi-ARM micro PC.
The new player is a commercial-grade version of the hyper-popular Raspberry Pi, based on a partnership with Silver Curve and already set to support the SignageLive, and InStore Media content management systems. The units cost roughly $475 USD, so they are 10X the cost of the $45 Pi board. Why the big price delta? The base Pi needs storage, case and other accessories to make it useful as a player, the Aperture graphics engine software is layered in, there is a 10-minute built-in UPS (backup power supply) and the two companies crazily add margin on the things and make money from the effort.
That UPS means player does not have to wait for power to come back in the case of a brown-out or black-out, and then if it doesn’t, it does a nice clean shutdown. This means you don’t get corrupted files on disk.
TheSilver Curve partnership means the little Pi has been optimized with that company’s Aperture graphics engine, allowing it to easily do multiple zones, multiple layers, smooth animation and cinematic effects such as depth of field.
TinyGreenPC says it is offering the Raspberry Pi based player fully cased as a Stand Alone Media Player or an OPS Media Player. Both can receive content via Ethernet or (optional) WiFi and render it to an attached screen of up to 1920 x 1080p (Full HD) resolution. The Stand Alone player is equipped with HDMI, RS-232, Ethernet, GPIO and USB 2.0 Interfaces.
All Pi Media Players models are available to purchase from an online store.