No. The owners of MEDIAEDGE started in the 1980’s in Japan as “Canopus” which sold to Thompson / Grass Valley and was repurchased by the original owners and renamed MEDIAEDGE. MEDIAEDGE (as Canopus) was involved in the creation of MPEG, digital broadcasting, created one of the world’s first non-linear editing software, one of the world’s first IP video streaming solutions, video format conversion appliances to help people navigate all the different formats, and many other solutions over more than 4 decades in business.

Three things really, starting with reliability. We have customers who have been running the same software and hardware 24x7x365 for more than a decade. That isn’t surprising given the Japanese reputation for quality whether in vehicles or cameras or other electronics. You have seen screens that are blank that worked for awhile but stopped. That won’t happen with MEDIAEDGE. The second thing is adaptability. Our media players for example have an infrared remote control so they can be operated with the remote, controlled by push button box, ran in menu mode or in schedule mode. In addition to the main schedule you can have up to 10 additional schedules accessible with the remote control. You can load content via the network or USB. Content can be a stream, or play from files stored locally allowing for offline use at something like a trade show. The third is MEDIAEDGE truly wants to be your partner. If you have a need we will try to provide a solution.

A place-based audience is a group of people who gather in a specific place and in doing so comprise a viewing audience. If your organization has physical facilities people visit then you have constituted an audience. Your audience has value because they represent potential for not only your products and services but also for other non-competing organizations who need to communicate their messages to your audience. The more unique the audience the more value it has. So for example an audience comprised of people in an airport would have more value to organizations whose customers are travelers than an audience of television viewers at home because something is known already about all members of the audience – they travel by airplane.

MEDIAEDGE is based in Japan but has established an office in America to support North American customers. You can contact MEDIAEDGE-Americas for support at: (800) 336-0077 or by email at support@mediaedge-americas.com

Digital signage is a term describing the deployment and use of screens inside facilities to reach a place based audience in order to inform, educate, influence, and ultimately improve communication and results. Digital signage is far superior to print signage because not only can it be changed quickly but it’s dynamic nature means more people see the content and remember it. In addition to these benefits digital signage can run multiple messages while taking up the same space as a print sign that can only communicate one message.

Digital merchandising is a term describing the deployment and use of screens inside facilities specifically to sell products or services to a place-based audience. Digital merchandising allows retailers to make many products visible in high-traffic areas that would otherwise be hidden from view. In many cases products that are on lower or higher shelves are not seen by shoppers, especially if they are located in out-of-the-way areas of retail space. Rather than re-set your retail displays you can simply feature products on prominent digital signage to increase awareness and stimulate impulse buys.

Sponsor supported networks are private digital signage / digital merchandising networks where time is sold to non-competitive sponsors so they can deliver their message to the place-based audience found inside facilities.

A media player or decoder is a hardware appliance that is purpose-built to enable delivering audio, image, video, and text content to any display device whether it is a flat panel screen, projector, LED screen, etc. These are similar to cable TV boxes or satellite receiver appliances except they allow the user to program the content they want to view. They can usually support multiple types of media files and sometimes include special features like the ability to scroll text or provide closed caption, display video from network security cameras, or even control the display device they are attached to.

An encoder is a hardware appliance that takes a video and audio signal from a device such as a cable TV box, camera, computer, Blu-ray player, DVD player, VHS tape deck, live video production switcher, etc. and converts the output from that device into a digital stream that can be sent via a network to one or more decoders.

No, MEDIAEDGE can provide services so that you can focus on your core business while still enjoying the benefits of place-based audience communication.

No. MEDIAEDGE solutions are fully scalable from a single screen in a single small business all the way to the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer Walmart. We believe small businesses should have the same advantages, including powerful and reliable tools that the world’s largest corporations benefit from, but for an investment that any business can afford.

No. MEDIAEDGE solutions are designed to be compatible with any display – even really old ones with only analog inputs. If you can plug in a power able, a network cable, and the HDMI cable to connect to your TV that is about as difficult as it gets. If we are providing the hosting then we just ship you a media player ready to plug in. We can even arrange for installation of a screen and the media player if that is required and you are not comfortable doing it yourself.

QDCAM is a purpose-built camera to enable the capture, viewing, and monetization of sports action in slow-motion. It uses a global shutter sensor to eliminate distortion from motion, it captures action at 4 to 8 times typical video recording rates so the slow-motion is high-quality. When coupled with our QDVS server, vMix, or other popular broadcast production solutions including Avid, EVS, VSG and more you can have professional level slow-motion replay and highlights for an affordable investment.

In a word engagement. Multiple studies show that virtually everyone enjoys slow-motion replay and the younger generations prefer to watch highlights to viewing an entire event. Highlights, and especially when they include slow-motion, are highly sharable and increase the “shelf life” of any live event beyond when it ends. Some slow-motion highlights are still being watched decades after they were recorded. QDCAM offers the ideal quality for live streaming or sharing highlights on social media. When you add slow-motion highlights it offers additional sponsorship opportunities (this slow-motion replay brought to you by…) and greatly increases the number of views for your existing sponsors (and what you can charge for sponsorship).