PointMediaPro, from Thinxtream’s Digital Signage Solutions Group, is about solving problems for businesses and their clients, through a feature-rich, comprehensive digital signage platform.

We do everything a conventional digital platform can offer, but we go far beyond with capabilities and services that have the flexibility and breadth needed to directly address some of the core problems and challenges faced by businesses using digital display networks.

This is about how businesses and their customers want and need to deploy and manage networks, not how technology developers say it needs to be. You choose the hardware. You choose the operating system. Tells us how it needs to work for you. Tell us your deadlines are tight and get the answer you need.

With PointMediaPro, it is about how we can help you.

Workflow efficiency

Running a highly complex media network while controlling resource costs

PointMediaPro directly addresses one of the biggest challenges for operators of enterprise-level digital screen networks - how to accurately and efficiently target information without adding enormous resource costs.

Most scheduling platforms on the market use linear playlists to schedule content, and as networks grow, so does the complexity of scheduling each time individual sites need programming that is even slightly varied. Choosing the wrong scheduling platform can mean the difference between a part-time task for one person and a full-time job for several.

With PointMediaPro, there is no manual playlist creation. It is all dynamically created by the media player, based on data attributes applied when the network is set-up, and then updated as needed. A very granular, highly complicated marketing campaign - with targeting based on criteria such as geography, venue type, traffic and demographics - might take days to execute on most platforms. On PointMediaPro, it takes minutes.

Scalability

Managing workloads and capacity as small networks grow in size and complexity

Planned and designed well, a large screen network should be able to grow in scale without corresponding growth in network management workload and, therefore, resource costs and obligations. Scalable is an over-used and much abused term, but its importance is very real. A truly scalable digital signage platform should allow operators to efficiently run a large, widely-deployed network with very few resource obligations or concerns about infrastructure capacity.

The smart media delivery capability in PointMediaPro means time-consuming scheduling and targeting tasks for content are largely automated. Remote device management and monitoring tools keep an eye on the network and report problems as they develop, and allow operators to resolve issues from the desktop.

Network traffic is also optimized in PointMediaPro so that even with hundreds or thousands of players, business operations do not suffer from being on the same LAN.

Extensions & Integration

Finding a solution tailored to your business needs, on your timelines and terms

Our heritage is in product engineering, so we know all about the unique needs of clients and have the experience and resources to help build extensions tailored to the needs of clients.

Most companies in the digital signage software sector have fewer than 10 people working on development, and they work to rigid roadmaps. Straying off those roadmaps to address the requirements of individual clients presents problems, because customization work for one customer typically comes at the cost of other activities.

Thinxtream has access to Celstream's vast pool of in-house software engineers to supplement the core team. In practical terms, that means the extensions and integration our clients need to incorporate with their business systems can easily be taken on without any material impact on our core development work and roadmap. Thinxtream’s Digital Signage Solutions Group can do what you need, and on your timelines. Our professional services team has vast technology expertise and domain understanding in directly relevant sectors like Media and Entertainment and Consumer Electronics.

Converging Media Integration

Settling on a media platform, when the media landscape keeps changing and evolving

The lines between mainstream and emerging media continue to blur, and the right technology has to be one that considers not only where the marketplace is right now, but where it is going. This means open standards, a highly flexible, adaptive platform and the engineering resources and acumen to move with the market.

PointMediaPro is designed to integrate with best-of-breed components and technologies. Our clients are not constrained by hardware or delivery platforms. We support all major media formats and have a handle on what is coming. We are agnostic about content formats and have the tools in place to rule out obsolescence. We do not lock customers in to specific creative/layout tools. And we leverage the creative community's expertise too.

We understand mobile. We understand IPTV. Most importantly, we understand that our customers’ needs change with market demands, and that we are well positioned to support them.

Capital & Operating Costs

How can initial and ongoing operating costs be best controlled?

Thinxtream works with customers to find solutions that best meet their needs. We do not insist that clients use a particular piece of computer hardware to run our services. Instead, we will work with you to find a solution that is tailored for both your technical and financial requirements.

ointMediaPro was designed specifically for digital signage networks - not adapted from another medium - and has immense efficiency built-in to control costs. Capital costs are fairly finite numbers that are easily budgeted, but what can hurt network operators and cripple plans are network management costs that spiral out of control. PointMediaPro offers operators a reliable solution that minimizes downtime and enables troubleshooting and fixes from a remote desktop, not a costly on-site service team.

The work of managing and targeting content can also add an extraordinary amount of work on networks that have content that varies by location, or even varies within sites. The wrong solution can require several full-time staff to keep the programming current and accurate. PointMediaPro overcomes these hurdles by taking advantage of smart data design.

Reliability

Turning on the network, and crossing your fingers and toes

PointMediaPro offers network operators peace of mind with a platform that is designed for industrial-strength demands, a back-end system that gives users visibility over what is going on and tools to easily remedy those rare problems when and if they develop.

The platform provides constant system monitoring on the heartbeat of the network and its connected components, including players and displays. The PointMediaPro dashboard gives an overview of the entire system, including the integrity of files and a look at who is using the system. The built-in user access system tracks access and changes, so users always know who did what on the system. No other digital signage solution offers this level of security and file protection.

PointMediaPro also supports the centralized distribution of software updates, making upgrades and patches (to address any issues) and maintaining high uptime an easy task.

Flexibility

Meeting different needs, client by client

PointMediaPro has a roles-based management design that lets different users work with the platform based on their needs and user profiles.

Permission can be established to allow people responsible for activities such as media campaign scheduling and distribution to work with the platform but have no visibility in to other aspects of the system, such as network monitoring and media player provisioning. Third-parties outside the formal organization can be allocated full or highly limited user rights, again based on roles and needs.

The distribution platform is equally flexible. PointMediaPro supports Ethernet and broadband connections out of the box. In addition, Thinxtream has direct experience and insight on non-traditional communication systems such as wireless data networks, satellite and even data over FM radio bands. If clients need to include broadcast TV, internal communication, unicasts, multicasts, live streams, or stored video, Thinxtream’s Digital Signage Solutions Group can integrate these video sources over video distribution systems, over RF, CCTV, DTV broadcast, or IP networks into PointMediaPro.