Powerful Media Targeting

We use the phrase 'Seriously Smart Media Delivery' because that really sums up what we offer - a serious, business-class content scheduling and targeting platform with deep intelligence built in to allow both precision and operating efficiency.

Precision usually equates to a lot of work, but not in the case of PointMediaPro™ - which uses database design to power the scheduling and targeting engines. Operators are not restricted to building defined, ordered playlists and content channel groups. Instead, they can target messages, and schedule and distribute them based on data attributes.

Secure

The platform allows for a variety of targeting characteristics, all of them dynamic. These variables include:

• Geography - country, state/province, DMA, city, postal code
• Geospatial - proximity/location based
• Venue - category, sub-category, store section (example: health and beauty)
• Groups, channels or aliases
• Demography - age, gender, household incomes, ethnicity
• Calendar and time of day
• Traffic and business data, such as store footfalls, business volume
• Back-office data, such as point of sale data

Scheduling and media targeting can also be influenced and activated in PointMediaProT based on external triggers as varied as touchscreens, RFID and card readers, biometric face counting systems, presence-sensing systems and paired, synchronized content files. The system can also be paired to and respond with safety systems, such as on-campus security alerts.

DOOH Network-Ready

The Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) market is expected to grow dramatically in the coming years, and PointMediaPro™ has all the components developed and in place for network operators who build advertising into their programming models.

The system uses the language of the ad media marketplace, and embraces the thinking and workflow behind how ads are planned, scheduled, distributed and audited. Our system adheres to the media metrics that are in place and continuing to be evolved by important contributors like POPAI, Nielsen®, Arbitron and the Outdoor Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB).

With PointMediaPro™, customer teams involved in the media sales and placement process have access to and influence on details such as:

• Campaign duration
• Day part and day-of-week scheduling
• Content characteristics
• Business rules-based scheduling like attractors (running ads in close proximity) or retractors (ensuring the opposite effect, usually for competing brands)
• Campaign planning based on sets of targeting criteria, such as sites and impression counts
• Automated balancing of the programming mix

A unique aspect of our platform is the ability for ad network operators to choose their user experience and interface. While PointMediaPro™ is the primary way to plan campaigns, schedules can also be generated using different input modes such as spreadsheets and Web services, the latter opening up the potential to work directly with third-party online media planning services that aggregate network media buys.

The platform enables media sales teams for a network to have visibility over the level of available inventory across the installed screen estate, minimizing the risk of overbooking.

Broad File Support

Our deep heritage in the Media and Entertainment technology business, enables us to understand media formats and ways to optimize and deliver high quality content.

We support all major forms of media that actually make sense on a digital signage and digital out-of-home network. In case a format is not supported, it is because that it is rarely used or is inappropriate for the delivery of high-quality visuals.

PointMediaPro™ supports all the standard image, video, audio and Flash® formats, as well as scripted, dynamic content using Flash. We handle live video and audio, and enable streaming media up to HD quality, with bandwidth detection and dynamic buffering. RSS is easy. So is Media RSS.

We can integrate with external databases - from data cells on spreadsheets to tagged data on Web servers. We also have direct experience tying into and extracting data (as well as responding to it) from applications/repositories such as POS, SCM, CRM, queue management and legacy systems.

Creatively Agnostic

There is nothing proprietary and limiting about how content gets developed and rendered using PointMediaPro™. Some digital signage platforms force operators to use the limited toolsets and capabilities of the media authoring systems that are part of their toolsets. Instead, we allow our customers to use tools that the creative world puts to work every day.

Your creative team or partners can use popular tools such as the Adobe® CS4 suite, and other superior video and motion graphic editing platforms, to develop content.

PointMediaPro™ fully supports data-driven interactive and kiosk applications that use tools such as Flash® Action Script®. Scripting language and outputs can be self-contained content files scheduled and distributed within our smart media delivery platform.

Our application architecture is agnostic with respect to content and rendering engines. Other creative tools with appropriate rendering engines can be integrated by our professional services team. Net result - we can quickly deliver a solution fully customized to your needs.

PointMediaPro™ gives operators the ability to manage a widely deployed network from the desktop, and makes costly on-site repair trips a rarity.

Robust Distribution

PointMediaPro™ offers enterprise-level distribution and management capabilities for customers operating private or media-driven networks.

Our distributed logic plan enables unique content to be played across hundreds or thousands of players, with asynchronous schedule updates to targeted players. While other companies use the term "scale" liberally in descriptions, we actually support and deliver it.

We have a flexible network infrastructure to send media and scheduling instructions around, using multiple network technologies/protocols. We do conventional terrestrial broadband work, but we also support satellite, VSAT, and FM-based data transfer. Our players and platform can work in always-connected or periodically-connected environments.

System design allows for significantly smaller data transfers than fully-resolved playlists, important when bandwidth is metered, or limited. Transfers can also be scheduled to use on off-hours or when bandwidth is cheaper, or throttled so other business operations are not affected. We also control data volumes by using caching at the venue, allowing only one player to download, locally store and distribute a file to all players at the same site.

Content distribution is encrypted and authenticated for maximum data security. Devices can sit behind corporate firewalls and still communicate, and operators can have Network Address Translation-based communications, instead of using public IPs or VPNs to talk to site servers and players.

Application Driven Media

PointMediaPro™ gives users a broad range of options for running the system and controlling it.

Both Windows® and Linux® are supported as operating systems, and the media player choices are not fixed to units that we market or recommend. Along with personal computers, the platform can or could run on devices such as digital cinema servers all the way down to relatively simple set-top boxes and networked digital picture frames.

The player code leverages on-board media processing to produce advanced effects like synchronization, layers, transparencies, transitions, and scaling. Crisp, scaled and dynamic motion graphics are supported using Adobe® Flash®.

Comprehensive Monitoring

PointMediaPro™ provides detailed campaign management and monitoring capabilities, enabling operators to have full visibility and extensive control over what is happening across the deployed network. Operators know at a glance what is going on with booked campaigns, the status of media file transfers and content integrity, and the state of the actual players, using what amounts to a "heartbeat" monitor.

We deliver telco-grade management capability for configuration, control, monitoring, and diagnostics, and our log file and reporting system provides complete audit trail management. Robust device management is essential to operating large, enterprise-grade systems and ensuring the solutions delivers the lowest total cost of ownership.

Professional Services

Thinxtream was established by Celstream, a global product engineering company with several years of experience in developing products and applications tailored to specific customer needs. Thinxtream’s Digital Signage Solutions Group has access, as needed, to a large pool of software engineers, who can offer professional services on projects.

We can help in:

• Integration with applications, databases, data sources, Websites and RSS feeds
• Enabling video/audio streaming servers and transcoding engines/li>
• Data-driven content scripting
• Integration with content ecosystems
• Applying different network technologies and protocols
• Integrating with business systems such as billing, CRM, ad servers, access control and many others
• Developing specific rendering engines and hardware platforms
• Developing measurement systems/li>
• Personalization/triggering interfaces
• Enabling interactivity
• Mobile device integration

Open Architecture

We understand one size definitely does not fit all in a fast evolving media and messaging landscape, and that the best platforms are those, like PointMediaPro™, which are open to third-party development and integration.

We can expose existing Management Server Web services for requirements such as target search by tag elements, inventory data, availability checks, campaign creation and creative/campaign approvals etc.

The system includes a distribution adapter interface for different distribution mediums like multi-cast networks, and data over FM radio bands. We offer integration with digital asset management systems. We can enable XML message exchange over socket interface to a messaging system. Further, adapters can be written at the Content Server for completely solid state media players.