When preparing the bidding proposal for the storefronts, window displays or commercial spaces for a shopping center, project managers, scheme planners and purchasing officers often encounter a key issue: Which one should be chosen, digital signage or LED displays? This article will provide you with a detailed explanation on the differences between digital signage and LED display.
What Is Digital Signage？
Digital signage is not just about the display screens and media players that you can see. It also includes a content management system, or CMS, which enables it to dynamically display various information, such as advertisements, the mall’s floor plan, or the weather, etc.
Digital displays’ screens can come in various types, such as LCD, LED, OLED, and even projectors. However, currently the most common type is an LCD display, rather than an LED display.
What Is an LED Display?
When you see the name “LED display screen”, it mainly represents a display device rather than a system.
Countless light-emitting diodes form the LED display screen. It can emit light independently, has strong color expression capabilities, and can achieve very high brightness, so it can be used as outdoor LED displays.
You can freely adjust the size by adding or reducing the LED modules, or order other shapes such as round LED displays according to your needs.
Why Does the Difference Matters for Your Business?
LED display screens are commonly used display devices for digital signage. Nevertheless, in practical application, you often see people treating digital signage and LED displays as two distinct things.
This is because, although LED displays do not come equipped with CMS systems, they can still function independently as a display device, presenting content that is relatively simpler compared to digital signage.
Understanding the differences between these two can not only save the budget, but also reduce the management costs, thereby enhancing the promotional effect.
Digital Signage vs LED Displays: Differences in Composition
The Composition of Digital Signage
You can think of the digital signboard as a healthy person with all normal bodily functions.
The CMS is like a person’s brain. It is the core in the entire digital signage system, determining how it plays and what content it displays. You can connect many digital signage displays together using CMS. When you want to change the content, you can use a computer that is installed with a CMS, and remotely control and manage many digital signs.
The network is like the nervous system, transmitting your commands to the hardware components. The hardware includes various displays and media players. These devices are like the limbs when it comes to a person, which obeys your commands and plays corresponding images or sounds.
The Composition of LED Display
Just as mentioned earlier, LED displays can be used as the hardware component in a digital signage, or they can exist independently as display screens. People usually assemble three small light-emitting diode bulbs in different colors like blue, red, and green into a group and solder them onto a PCB board. This forms the LED display module that you can see.
The LED display requires a frame that can support and protect it. This frame is called the LED screen cabinet. The cabinet material is usually aluminium. This material is not only lighter but also has excellent heat dissipation properties, enabling the LED lamps to operate for a longer time.
The control system of the LED display is much simpler than that of the digital signage. It only needs to receive the signals and distribute them to each LED module. You may need to connect the LED display to your laptop via a USB data cable in order to control its content. Sometimes, you can also achieve these through the control software.
Digital Signage vs LED Displays: Differences in Display Effect
The Display Effect of Digital Signage
Most digital signage displays are LCD screens, which are screens with liquid crystal inside. The size of a single LCD screen is fixed, but it can achieve a very high pixel density. This enables it to clearly display text such as menus, prices, or more complex images for people at close range.
At the same time, LCD also has a drawback that the liquid crystal layer itself cannot emit light; it requires a backlight layer to provide the light source. Therefore, its brightness is not sufficient and the colors are not vivid enough.
The Display Effect of LED Display
As a display screen that can directly emit light using LED lamps, LED displays can achieve extremely high brightness, much higher than that of ordinary displays. Outdoor LED displays can remain clearly visible even under intense sunlight.
Its three-color LED lamps emit light in different proportions, which can display vivid colors for you. If you use LED displays to showcase your brand, you will find that compared to most LCD-based digital signs, LED displays have a higher contrast ratio and are more eye-catching.
However, when it comes to some small details on the picture, you need to choose a pixel pitch that is small enough for the LED display, so as not to affect the picture quality. If the pixel pitch is too large, the picture will become blurry and have a grainy appearance, making it difficult for people to read.
Digital Signage vs LED Displays: Differences in Application
The Application of Digital Signage
Digital signage featuring LCD displays can provide clear information to those who are viewing closely. At some shopping malls’ entrances, the digital signage will be designed in a touch-interactive form, providing people with more accurate floor navigation information.
Some chain stores often place digital signage in the checkout area or at the entrance, providing customers with constantly updated promotional information every day. The information is updated very frequently and often requires large-scale unified updates. Therefore, the CMS can help you modify the display content more conveniently.
Therefore, in an indoor environment where close-up viewing is possible, digital signage can be used to provide constantly updated information and can be uniformly managed.
The Application of LED Display
When you are walking along a commercial street, you may come across some buildings with a super-large display screen installed on their surfaces. The content displayed on it can easily capture people’s attention.
This screen is an LED screen. Its LED lamp can achieve extremely high brightness. Its cabinet can protect it from being disturbed by wind and rain, so the LED display can be used both indoors and outdoors.
For outdoor advertising screens or storefront facades that do not require frequent content updates, digital signage is of a smaller size and has insufficient brightness. However, a large LED display can better attract people and expose the brand.
The high-pixel-density LED screen is specially designed for long-distance viewing, enabling many people to watch simultaneously from a distance. Such an application is something that digital signage cannot achieve.
Digital Signage vs LED Displays: Differences in Maintenance
The Maintenance of Digital Signage
The CMS can help you manage many digital signs at the same time, but this also means that if the CMS breaks down or needs to be updated and upgraded, all the digital signs will be affected, and they might need to be shut down for several hours simultaneously.
Furthermore, for many commercial digital signage systems, when they break down, the common approach is to replace the entire unit. Although this approach makes the operation process simpler and enables even the store staff to complete the replacement with guidance, it results in significant waste.
After being used for several years, the various digital signs within a certain location usually exhibit different visual effects due to successive replacements, such as variations in brightness and color. This will also increase the maintenance costs.
The Maintenance of LED Display
The LED display screen can work faithfully and stably for a long time. Compared to digital signage, it is more like an integral part of the infrastructure.
LED lamps are cold light sources, which means that the heat dissipation pressure on the LED screen is relatively low, and you don’t need to worry about it reducing its lifespan due to overheating during operation.
Whether it’s the LED module, LED cabinet, power supply or data cable, every component of the LED screen can be replaced individually. You don’t need to replace the entire LED screen; you only need to replace the faulty individual module. The LED screen supports hot swapping, so when it’s being repaired, the overall picture can still be displayed.
FAQ
Is LED Display a Better Choice for Creating an Iconic Visual Landmark?
Yes. LED display screens can be made in very large sizes and placed outdoors. They can also be made in a spherical shape, making them the ideal choice for landmarks.
Which Installation Process is More Complex between LED Display And Digital Signage?
The installation process of digital signage is more complicated than that of LED displays. All you need to do is assemble the LED modules together like building blocks. However, when installing the digital signage, you need to connect them to the CMS.
For Indoor Applications, is Digital Signage Always Better than LED Display?
Digital signage performs better when people view it up close or when it needs to be updated frequently. In other cases, LEDs outperform digital signage.
I’m Planning to Set up an Exhibition Hall for the Enterprise. Which Option is More Suitable?
LED display screens are more suitable. It can offer more vivid images and can be made in a large size to attract more people to watch.
I Have Plans for Expansion in the Future. Which Option Would be Better?
LED displays are better because they can increase the size by seamlessly assembling LED modules. The size of digital signage is fixed and cannot be changed.
Final Thoughts
JINGYLED is a professional LED manufacturer. We have advanced manufacturing equipment and are capable of meeting your requirements. If you wish to collaborate with us, please feel free to contact us.
