The I Hotel and Conference Center at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana has upgraded to the Black Box iCOMPEL digital-signage media system. Seeking to enhance the performance of the digital signage in its hallways and meeting-room foyers from its former content-management system, the hotel determined iCOMPEL was the best choice.
Located in Research Park, the I Hotel and Conference Center is an exclusive, convention-class hotel featuring 120 rooms and suites catering to businesspeople, academics, wedding parties and others who desire an ultra-contemporary, guest-focused experience.
When I Operations LLC, the company managing I Hotel, sought to upgrade the performance of the digital signage, it contacted C.V. Lloyde, a local vendor and a premier commercial audio-video equipment provider.
“I Hotel has a total of 23 video displays—four wayfinder boards at various points for directions and schedules, and 19 room marquee screens mounted outside conference rooms. It was looking for greater flexibility and reliability from all the devices,” said Stephen Morris, president of C.V. Lloyde. “The screens themselves performed well, but the CMS software offered limited functionality and the media players were failing at an inordinate rate for such a young system.”
He added, “iCOMPEL is an extremely innovative device. It combines hardware and software in one unit. As a dealer, that’s one of the most appealing benefits we can offer because it gives our clients one manufacturer to work with for both pre- and post-sale support.”
iCOMPEL is ready to use out of the box. The unit is controlled by a standard Web browser, and it can combine video or live TV with scrolling text, photos, Flash and Web content to create dynamic, multi-purpose displays that serve multiple needs.
Morris said, “In addition to news feeds, weather widgets, conference agendas and such, conferences could broadcast meeting activity outside their meeting rooms and wedding parties could run photo montages. At the more tech-savvy events, the hotel could even set up scrolling chats and Twitter feeds from attendees.”
Located behind each display at the hotel, a Black Box HD receiver gets its signal via CAT6 from a corresponding, rack-mounted Black Box HD View Transmitter and iCOMPEL subscriber located in the management suite.