BrightSign Opens Up Its Newest Media Player To Windows 10, 11 IoT
June 7, 2024 by Dave Haynes
The walls have been dropping on a lot of software and hardware products in this industry to meet demands for interoperability and to work with less proprietary, more common systems, so it is interesting but maybe not surprising to learn that the industry’s dominant media player manufacturer has opened up its platform to now include support for Windows.
BrightSign’s latest generation XC5 media player now supports both the proprietary BrightSignOS operating system AND the Microsoft Windows 10 and 11 IoT operating systems.
The BrightSign XC5 offering provides options for customers who require a Windows environment backed by purpose-built digital signage hardware.
With this update, BrightSign sets new standards in flexibility on Intel-based XC5 models, XC2055 and XC4055, the company’s most advanced media players to date. Both can be purchased with an operating system (OS) choice of BrightSignOS, Windows 11 IoT or Windows 10 IoT. The BrightSign XC5 remains a pioneer in delivering outstanding performance, transforming video walls and multiple screens into captivating experiences while delivering revolutionary PC-class motion graphics and breathtaking 8K video. All models are backed by BrightSign’s hardware standardization for consistency and speed to market.
“By expanding our partner ecosystem and strengthening relationships across the enterprise, we’re making it easier for organizations to leverage the endless possibilities enabled by purpose-built digital media players,” says Steve Durkee, BrightSign’s newish CEO. “Our mission at BrightSign is to advance the digital signage industry and empower customers to attract, engage, and captivate audiences by bringing visual content and experiences to life. Backed by the reliability, flexibility, and security of BrightSign’s solutions, customers can confidently deploy dynamic experiences with more choice than ever.”
BrightSign’s longtime CEO Jeff Hastings, who is now happily serving as CTO, told me by email that the XC product line was built using an Intel processor, and that triggered the expansion to Windows.
“As we have been selling this over the past year, we have had lots of inquiries to see if we could run Windows on the platform,” says Hastings. “Our partners and customers love the idea of a fanless design with much higher performance than typical fanless designs. Most of these partners have software that is very dependent on Windows.”
“So, after looking at the market, we decided that it would be a great way to support this need by offering a Windows version of the product. This offering takes advantage of the great hardware design, but does leave behind many of the desired features of our BrightSignOS like self-healing and auto recovery.”
Hastings confirms it is the first time BrightSign boxes have been available to run on something other than the company’s operating system.
sounds familiar
What does it sound familiar to?