I have seen countless sales or marketing people bring a video or PowerPoint program to the tradeshow on their personal or company issued laptop. Their laptop becomes the video player for the entire show and has to be setup to play the program through a series of steps to include screen resolution changes, full screen adjustments, passwords, repeat functions, and much more. I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said “does anyone know the password to this laptop?”
Well today I would like to help you change all that. Let me introduce you to the Solid State Media Player. This little box can replace your laptop and provide lots of valuable features for any continuous loop or auto repeat presentation at a trade show. We have been telling our clients about these for a few years now. The secret is the CF memory card. CF stands for Compact Flash card. Here at Exhibit Edge we can take your file and convert it to play in MPEG format and download the converted file to the CF card.
Because flash is nonvolatile memory, stored data is retained when a device’s power source is turned off or lost. CF cards feature solid-state construction, which makes them much more rugged than most traditional storage devices.
So what does all that mean? Well let me show you. You see the video that is playing here. I am removing the CF card and, of course, the video stops. Let’s say there was a power failure or the day ended and now you need to start the video for the next day. With a solid state video player you just put the card back in and you’re done. The video automatically starts and repeats. No setup, no passwords, no problem. I even tell clients that they don’t really even have to turn the media player off at all. Just turn the monitor on and off each day.
Think about it. No setup, no disk to go bad, no laptop to worry about, no problem. These media players sell for $400 to $1,000. Exhibit Edge will rent these players starting at $75 per show. The cost for us to convert a PowerPoint or video file, including the cost of the CF card, will run under $200 per presentation. Then it can be used over and over again, show after show, on a simple flash card. What could be easier then that?