Car Museums Adopt DS

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The original Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany had outlived its initial purpose so the company decided to update it. The initial implementation of complex solutions can tend to be oversimplified and are often left in use for longer than originally planned. The leading vision for the new museum was not simply to display the past, but also to strengthen the values of the Mercedes-Benz brand and give glimpses of the future ahead. Instead of being a mere repetition of historic knowledge, it was to display the process of combining historic values, modern technology and innovation that combine to create the brand and products of Mercedes-Benz. The museum was therefore to be built using the Mercedes-Benz brand’s core values. The architecture of the building utilises modern computer technology to compute intricate statics which wouldn’t have been possible using traditional architectural processes, as well as implementing a digital audio guide system that incorporates twelve different languages in order to support a broad and international visitor audience. Thus, the digital technology of the museum had to use the latest technology too.

The requirements of the museum all pointed towards digital signage technology as the solution, as this would enable high quality videos to be displayed conveying the core values of the brand. Interactive and multimedia capabilities could attract and engage visitors effectively, and a complete distribution process, to aid the operators in keeping the museum’s content up-to-date, had to be established.
 
Synchronicity
 
Mercedes-Benz chose Videro’s software for their solution. Videro had already showcased the beneficial usage of digital signage technology in a museum setting at the German Rock and Pop Music Museum. They also had a readily available set of APIs to ease the integration of multimedia installations and exhibits. Perhaps the most important factor for Mercedes-Benz was Videro’s innovative technology which could synchronise an unlimited number of displays over standard network connections. This would enable the intensification of the effects of specific exhibits through the combination of many displays in one area.
 
The Mercedes-Benz Museum incorporates digital signage technology as a major component of the concept. More than 260 displays in varying sizes are housed over the exhibition area, integrated into walls, floors and ceilings, or as standalone solutions. As this many systems could hardly be controlled manually, a Videro Server is used to control the systems, distribute content, and connect to the museum’s infrastructure. Another important requirement regarding their digital signage was that the systems had to be small, efficient and operate maintenance-free. So Videro used custom PC hardware especially designed for the installation. These custom machines run Videro on a highyl optimised variant of the Linux operating system and the new Mac OS X, in the installation. These custom machines run Videro on a highly optimised variant of the Linux operating system and the new Mac OS X, in order to maximise performance throughput. Within the exhibition area, many different display variations, ranging from 7” to 50”, by a mix of manufacturers, from Apple to NEC, are being used.

One example of how this technology is used to implement and convey the museum’s core concepts is the ‘media-circle’. The artistic idea was to mediate the application of Mercedes-Benz products all over the world by locating 48 camera teams in different countries, in order to capture the products’ typical usage scenarios over the range of a day. These 48 videos are being played in sync so that one can see, for example, how a Mercedes-Benz Jeep is being used in Cairo, San Francisco, London and Stuttgart at 10:40 am. The technical challenge was to synchronise 48 systems in real-time over the network, without any additional hardware. Videro can synchronize an unlimited number of systems down to a half frame. Another interesting usage example can be found with the interactive displays. Since the museum features a lot of different products which are often dynamically replaced, a solution was conceived to allow visitors to gain further information on the structure of the exhibition area without having to replace signage elements. Information about the current exhibition can be accessed via touch screen displays which allow one to select any of the available products and gain detailed information (text, images and videos) about them. If a visitor selects a video, the Videro engine is triggered by the interactive application to play it. At the same time, a Bluetooth network connection between the touch screen and the visitor’s audio guide is established. The audio-guide uses this connection to lip-synchronously play sound to the current video. This greatly enhances the museum’s appeal to international visitors.
 
Apart from these more technically interesting installations, there are also cases which build on traditional digital signage solutions. An archetypal example can be found at the museum’s point of sale, where a small ring, consisting of 24 displays, was built to display important visitor information. These systems always display current information like prices and greetings in different languages combined with pre-designed videos and templates.
 
Videro seems to be popular with German car manufacturers - Porsche is also currently integrating the company's latest generation of signage solutions into their museum as well.