Digital signage is not just a screen. No more than your laptop is just a screen. Digital signage is a system built around a screen to effectively deliver and update content, and showcase it in a way that your audience can clearly see it. The way you start that system out matters. The first TV and digital signage media player you buy will play a huge role in your second and seventieth screens.

Digital signage gives your organization’s message the medium it deserves—that’s the core belief that we’ve built ScreenCloud around. It all starts with that first digital sign on your wall. But which screen? How do you get content on that screen? How do you maintain everything?

We’ve been there. With over a decade experience in helping businesses around the world roll out new TVs and turn them into signage with ScreenCloud’s software, we’ve learned the ingredients that go into a successful digital signage system. We’ve written our IT Team's Guide to Digital Signage eBook with systems and network admins in mind, with a focus on detailed technical explanations (for non-IT deep dives, check out our other eBooks).

In this abridged online copy of our IT Team's Guide to Digital Signage book, start reading wherever it makes the most sense for your entry point. We cover everything about building a digital signage system including purchase considerations, installation hurdles, and ongoing management. And if you’d like to take your reading on the go, or print out a hard-copy, download a free eBook copy of this guide for reference.

Before you rush out and buy a TV for your office, think about how it aligns with your broader IT modernization strategy. So you'll want to think through size, resolution, and display quality considerations. 

Also consider where to place or hang the display, the display orientation, and how you’ll power and connect the display to your network. 

And don’t forget the hardware and software concerns of how you’ll push content to your screens and remotely manage them, along with when you want signage to be active and when it’d be better to turn screens off to conserve energy.

Where you place your screens helps decide every other aspect of your signage solution.

Think about a TV in your conference room. Space concerns dictated the screen size. There was an existing power outlet on the wall, or perhaps your facilities team added a new outlet while adding a TV wall mount for the display. That display likely stays turned off until you have a meeting. Then, you grab the remote, turn on the TV, and connect its HDMI cable to a laptop to run a PowerPoint presentation.

That’s an MVP digital signage setup, one purpose-built for a conference room.

Navigational signage in a hallway or near a conference room door must be large enough to be readable, while not overpowering the limited space beside a door. A 32" TV would be too much; a tablet might be better.

Office signage must be readable at a glance from anywhere in a room. A larger TV makes sense here, something bigger than your team’s computer monitors but not distractingly so.

Warehouse or factory signage needs to be brighter. Outdoor digital signage might be best made from LED panels or paper-like eInk displays to be readable in direct sunlight. Lobby, menu board, or stage signage could use a large TV, multiple large TVs side-by-side, or LED panels for immersive digital signage.

Your signage location will help dictate which types of screens to purchase, if screens should be mounted horizontally or vertically, if you need to pair multiple screens into a larger display, if new power outlets or network cabling are needed, and what digital signage player hardware your signage needs.

The best digital signage display depends on your purpose. An upcycled iPad could work well as meeting room signage. 

A budget TV could make sense for an event where you wouldn’t want to risk a more expensive screen. It’s all in making the appropriate tradeoffs for your business.

Tablets are the best value for 10-12" screens, especially in kiosks and other use cases where a touch screen comes in handy. 

A base-model iPad or Android tablet may be cheaper than a standalone touchscreen display and can run signage software out-of-the-box. Or, custom sign boards range from 13-20" and run Windows for a more powerful, centrally-managed small signage option.

Computer monitors are the next best option for screens from 17-32". While still relatively small for most signage use cases, monitors can work for smaller signage—and can often be upcycled when you upgrade company computers.

The largest screens, including 100" + video walls and The Sphere Las Vegas, are powered by LED panels, raw display units that require a separate power supply and controller. What they lack in simplicity, they make up for in flexibility. You can stack as many LED displays as you can dream up for full-wall signage.

TVs are the best digital signage options for everything between 32" and 100" which covers most signage use cases. Here, the core tradeoff is between consumer level smart TVs and commercial-grade displays. 

Consumer displays are designed to be used a few hours a day, in a home environment, with a shorter warranty. They’re more likely to show color distortion, burn-in, or bright spots if left running continuously. 

Commercial-grade displays are designed to be used all day, rated for either 16 or 24-hour-per-day playback, with better heat dissipation and backlighting that keeps them looking new for longer.

Screen sizes: Display sizes are listed in inches, measured diagonally from one corner to the opposite. A 50" TV, for example, would be around 44"/112cm wide and 25"/64cm tall—or the opposite if you hang the TV in portrait orientation.

Resolution: Most new displays are either full HD (1920x1080 pixels) or 4K (3840x2160 pixels) resolution. The higher the resolution, the crisper the images and text.

Brightness: Measured in Nits, the average consumer TV should have around 300 nits of brightness for glare-free interior environments. Professional displays typically offer around 400-700 nits and may include anti-glare coatings for bright environments. You might also see brightness referred to as cd/m2 (read: What is NITS vs cd/m2)

Viewing Angles: Digital signage needs to be viewable from all sides, critically when people walk by signage or when screens are displayed vertically. IPS panels have the best vertically and horizontally viewing angles; the picture is visible and the colors are generally accurate from all directions. Cheaper screens use TN or VA panels, which appear less bright and show inconsistent colors when viewed off-center.

Contrast Ratios: Content is clearer and text more legible on displays with higher contrast ratios. OLED displays have the highest contrast and darkest black colors—but also are more expensive, have a shorter lifespan, and are more apt to burn in than LCD screens. Professional IPS panels have higher contrast ratios than consumer TVs, while according to RTINGS, VA screens have better black uniformity and contrast ratios.

Bezels and Logos: Consumer TVs tend to have wider bezels framing the display, often with a brand logo on the bottom center of the screen—most noticeable when mounted vertically or side-by-side with other displays. Commercial-grade screens often have little-to-no bezel, with branding hidden on the back of the display.

Smart or not: Most consumer TVs and commercial displays today include smart TV functionality - or system on chip (SoC). If you want to use built-in smart TV features to power your signage, look for Android TV which supports the widest range of apps (including digital signage tools).

Additional Features: Commercial-grade displays may come with sensors to rotate the displayed image automatically, be IPX rated and designed for industrial or outdoor use with, or include anti-glare and haze filters to increase visibility. Also, look for anti-theft and tampering protection and open pluggable specification (OPS) expandability—often only found in commercial-grade displays.

Expect to spend from $300-500 for an entry-level consumer TV to over $1,000 for a commercial-grade display—or from $10k-$100,000 for an LED video wall.

Tip: TV and display specs and prices are continually changing, so check ScreenCloud’s Consumer TV and Professional Display buyers guides for up-to-date recommendations. And check Rtings.com’s TV size to distance calculator to calculate the ideal viewing distance for different screen sizes.


With displays out of the way, it’s time to think about the hardware that will power them. You need a digital signage player device that can reliably stream 4k footage, in portrait or landscape orientation, with support for any software you need to show on your signage.

If you have a Smart TVs such as Samsung Tizen or LG webOS, you may be able to use your TV as signage without additional hardware thanks to the wide selection of digital signage apps in Google’s Play Store. These screens feature system on chip, or SoC, meaning they have internet connectivity built in.

The same is true if you’re using an Android tablet, iPad, or Windows-powered screen for signage. Otherwise, you’ll need to add a media player to turn your TV into digital signage.

Consumer media players, including Chromecast with Google TV devices, typically cost less than $50 and can be used to power your signage. They add smart TV features, with the option to upgrade your hardware over time and standardize all displays on the same software versions. They are consumer-focused platforms, though, that will typically auto-install updates and may refresh back to the home screen or show consumer apps and content on wake rather than defaulting to your signage software.

Professional digital signage players, on the other hand, are built for business use and are best for most digital signage projects. They’re built around signage-focused operating systems such as our ScreenCloud OS, or enterprise editions of ChromeOS or Windows, focused on streaming slides and software instead of Netflix. They’re also built to run continuously—with heat sinks or fans to dissipate heat—and may include networking, mounting, and theft-prevention hardware that simplify building a digital signage system. 

Professional digital signage players cost more—from $99 for a ScreenCloud OS device or Chromebox—but are often worth the investment versus consumer-grade players.

Larger digital signage setups—including video walls—require additional specialized hardware. Multiple TVs connected to a single, continuous video feed need to be powered by a PC with dedicated video cards that support multiple HDMI outputs—potentially a great way to upcycle retired hardware. An LED video wall requires a separate power supply, video processor, signal-sending card, and cabling to connect each display panel, plus a dedicated digital signage media player to send signage and video content to the video processor.

Tip: Check ScreenCloud’s digital signage hardware buyer's guides for up-to-date recommendations on consumer and professional media players for signage.

WiFi makes getting content to digital signage easier than before, but you still have to keep connectivity in mind when rolling out signage.

Electricity, most crucially, dictates where you can place signage. No power outlets, no digital signage (aside from tablets as directional signage, if you don’t mind charging them daily). You’ll need to place your signage in areas with existing power outlets, or will need to run new outlets to each screen location. Most signage will require two outlets: One for the TV and another for the media player.

Then, ensure each location with signage has consistent, fast WiFi. Your office likely has strong WiFi, but larger areas, including warehouse, factory, and retail locations, may have less consistent coverage. Run a speed test on your phone from each location where you plan to install signage to ensure everything’s okay. If not, consider adding additional WiFi endpoints, running Ethernet to each screen, or using a 4G or 5G mobile hotspot to add network coverage.

Check if your company’s network has additional security considerations to keep in mind. Corporate networks may require WiFi certificate authentication or Ethernet connectivity, or dedicated proxy to access social networks if they’re blocked on your internal network but you’d like to share customer reviews with your team on signage, for example. Those each require professional media players instead of off-the-shelf consumer players and smart TVs.

Also, pick a TV mount to hang your display, an additional mount for your media player, and cable management to keep your signage tidy. Check local safety and accessibility regulations first. The US Americans With Disability Act specifies that screens can protrude no more than 4" from a wall, while many local building codes require TV anchors to prevent screens from falling off walls in the event of earthquakes. Also, check your wall to make sure it is strong enough to support your TV or that studs are located close enough to support your screen mount.

Then, choose a fixed VESA mount that’s the appropriate size for your screen, with enough space for an additional digital media player and cable management. Alternatively, a tilting or full-motion mount may help you find the best viewing angle for a screen. TV mounts should cost around $60-$200, depending on the model and size needed.

Keep placement in mind as well. Place digital signage at eye level (~58-62 inches or 147-157 cm off the ground), if possible, and in locations where glare won’t affect legibility. Landscape orientation is better for quick glances, while portrait slides work well for scrolling text or social media videos. If a screen needs to be mounted high on a wall, choose a flexible mount then tilt the screen downwards to enhance visibility.

Tip: Check ScreenCloud’s guides to TV mounts and media player mounts for up-to-date recommendations on hardware to mount your digital signage.

Securely mounted eye-level screens, connected to network-connected media players, still need one more component: Digital signage software.

For more professional digital signage software, we’re clearly biased, but we recommend ScreenCloud. It’s built from the ground up for signage, with tools to centrally manage as many signs as your company needs. It’s integrated with 80+ popular business apps and can scrape any dashboard or chart from your existing apps with Dashboards. Or you can code custom screens and update them automatically with Webhooks and GraphQL. And you can manage your signage anytime, anywhere, from ScreenCloud’s online dashboard.

With integrations, you can hand off digital signage content management to your HR, marketing, and other content-focused teams so they don’t have to ask you to change stuff whenever your signage needs an update. Connect Slack and Microsoft Teams for company announcements. Google Calendar and Outlook for events. Power BI and Excel for dashboards and data. Zoom and YouTube Live for meetings and conferences. PowerPoint and Google Slides to repurpose existing content for signage. 

ScreenCloud runs natively on the ScreenCloud OS player. Or, you can run it on any Windows PC, Mac, or Android TV device with dedicated ScreenCloud apps. That diversity is why Choate Construction picked ScreenCloud. “Dozens of different devices support ScreenCloud, and having that flexibility was helpful because I wasn’t going to need to be in-person to help our teams set up the hardware,” said their internal communications specialist Jon Micheletto.

Like most paid digital signage software, ScreenCloud’s pricing is a monthly subscription based on the number of screens that display your content. First set up a ScreenCloud account, then connect your team’s software, build out slides and dashboards for your signage, and organize those slides into playlists. Install the ScreenCloud player on each of your TVs or digital media players, and add them to your ScreenCloud account. Then, choose which playlist to show on each screen—and invite your team to ScreenCloud, set up their account permissions to manage the screens in their office or store, and get them to start adding the slides their teams need.

That’s when it all comes together, with your screens turned into professional digital signage, ready to be updated whenever you need.

Total Cost of Ownership of Digital Signage

Bring it all together to calculate what digital signage will cost to roll out, and your total cost of operation.

Let’s assume your office already has connectivity and power sorted, and you’re hanging signage in an area where no additional work will be needed to mount the screen. A 55" entry-level commercial display might cost around $1,000, a ScreenCloud OS media player costs $99, a TV mount would cost around $100, and ScreenCloud’s digital signage software costs $30/month per screen.

The total digital signage cost would be around $1,200 per display, plus labor and time to set up and install the display, plus $360 per year to operate the display. Over four years, the average company spends around $2,640 per display on digital signage. Compare that to traditional paper and ink alternatives. Werner Enterprises spent “$600 [to] print and replace each poster across our 18 facilities within North America for each message or update” before rolling out ScreenCloud digital signage. Screens would be the more economical option after only a single updated messaging per quarter.

Smaller screens, repurposed existing devices, or consumer TVs would save on the initial setup costs; larger displays or video walls could cost much more. On the other hand, professional displays, especially those built for 24/7 operation, should last far longer than consumer displays, lowering their total TCO per year. And you could end up with a mix of displays, some cheaper, others more expensive, with your TCO per display averaging out something in the middle.

Finally, you can begin putting together a timeline and estimated rollout date. Budget time to evaluate financing options, learn your way around new installation requirements, and overcome unforeseen obstacles. 

There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but it might help to assume that you’ll need 5 working days to research, buy, install, and set up a single screen, not including content design. For a second screen, make it 5+4. For a third screen, make it 5+4+3…down to a minimum of one day per screen. That would mean allocating 20 working days for a 10-screen rollout (5+4+3+2+[6*1]). This should be enough to account for shopping, shipping, and troubleshooting.

When buying new screens and media players, it’s best to buy for what you’ll need a year or two from now, not the cheapest viable option available today. Research 4k capabilities, wear-and-tear implications for your intended usage, and other display considerations. Then, choose mounts and media players that will work well with your displays.

These hardware variables are worth considering:

Consumer-grade screens: They’re cheaper upfront, but may have finicky power-saving settings, firmware updates, menu overlays, and burn-in-prone displays. They may have shorter or voiced warranties when used commercially.

LED panels: Signage that's over 100" corner-to-corner or lives outdoors will require additional controllers, power supplies, and video processors. Make sure to price them in.

Ongoing vendor relationships: Customer support availability and hardware reliability are huge for always-on screens. Consider testing out support hotline wait times and reading reviews in unsponsored online communities like /r/CommercialAV and /r/digitalsignage.

Vendor mounting recommendations: Bring photos and measurements of proposed screen locations and media player dimensions to sales conversations. Every extra bit of context prevents unexpected hurdles later.

SoC screens vs media players: These days most screen manufacturers take a SoC approach, integrating storage, compute, and RAM directly into the display. That means fewer devices to manage, but also far less control. Built-in computational hardware will likely age faster than your display itself; modular hardware gives you the chance to upgrade piecemeal as needed.

x86 vs ARM chips: ARM chips are more power efficient, cheaper, and run cooler. x86 chips from Intel or AMD are often more powerful, better for setups powering multiple displays from a single computer, but they also require larger PCs that are harder to hide behind a display.

Onboard RDM and enterprise security: As your fleet grows, centralized monitoring and control over screens and media players will pay for themselves in hours saved. Similarly, media players with built-in logging, proxies, and custom root CAs will eliminate the need for complex security workarounds like VLANs and segmented networks.

Bulk purchases: Buying from suppliers or authorized resellers often comes with volume discounts, extended warranties, and upgraded support options (here’s Samsung’s Business Volume Pricing, for example).

Leasing options: Terms and payback rates might be enough to swing your hardware decision from one vendor to another, especially when buying 10+ devices.

Non-signage hardware: Factor in costs and setup requirements for peripheral devices like new wireless access points, lighting arrangements, and screen enclosures. 


Setting up digital signage requires a broad skill set. Mounting your screens. Connecting them to media players. Deploying content management software. It will take longer than you expect. Let’s break it down by each component.

Prepping a new screen location and media player
Test as much as you can without actually mounting the screen. Consider setting it up on a table just below the mounting location, plugging it in along with the media player, and connecting to WiFi or Ethernet (ideally getting at least 20 Mbps in a network speed test). 

If you’re not ready to install your digital signage software, consider plugging in a USB stick and running some example content to test location-specific variables before putting screws in the wall. Confirm that glare, brightness, and viewing angles are ok, and that remote device management and network settings work as expected. 

How to Roll out Digital Signage: An IT Team’s Guide

How to Roll out Digital Signage: An IT Team’s Guide

How to Roll out Digital Signage: An IT Team’s Guide

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