Interactive showroom ideas requested!!

Hello everyone!

This is an open invitation to the dreamers, designers, and integrators to design an interactive showroom, using inexpensive methods. I am seeking advise, consul, and electronic fabrication ideas!

I would like to create a "WOW" factor when people come in to our showroom!

I would like to have various "stations" where people can look at products, and have the lighting interact by darkening products, and highlighting the product selected. I would like to have stations where people can learn about cameras, IR, DVR compression methods, lens selection, wireless cameras, and remote viewing. I would like to have a station where people can press buttons to see the various cameras, and have a tv/monitor provide information on the selected product.

I do not know flash, and I am not a programmer. I do not think doing a power point presentation is the way to go. I would like to create some kind of inexpensive "digital signage".

I would like to figure out a way using IR control, X-10, computers, and Xantech products to create a dazzeling display showcase!

Our showroom has been the same since it was first put together by the original owner many years ago. It is starting to show it's age. The ceiling tiles are worn, and they are starting to sag. The carpet is starting to frizz in spots. I really hate the way the showroom is set up. There is no rhyme, or reason to the overall design. It appears that they sold cameras that were on display, and then replaced them with whatever they had on hand at the time.

On the left wall is the DVR, and camera display on shelves. In front of this there is a row of glass display cabinets, then there is an open area, and on the right wall is the wall board with products hanging from hooks.

This set up is great if you are afraid that people are going to steal from you. This is not to bad. You can reach in, and pull out items from the spy shop selection, and place them on the glass tops. I am always finding myself pulling a DVR out of a box, and pulling it out of it's plastic wrap to show to a customer. The DVRs on the shelf are to far away for the customer to interact with them. I am not to fond of having customers come around the display cases so that they can press the buttons, and interact with the DVRs. I finally had to set up an old computer on a small desk up against the wall where the hanging products are so that I could show customers what the remote view videos actually look like on a computer.

Over time we have been adding more, and more products. Lately Radio Shack has stopped selling X-10 products, and now they are sending their customers to our showroom. I have been debating whether to carry the full line of X-10 products, or not. I like an open floor plan rather than having aisle.

I would like to have a "Security Center" in one corner to give it the commercial feel. Maybe I can find a Winstead console at a scratch and dent sale!

I like the idea that Rory has! I like his idea to build a dark room, and install day/night, and IR cameras, and let people go inside to learn about the different styles of cameras.

We are really excited about making these changes! I look forward to the imagination, and ingenuity from everyone on this forum!

Free beer, always works

Actually, one thing to definitely have is recorded video demo ..

I just did this with Geo, as you can use their backup system to create a stand alone version of the View Log .. basically you can manually dump any videos, even from a couple years ago, into it, and do a database rebuild .. its cool. No DVR card needed and you can run it right off a USB stick or even a CD. and its just like using their regular DVR ViewLog software. Maybe get some decent recordings and give out free CDs with some recorded video on it .. dunno, just an idea. ..

have a dart board with some mini wireless cameras mounted to the darts .. let people throw the darts at the board

...

Free Beer! I like that idea. If you sell it you need a license. If you give it away free do you need a license?

What kind of darts are you using? Lawn darts?

I like the CD demo idea! Thanks!

if its free, i dont think you need a license, its like a party, if you dont need a license to distribute beer at a party in your area, then it should be fine.

Make some big rubber darts .

give out free non alchoholic Bahama mamas, Pinacaladas, etc ..

some free conch fritters

well heck just have happy hour there every day!!!

free pizza bits??

I dont know what your selling but i'll buy one.

As far as some level of automation, it will depend on the DVR/etc.

ZoneMinder has X10 automation built into it. It will need a Perl programmer in order to make it interact in realtime. Otherwise there can potentially be a 5-minute lag from when it detects someone to when it activates the X10/etc.

Lots of other possibilities but you'd need to map them all out to make sure it'll all work.

I've done something similar where the box would turn on shop lights and play barking dogs and police sirens if it detected motion. That used a Nema contactor and a sound-card. No X10 involved.

physical dimensions?

It is 20 feet wide. It is divided in half. The back half is for receiving/shipping, customer install staging, tech bench, and tool storage.

The front half has an office area, and the show room.

Total it is 1600 feet. Shhhh! It is $750 a month! Actually Dot is going to buy the property, and demolish the building to expand a major intersection. Technically we are living on borrowed time.

We are closer to lower income clients, but the intersection that we are on is priceless for the exposure. We have debated to move to the plaza (excuse me! I meant an open air mall), in the "rich city".

I would be willing to knock down the walls, and reconfigure it.

If I set up a board with numbers, and buttons, and I have this hooked up to the alarm inputs of a DVR, and I also use an alarm recorder/anunciator to say a sentence, or two, then I could possibly turn off, and on lights that illuminate the various cameras on the display and this would give me the interaction that I am looking for.

I find some customers do not want to "talk" to a sales person, and other times we are so busy that some customers do not get attended right away. If I am working with a "tire kicker" I will soon move to the next customer, but sometimes I have a live "fish", and I cannot get to the other customers. Sometimes it is not to bad as I can give a "dog, and pony show", and all of the customers can just listen in.

This happens once in awhile as some people are out doing site surveys, and the Office manager is out doing the banking, and picking up lunch, and another can be busy with Fed Up, and UUUPs with packages, and products. Some customers are there for electronic devices, or anti bugging devices, or for full blown video surveillance systems, or for electronic access, or the DIY that needs help with the.........

It would be nice to have an interactive showroom, kind of like a muesum or something.

What recorder/aununciator would be inexpensive enough, and yet give good speech quality? Are there any that have an audio output so that I could run the audio through a stereo with speakers, and a subwoofer?

Are there some that have a time lag from closure to speech? Which one should I avoid, and which one would you recommend.

I can also have a "bank" or relays that can create triggers in a timed sequence. I thought of being able to push one button, and a regular camera will show the inside of a "closet" with the interior light on, then show it with the light off, and then the camera just shows a black picture, or the lack of lighting, then the next sequence show a short ranged Ir cheapo camera, and then it will switch to a long throw IR, and then to a true day/night camera. This would be done in a sequence with an anunciation of what is happening in each screen shot.

For lighting I imagine I would just use the "hockey puck" low voltage lighting on the product shelves.

Anyone with any good ideas? Any electronic gadget that I may have overlooked?

Thanks in advance!

Scrolling LED display signs are quite eye catching, and can be used to let the customer know what is going on in a display at any point. Look on ebay, you will see loads of them. You can get ones that are programmable via a tv style remote control, and others that you can send the text to via a serial port on a pc / portable whatever.

A display showing different lenses would be interesting, set up a range of cameras with different lenses on, from wide angle to long range zoom, and let them see what the difference can be with a different lens.

(maybe allow them to press the buttons on a multiplexer to switch to different cams, or wire up the alarm inputs on a multiplexer/dvr to buttons for '3mm lens, 8mm lens etc)

If you sell pan tilts or domes, let them control one, so they can see it moving around, and the results on camera.

If you sell covert stuff, put a sign up saying, can you find the hidden camera.... Or something like that... Let them see if they can find it.

Get some footage from your cctv system of different setups, save it as avi files and then superimpose text over it explaining what they are seeing.

(pm if you need info on how to do that) so you can play recorded clips over and over showing different setups/lighting, cameras/lenses and have on screen what they are seeing as a nice text line somewhere.

(you can also do some effects to make things prettier).

I would def be interested in doing text overlay using AVI files! If you could point me to a web site, I would appreciate it. If you have to create a program let me know how much it would cost.

I have a bunch of old computers with 20 GB hard drives loaded Win 98 (not SE). It would be great if I could do something off of this platform. I could put all of the computers below/behind the display cabinets, and run wiring to "built in" monitors. No I really do not need to use the antiques with win 98, but I would rather not have to license 10 extra XP Pros.

I do not know what it would cost if I went and bought 10 $99 MB and try to put together basics systems just to run avi files.

Are there any I/O boards that work on older computers? It would be great if I could get the computers to trigger DVR alarm inputs, and have the computer play some audio files.

Hey! Anyone work for Disney World? Maybe I can recreate It's a small World"!

When I get the chance I find out what kind of computers I have. I know they are running on AMD chips, with Maxtor drives.

Thanks kensplace for the ideas!

I would def be interested in doing text overlay using AVI files! If you could point me to a web site, I would appreciate it. If you have to create a program let me know how much it would cost.

PC parts are cheap these days, I can point you to a config (purchased from any PC retailer) that can run a Geo GV250-GV800, for around $170 (monitor and XP license not included).

Here are some fun and lame ones......

Rig a tracking PTZ inside and set a reed switch on open circuit of your entry door to swing around and zoom in, have a nice montior in front of them as they walk in so that they can see themselves in full detail and have the PTZ follow them around the room....use the Geovision DVr to show motion detection on screen....and let them see the moving pixels...LOOKS PERTY!!!

Then when they leave the office, rig an I/O module to a reed switch and have Geo play a "Thanks for shopping at wallmart" audio message as the door opens.

Then point a camera at the wall so it can see nothing else and wire a DVD Player with all your promo garbage to the Geo I/O, let them use motion detection to wave their hand between the camera and the wall to start your demo.

Get a doctors eye chart, make a small closet sized dark room and put the chart in there, put some cuoured peices of paper too, make them start to read the chart and then dim the lights by using a pressure switch on the floor to activate when they walk in to the closet, setting the dimmer to slow, when they cant read it anymore because it was so dark then tell them to stand outside and read it, they will ask how....show them the camera in the room and show how it can see better than the human eye...ask what colours they saw...when they cant remember them..tell them that would be about as much time as you would have in a robbery to id a shirt colour and show that the camera is still in colour in low light.

Make a coffin box and put two CS mounts in it, get your competitors product and yours and put a barbie doll in the box, use a dim swicth to lower the light to do a comparison, build a frosted plate of glass behind barbie and place a bright bulb in it, show how backlight can affect an image.

Take your DVR player to all suppliers and ask them to record your output of a small scene from a movie.....make it funny...pick something complex like a light intensive scene, ask them to provide you with the AVI file, collect many of the same and place them on your demo machine.....show the customer how good the others record.

Park your car every day on top of a Vandal dome LOL

Awesome Ideas cctv-down-under!!!!!

I liked the PTZ tracking idea! That is a great one!

I feel like an idiot for not thinking about leaving the motion detection screen up! I did one of those "smack my hand on my forehead" motion when I read that. I do not know if I said DOH! when I smacked myself!

Same thing with the eye chart! DOH! I read on the forum about those life size boards that are set at a distance apart. I had thought about doing that outside, and have some cameras pointed at those distance markers, but I never thought about the eye chart! I like your description on how to do that! I stealing that idea for sure!

I like the barbie box idea. Our showroom is very dark, and we do as you described. I point the camera out the plate glass windows, and everything is in silouette, and when I move the camera to a darker part of our interior I show how a good camera adjusts rapidly, and how a cheap camera takes a second to get it's video back in.

Thank you for shopping at Wal Mart! GREAT idea! I would like to do a Welcome audio as well! I had thought about buying one of those gobo projectors, and have our logo painted on the rug at the entry way. I do not know if I want the logo to be static, or if I should have it rotate, or not.

I like the idea of pumping video through various DVRs, and using this AVI file to demonstrate the various compression methods. Some people want great detail, and they do not mind the snapshot effect, and others want full motion, and will sacrifice the clarity, and those that want the H264 can have their cake, and eat it too!

In a teen club many years back we rented 4000 sq feet in the back of a raquet ball court, and fitness center. To get to our club you had to go up a flight of stairs, and walk down a very long corridor to get to the opposite end of the building, and take a flight back down. This long walkway over looked all of the raquet ball courts on the left hand, and right hand side of the railings. The courts were closed, and we would put strobe lights in each courtroom with ext cords. We put 4 speakers in the ceiling, and we played audio tapes. You have to imagine walking down a very dark corridor, and the only light source are all of these rooms blinking back, and forth, and up, and down the corridor. When you got to the center of the corridor the speakers would mess with your mind. Speaker number 2, and 3 were left, and right channels of a tape player, and we panned the audio back in forth during the recording. It would def give you that "Dolby" feel from front to back! We played a record backwards, and it really created an eerie feel to the sound track. We took samples from the group Then information Society. We had snippets of "I want to know, what your'e thinking", and bits of "pure energy" which is a voice over from the song, and they sampled it from the Star Trek series from Spock. When you stood in the sweet spot in the middle the corridor the effect was awesome! We used two $20.00 cassette players, and amps from a pawn shop.

Thank you for the awesome ideas!

Superimposing text on cctv footage......

The wiki page for avisynth is at

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page

Go to

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57023

for the downloads, for this example I downloaded version 2.5.7, which appeared to be the latest non alpha release.

Download and install AVISYNTH

Whilst installing, I selected

Associate AVISYNTH with notepad

Associate AVISYNTH with Media Player 6.4 (play)

Add Avisynth script to new items menu.

To make things easier (so the pc knows what to do with the files, rather than you having to manually select the right application by hand)

I left the install directory as its default (C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5)

and clicked install.

Now create a folder C:\avitest

and put a avifile that your computer is capable of playing in that folder,

make it one thats at least say 5 seconds long or so - if you want you could download the one I used - link below.

http://www.lsblogs.com/hosted/cctv/test1.avi

Now open up notepad and enter copy and paste the following into a blank new document. [note if you use your own avi file, replace the file name with your own in the following examples]

# Some text in the upper right corner of the clip with specified font, size and color:
AviSource("c:\avitest\test1.avi")
Subtitle("GEO Motion Detection Example", font="georgia", size=24, text_color=$ff0000, align=9)

and save it as C:\avitest\example1.avs

Now open up my computer, and find the avitest folder.

It should have the two files test1.avi and example1.avs in it.

Play the test1.avi file to make sure it plays ok.

Now, to see the results of the avisynth script.

Play the example1.avs file in your windows media player - you should be able to do this by right clicking on the example1.avs file and selecting play.

If it worked, you should see the original clip - but with text superimposed.

Try a second example, with two sets of text.

Open up notepad again, and copy paste the following into a blank empty document.

# Some text in the upper right corner of the clip with specified font, size and color:
AviSource("c:\avitest\test1.avi")
Subtitle("GEO Motion Detection Example", font="georgia", size=24, text_color=$ff0000, align=9, first_frame=1, last_frame=50)

Subtitle("Go Dog Go!", font="georgia", size=24, text_color=$ff0000, align=5, y=150, first_frame=60, last_frame=200)

Save it as example2.avs then play the that example2.avs file to see the results.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you didnt get the results, make sure you can indeed play the original

file - if you cant, then the scripted ones wont play either.

Second, make sure you have installed the avisynth without errors.

Third, check you pasted the contents correctly into the example avs files, and that when you saved them you did save them as a .avs file

Fourth, shout if still having probs....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

How does it work?

AVISynth is a scripting tool that lets you do some really cool things with media files, what you have seen above is only the tip of the iceberg, you can play clips backwards, rotate, blend, sharpen, merge, dub audio, combine clips and all sorts!

This particular example uses the subtitle function, which is explained at

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Subtitle

The first example does not specify any start or end frames, so the text is just applied to the whole avi file.

In the second example, the first subtitle command shows the 'geo motion detection' line starting from frame 1 and keeps it there until the end of frame 50

Then it will continue playing normally (no text) until it reaches frame 60 (first_frame=60), which is where the second subtitle (go dog go) is told to start. That text stays until frame 200 (last_frame=200)

Hope that makes sense?

Still half asleep today, so not that hot on explaining, shout it stuck

There is a lot of info on avisynth on the net, so you can ask in specialist areas for lots of advice if needbe, its a cool tool - and free......

Remember also, there are loads of functions, it will take a long time to learn them all (I have only scratched the surface myself, keep meaning to find time to learn more!)

Experiment with the examples, use different fonts, colours sizes etc.

Read the page that explains what each parameter does, as there are others not used in that example, try them, see what they do!

That one command alone will allow superimposing of text both for demos, and for when you need to send files to the press with your company name all over.

Im fairly sure you can superimpose images to, but its been a long time since I last looked at avisynth.... I know you can 'blur out' logos, so you could use that ability to blur out faces in certain frames....

Its a ideal thing for someone to knock up a program to create scripts, I would do it, but not got any free time at present. Saying that though, its easy to add simple bits of text by hand like this.

Hey Ken, couldnt he just use Movie Maker?

good point, probably could - never tried it myself

I tend to do things by code if I can.. Old hangover from when it was the only way to do things I guess!

One advantage of avisynth is it does it instantly, it does it on the fly, you dont have to make a new movie, or recode anything (dont know how long movie maker takes, but I would imagine it would create a new movie from scratch which may take a while)

If movie maker does it, and its easier, go for it

or we can use this little progy "EmAvi"

http://www.emurasoft.com/emavi/index.htm

Ok! I like the EmAvi. It appears to be 98 compatible. Thank you very much for the info!

I really appreciate it!

Does anyone have any ideas for the "control" panel?

My thought was to use a dark red tinted piece of plexiglass. Using vinyl stick on lettering, I was going stick these on for the shop name, and for all of the numbers for each button. I will drill out all of the button holes, and then apply the vinyl, and then paint the whole board black. Before the paint dries I will pull off all of the vinyl numbers, and lettering. I will back light the panel which should make all of the words, and numbers shine in a bright red glow.

Anyone with an Idea for a very strong paint that will not flake, or wear off. The paint will wear off, but I mean to avoid a very cheap paint. At the same time I need something strong, but not melt the plexiglass. Then again I could use glass, but that sounds like a pain in the neck, but three feet lower.

For the buttons:

I do not want to use video game buttons that require blade switches as there will not be enought room for the all of the blade switches. Videogame switches would be ideal as they can take repetitive pressing.

Any other button selections?

For back lighting I was going to use compact fluorescent lights.

The other idea was to do everything in black light paint. I have a black light cannon left over from a night club project. I can use this to illuminate an entire wall with UV light. I had thought about using UV carpeting as well.

I thought that might be over the top. Do I really want to look like a Spencer's novelty store? Do they make black light posters with cctv products? NO? Darn!

I could make the store look like a scene out of the movie Tron. The scene I am describing is the bike race scene.

Little over the top? Yes, I guess you are right!

Did you consider that setting up an educational corner to teach people abt IR cam, compression, diffferent cameras quality, different dvr features might be a total waste of time ?

People comes in, learn what they want, and then walk next door to buy cause they are selling cheaper.

Just speaking from experience. Spent time talking to customer, teaching them what to look out for in system, explaining the system features to them, and then the guy next shop basically just offer them a discount off what we gave them, and then they just buy from them (sometimes it's just $10 differences). Services and product knowledge doesn't matter. It's prices that count in the end.

Might as well save the $$ on deco, and pass it on to customer in terms of discount.

You are absolutely dead on target! I have this problems just standing at my counter trying to prequalify my customers, and trying to find who are the tire kickers, and who will go to the big box warehouse to buy their stuff.

I do low budget enty level projects, so I do not lose to many customers.

I am more interested in customers. The more numbers that come in the better my odds.

The Spy Shop brings in the curious, the gadget shoppers, and from there

I gain extra customers for surveillance.

The condition of the shop is really in bad shape. The carpet is worn, the displays need some pizzaz, the ceiling tiles are sagging, and it does not look very professional in my opinion!

I am going to build a little area in one corner for small children. This will keep them occupied while mommy, and daddy talk to me about keeping the boogy man away!

Have you ever been to Disney Land/Disney World? There is a lot of "eye candy", and lots of energy! There is so much sensory overload.

I want my shop to be the standard for a 75 mile radius. I just started advertising in the next county because I get customers that come up from there. I do not want to drive an hour to each customer to do a Dog, and Pony Show! If they come to me, I can give them a quick tour of products to see what is in their interest, and what is best for them.

I have a project going on in North Carolina. I am not going to travel there until he puts up a 50% deposit. I did meet him on his 20 acre parcel of land here locally, and we measured off his propery, and simulated his environment. We set up cameras so that he could see what it looks like to go 500 feet with a zoom lens.

When we go up to the smokey mountains he cannot complain about the video on the monitor. We pretested locally, then we will test on site, then we will do an install. It is much easier for me to show him around our show room!!

______________________________________________________

I want to set up two simulated remote stations with two computers. I want to use the talk feature of the Video Server S. I do not think anyone would use this feature, but it sure looks cool!

Dog, and Pony Show! 40 people in a month, and if I can keep 50% I will be a happy man!

Daytona beach is next!

I found this to my liking! I thought this kicked butt!

I love how the flickering boxes highlight the boxes in the display cabinet.

Cudos to Mark Lynch for putting this video slideshow together!

I imagine you can create different slideshows, and have a different monitor in each part of the store.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=242876517

Any other ideas??

THANKS!