Advertising is all about catching your attention. No matter how insipid the object, but with perfect placing and appropriate advertising, you can expect it to hit the jackpot. Testing the waters for big ads (literally), East Japan Railway Company (JR East) and East Japan Marketing & Communications Inc (JR Higashi Nihon Kikaku) have teamed up and are testing still image digital posters using ten 65-inch vertical LCDs at Tokyo Station. The display being used is Sharp Corp's "PN655R," a 65-inch business-use LCD information display with 1920 x 1080 resolution. The sentiment behind the testing is of course to evaluate the effects of still image ad posters using large LCD panels when placed in busy places. The ads begin at 5 am and shut down by midnight. There are six agencies testing their ads currently and there are 10 displays (placed on 5 columns) in force. Each ad lasts for about a minute, till the next one comes on; there is no audio or video used in the current ads. The content is delivered to a PC, which is housed in a column via HSDPA technology. The data is then forwarded to STBs (set top boxes) in the other four columns via IEEE802.11g wireless LAN. Check out the video.

"As part of our verification tests for diverse signage applications, we chose still image advertisement using large LCD panels," said Takashi Yamamoto, manager of the Development Dept in the Transit Media Division.

"There is a 50-50 chance that we will continue to operate the digital signage displays in and after September. We might change the columns where the displays are set up, for example, after discussing the matter with JR East, but we hope to continue to operate them," Yamamoto said.

The display's rated power is 560W, but "We lower the brightness of the backlight slightly" as they look brighter than standard film posters, Yamamoto said.

"We expect manufacturers will develop slimmer displays for commercial use," Yamamoto added.

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