San Diego-based Videotel, a maker of digital signage media players and interactive digital media solutions, announces that Crossroads Church in Ohio is now using its VP71XD Industrial Digital Signage Media Players.

The VP71XD has a built-in scheduler that allows users to display various content at specific times of the day. Looping without intervention, after it automatically turns on, the company says the industrial media player has a proven lifespan of over six years without failure. To add to the product’s digital signage features, the VP71XD can make content interactive as well when it's played from a USB cable or SD card. To do this the media player connects to an interplay module and uses LED push buttons, motion sensors and proximity sensors.

The church decided to go with the Videotel product after it sought a better solution than it had been using. The church is based in Cincinnati but has six locations in that region. Each of the Videotel units replaced $1,800 in computers and software and they have been more reliable, according to a church spokesman.

“Annually, we operate what we call a ‘Prayer Experience’ which is best described as a temporary art installation (based on the power of prayer),” says Patrick Buescher, who's with the church. “There are many rooms through this audio-guided tour that have different environments, some of which use projection mapping as an element. After running into issues with computer software playback, we chose to find the simplest solution available. We needed one box that just plays a video on a loop reliably. If there were a power outage, it would simply boot back up and do its job without intervention. We are very happy with the reliability, quality, and simplicity of the players we purchased from Videotel Digital.”