About 542 million years ago, the so-called “Cambrian explosion” saw the massive diversification of life on Earth from very simple unicellular organisms to many of the animal forms still extant today. But the fossil record also shows that at this time there were hundreds of organisms that had biological forms and appearances that never reproduced themselves and thus went extinct. It was a time of great evolutionary experiment.

This may seem like an odd way to begin graphic arts trade show coverage, but last week in Orlando, Fla., at the International Sign Association’s Sign Expo, the current state of dynamic digital signage (DDS) was reminiscent of a kind of “Cambrian explosion,” with a proliferation of solutions emerging. Not all of them will survive, and some standardization will (hopefully) occur. For the present, however, sign shops that have ventured into DDS have had to develop their own custom systems, which has meant that such solutions were strictly the purview of those who had strong IT and A/V skills. But that is changing. “There’s starting to be a little stability,” said Glenn Feder, VP of business development for ISA. As a result, like last year, a whole day had been dedicated to sessions on the ins and outs of digital signage, while the show floor featured an expanded Digital Signage Park. The DDS market has also been awaiting, almost Godot-like, an “out of the box” package that will offer, in one place, the display itself (i.e., an LCD screen), the media player that pipes content to the display, and the software into which the content is fed.

And now, out-of-the-box solutions are emerging. (This was not at the show, but Google’s Chromebox is starting to make some inroads in the digital signage space.) At last year’s Sign Expo in Las Vegas, Roland had pre-announced its DisplayStudio digital signage solution, got some early feedback from customers and us pesky analysts and writers, and made some revisions. A couple of weeks ago, they officially announced the DisplayStudio, which was being shown for the first time in Orlando. It indeed offers the three basic components of the digital signage solution: a commercial grade display (in sizes that range from 32 to 55 inches), a media player about the size of a network router or cable modem, and content management software into which the files and graphics to be displayed can be imported and scheduled. Functioning like a combination of PowerPoint and iTunes, it allows graphic files—JPEGs, PDFs, PNGs, PPT, even Flash and video formats—to be dragged and dropped into playlists, and users set the order and duration of each file. The DisplayStudio also comes with mounting hardware. It can also pipe in Web-based content such as a Twitter feed. The cost of the DisplayStudio ranges from $1,600 to $2,900, depending on the size of the screen, although Roland is offering a less expensive ~$1,000 option sans display, if the customer has his or her own.