Just to be clear, I am not recommending the following as a solution for digital signage content – however I do think it strongly hints at things to come…
Xtranormal.com is a web based service that makes it easy to author video, extremely easy. The site provides templates with actors and action that you combine with audio via their text to speech engine to create videos for sharing on sites like YouTube. With a bit of effort it seems significant customization is possible covering actors, scenes and many of the attributes. There is also a downloadable Windows based version for offline authoring.
So I couldn’t resist trying it out – here it is using the text above.
Could this approach to creating content ever be good enough to create content for digital signage? The answer has to be yes – it may be some development generations away from being good enough and of course not suitable for all content or all types of content, but some, definitely.
As a final note, having made the video I see that there is a high quality download option, I haven’t received this but when I do I will note the resolution.
Update: The HQ (High Quality) rendering for download was quite quick, the resolution is 640×480 and the format is MP4.
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