LED Billboards

I saw one of these LED billboards the other day; I snapped a picture just before the traffic light changed (arm out, pointing camera over the roof). That gives the billboard company about 3 or 4 rotating clients with the pictures constantly changing and some with animation. Distraction? Yes. Effective? Probably. When I saw it I felt like I was in Blade Runner.:worried:

I miss the TV billboard on I-85 north of Atlanta that used to show live television. The accidents it caused made sure it didn't last long.

Whoa. I can believe that. One Jerry Springer episode and there would be a huge pileup!

Christ. Traffic and accidents around here are bad enough with the static billboards.

i've seen those ones with the spinny segments that cycle a few ads, but never LED...

those ones with the spinny segments

You mean the ones that have an array of long, triangular-shaped segments that simultaneously turn to reveal 3 different billboards? I think that's what you mean.

They make an interesting racket when they turn to change. Almost old-fashioned when you think of the technology for those. The LED billboard I saw kinda scared me; you could see it in broad daylight

We have a couple of animated billboards around here--I guess they're LED; they look like the full-color jumbo-tron in a sports stadium at any rate. They aren't technically billboards though, but rather privately-owned business signs. They are terribly distracting, I hate hate hate them.

Yeah Clod, I've seen the private business ones, but the one I saw was installed just like the static one's we're all used to. I wonder if it's an omen for more to come. They must be very effective (distracting) at night, and I can imagine them being banned like the kite tube after causing accidents. They're like an elevated drive-in movie, but for ads. :neutral:

Pangloss62 wrote:

They're like an elevated drive-in movie, but for ads.

Talk about distracting. One time, when I was a kid in Tucson, I was in the back seat of the car as we were driving past a drive in theater on Campbell Ave. I clearly saw the woman on the big screen take her top off. Breasts! What a thrill for an 8 year old boy. There was an apartment building right next door to that theater. Imagine having free movies playing just outside your window, but you have no sound. This was back before cable and movie channels. I bet the apartment dwellars loved it.

Breasts! What a thrill for an 8 year old boy.:D

I'm still thrilled by breasts, glatt.:blush:

When I lived in Huntsville, AL, me and my friends Mark and Mark used to sneak into the woods behind the Whitesburg Drive In and watch the movies with no sound. I doubt the sound would really help make them more fun since drive-in movies were so visually oriented. It was 1974, and all you needed was a cardboard toilet roll and some aluminum foil since the stuff was plentiful and cheap. Good times.:bong:

LED have been used for a while in places where twisters and hail are rare. Vegas had them years ago. I suspect as the price drops more of these will show up.

Jebediah wrote:

LED have been used for a while in places where twisters and hail are rare. Vegas had them years ago. I suspect as the price drops more of these will show up.

They have a few in the Reading, PA area.
In the UK advertising signs with a motorized multi-ad plastic scroll are pretty common on busses and in airports.

Pangloss62 wrote:

I'm still thrilled by breasts, glatt.

So am I. Although mine are only eight years old. :-)

What keeps the PA ones from being damaged by adverse weather?

We don't have much in the way of truly adverse weather.

At least the real violent type of adverse.

With satellite connections, those billboards could be linked to the Amber Alert system.
And just think of the fun a hacker could have.....I wonder if subliminal messages could be shown on them? :evil3:

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

At least the real violent type of adverse.

Yeah, people always flip out when they find out that the last line of frontal thunderstorms spawned a tornado or two in PA. As if that *never* happens here.

"Get the Hi-Ho Habit! Smooth, habit-forming, dee-lishus!"

--holographic ad in a Venusian taxicab, "Podkayne of Mars"

Of course the question is also how secure is the method for changing content and how soon before someone hacks into one and grabs some free press.

The billboards...I drove past one tonight on the Schuykill Expressway near the stadiums.

I also saw one in Bartonsville, PA of all places, on Route 611. That is the LAST place I'd expect to see one :). It's near street level, too.

I would imagine that one of these would be running Windows (apparently one showed a blue screen of death a few years back). How long before someone with a BartPE CD or flash drive changes the billboard to something they found on Stile Project?

Or at least something related to Howard Stern, like the guy who calls CNN and other news outlets just to say the name :).