The VR2004 Basic Philosophy of Operation.
The basic operation of text insertion for the VR2004 is a simple serial display of the characters sent to the pole display and / or printer. The VR2004 supports the ASCII alphanumeric characters and some punctuation. We believe this makes the VR2004 as independent as possible of the peculiarities of the POS software and pole displays. Our goal is to produce useful text insertion on as many systems as possible. By changing the number of lines of inserted text and the time out to erase the inserted text on the VR2004 we hope to accommodate any customization an application may need.
The VR2004 has a video text insertion chip that has a rather large character for good visibility on even poor resolution televisions or VCR recordings. There is a maximum of 28 characters per line. Most pole displays you will see in the field are 20 characters wide and two rows high. There are others; ten by one, sixteen by one, twenty by one and so on. Our choice has been to display the full 28 characters wide and let the text wrap where it may so as to have as universal a product as possible and to make full use of the screen so that the text has to encroach on the video as little as possible.
The VR2004 is usually shipped with our space swallow (TM) feature enabled. This feature suppresses more than one consecutive space character.
Clear Screen time-out is a feature where after a period of inactivity the inserted text automatically clears. POS systems and Pole displays usually do not clear during inactivity. Our Clear Screen time out feature is independent of POS systems and Pole display types This feature makes the VR2004 more universal and future proof. If you change your POS system or Pole display the VR2004 is more likely to remain compatible.
User Settings
The user can set the VR2004 to change the behavior of the inserted text.
The user can chose to disable swallowing of consecutive spaces. For
some pole display and POS combinations this will more exactly replicate
the formatting on the pole display.
The user can set the text for solid background or transparent.
Low cost but high technology.
The VR2004 uses satellite receiver technology for sharp,
attractive, easy to record text.
Simple ASCII compatibility for generic operation.
Elaborate formatting of the customer display or receipt printer is not
important for recording on a DVR. Our simple generic operation makes us
more future proof against changes by the POS manufacturer.
Automatic sync detection and generation.
When there is a valid video input to the text inserter, the OSD will be
a B&W overlay on top of the input video. When there is no video
input to the video text inserter,, a stable full screen OSD will be
generated and the Alert character will be visible in the lower right of
the screen. Normal operation of serial port, parallel port and
User Interface is possible without any input video.
Simultaneous serial and parallel input.
Flexible input capture. Interfaces to capture a serial pole display or
kitchen printer and a parallel receipt printer. Not all POS software
gives you the information you need to check the sale against error or
fraud on only the pole display or only the receipt printer. With the
VR2004 you can insert text from both.
Clean cabling design.
The VR2004 has elegant loop through connections for serial data,
parallel data and video. Inputs are on the top, outputs are on the
bottom.
The VR2004 easily interfaces to the DB9 and DB25 connectors used on POS
computers and pole display and receipt printers. Adapters are available
for RJ45 connections.
Flexible power supply options.
Power from USB from the POS computer or a 9V wall transformer.
User Interface for simple setup.
You do not need a computer or any special program to configure
features. Just a small screwdriver or the tip of a pen and a television
to monitor the video output.
Using one input switch you can:
Set serial data rate.
Set the number of lines on the screen that text can be inserted. The range is 2 to 11 rows.
Set the number of characters per line. Currently we support 10, 14, 20 and 28.
Set the delay from last received character to clear of inserted text from 3 to 10 seconds.
Status LED
The LED lights and blinks when serial or parallel text is inserted on
the video.
A slow toggling indicates the character clear time out period.
Small metallic enclosure with tough powder paint.
The approximately 6.25 by 4 by 2 inch enclosure is easy to locate near
the POS system.
FCC class B approved
Tested and found to comply with both industrial class A limits and
the more stringent residential class B limits.
Supported for your success.
