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anyone know of a good digital picture frame?

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NiN^_^NiN:
There are 2 main ways to Make a Digital Picture Frame

1) Using a LCD screen and one of them picture viewers for TV's that read SD cards (these are about $10 on ebay now and then)

2) Using a Laptop to run it as a Picture Frame

Now with a laptop you can use any sized picture and have it fullscreen and in detail where a normal LCD screen with composite wont make your big pics from a quality camera show that much detail.

Now you can get a old 486 laptop if you want but i reccomend you get a goos 233mhz and above laptop to make sure you get a Active not passive screen and easily be able to run XP and wifi.


Now there are alot of cons and pro's on each type the laptop is really the better and cheaper option with the ability to either share a photo's folder over the network for it to read on the main computer to it downloading the pictures from a folder to the internet and storing it on it's own harddrive.

Id you really JUST want it for work and hooked up to the pc then look on ebay and you will see some nice 10" to 15" screens (the 15" screen just looks to big)

Install the LCD Screen into a picture frame and either buy a new video card or get a USB video card which when plugged in will allow windows to have 2 screens and you can have this automatically run something like Irfanview on the second monitor using the PC to control everything and if you did need the space you could drag the windows over to your picture frame and use it as a second monitor if needed :)

There are ALOT of ways to make a digital picture frame hell i setup my friend with one a 10" LCD screen from ebay that is used for the roof of your car (flipdown) and had it setup so he had a 2.4ghz wireless video sender connected to the LCD screen and was just using one of the TV picture viewers at his computer so he could just take the SD card out and upload new pics instead of going to the picture frame unhooking it all and removing the SD card

If this was home i would say the laptop route cause there is ALOt of things you could easily use it for like internet or as a universal remote control (touchscreen)

All depends how much u wanna spend I personally thing the LCD monitor as a second desktop in windows for your work enviroment is the best bet :)

Howard_Casto:

--- Quote from: ChadTower on December 12, 2007, 09:10:44 am ---
I always find it interesting when a new product type comes out and becomes a $150 solution to a $5 issue people have already been solving for 50 years.  Howard is out there spending a good amount of time evaluating products, allocating spending money, etc for how to put pictures on the wall.  That's not a criticism, BTW, I'm just a bit bemused by it. 

--- End quote ---

Actually, I personally don't care for digital picture frames, due to the fact that they aren't practical price-wise yet, but that's what my mom wants for xmas, and that's what she'll get.  She has a legitimately good reason though.  She works in a typical office building with rows of computers, and cubicals and such.  The problem is the building was just rennovated, so they are quite anal about personal items.  She can only have two pictures on her wall and they have to be "professionally hanged and framed" (read pay some dude the boss knows 20 bucks per picture everytime you wish to hang one).  She can have one and only one on her desk but there are reather silly size and decor restrictions.  Digital picture frames, however, fall into a personal electronic device loophole and these restrictions don't apply. 

So the only way for her to have a bunch of pics at work the way she wants them is via a digital frame. 

Before anyone asks, she works on her computer the entire time she is there, so a my-pictures screensaver wouldn't work as she'd never see them.

So basically, it's like the other's said.... she can't hang a bunch of pictures on the wall, and since she wants more than one.... :)

Howard_Casto:
Responding to some other comments.

Nin nin:

If it were me, that's probably what I'd do, but it's not for me so that is pretty much out.  I'm running out of time as well.  Unless I buy it in a real store (bah!) I have the rest of the week to order one or it might not get here by xmas.  I'd like to know where you work too, because generally they frown upon you hooking your own stuff up to the computers, much less cracking them open and installing a new video card.  ;)

partickl:

Yeah the reason the portraits look so crappy, aside from the scaling, is the typically small vertical resolution of these frames.  Lots of them I looked into seem to be a good deal until you read the fine print and realize that the vertical resolution is interlaced (usually meaning the ACTUAL vertical res is 240 at best, 233 at worst).  I'm probably gonna go with that one at zillions even if it is an untested vendor due to the fact that it's a real 640x480 4:3 display without interlacing and I'm running out of time. 

patrickl:

--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on December 13, 2007, 03:18:47 am ---Yeah the reason the portraits look so crappy, aside from the scaling, is the typically small vertical resolution of these frames.  Lots of them I looked into seem to be a good deal until you read the fine print and realize that the vertical resolution is interlaced (usually meaning the ACTUAL vertical res is 240 at best, 233 at worst). 
--- End quote ---
Actually it was really a 720x480 screen. I put some testimages on it to check the color, resolution and such.

It still looks crappy because at 3:2 it's displayed as a 320x480 picture with huge empty areas on both sides. Even if you have several megapixels of resolution it will look bad, because the portrait picture uses less than half of the screen.

NiN^_^NiN:

--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on December 13, 2007, 03:18:47 am ---Nin nin:

If it were me, that's probably what I'd do, but it's not for me so that is pretty much out.  I'm running out of time as well.  Unless I buy it in a real store (bah!) I have the rest of the week to order one or it might not get here by xmas.  I'd like to know where you work too, because generally they frown upon you hooking your own stuff up to the computers, much less cracking them open and installing a new video card.  ;)
 

--- End quote ---
I know exactly what u mean if you had more time you could make one but you sadly don't the solution i was talking about was a USB video card altho im sure alot of companies can frown apon you using a USB port but then again im in Australia and every place i've worked at hasn't had problems like that but im in the IT sector so i guess i get some breathing space.

Looks like you will have to go get a digital frame from a store sadly as u said they are a rippoff but if you in a crunch without any time then it's your only option.

Just an Idea it might be a good idea to buy her a SD card aswell preloaded with some new pics of you and the familu (of you have one) so she can see it working right away ;) just a suggestion.

EDIT: I just had an idea it might be cheaper to get one of thoese Car monitors with the builtin DVD player cause almost all the DVD players have Jpeg viewing from a CDR (Kodak image crap) That might be another option as the might be cheaper than the actual pictureframe units i don't know but the problem is your still stuck at a 320 x 240 res or whatever the res it shows them on the dvd player.

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