anyone know of a good digital picture frame?

[hulkster]

i see the digital picture frames all the time in the store.  some of them are under $100, some are $300.  id like to have one for my office, but im wondering what features are must haves and what features are just sugar coating?  anyone have experience with these things?

[ChadTower]

That's another item you don't need that costs $100.

[shardian]

Get an old laptop and turn it into a digital picture frame. It will be cheap, and the quality will be way better than what you can buy.

I believe Schmokes built one that automatically connects via wifi to some online photo sharing network. He could give you pointers.

[2600]

I like the ones from SmartParts. 

Just picked up another one of the 8.4" ones for my parents.  Dell had it for $99 during the Black Monday Week.

[hulkster]

That's another item you don't need that costs $100.

   thanks for the helpful advise in answering my question.  sersiously though, dont be a turd.

I like the ones from SmartParts. 

Just picked up another one of the 8.4" ones for my parents.  Dell had it for $99 during the Black Monday Week.

i wonder if i can just plug it straight into my pc at my desk? 

[2600]

I like the ones from SmartParts. 

Just picked up another one of the 8.4" ones for my parents.  Dell had it for $99 during the Black Monday Week.

i wonder if i can just plug it straight into my pc at my desk? 

You don't need to plug it into a PC, but you can.  It has it's own internal Memory or can accept almost any flash media.

[hulkster]

I like the ones from SmartParts. 

Just picked up another one of the 8.4" ones for my parents.  Dell had it for $99 during the Black Monday Week.

i wonder if i can just plug it straight into my pc at my desk? 

You don't need to plug it into a PC, but you can.  It has it's own internal Memory or can accept almost any flash media.

yeah, i was just trying to more or less push pictures from my pc to the frame. 

[2600]

That probably won't work for you then.  I believe there are some network ones, but are more expensive.

Have you thought about just getting a second monitor?

[Rabbi Bob]

If you go the notebook route, check out Slickr.  I put mine on a wireless connection and when I update my Flickr account, the picture frame pulls from the account.

[patrickl]

Make sure you get one with a high resolution. Some are only 480x320 or even less. That looks seriously poorly. the better ones have 720 or 800 pixels horizontally.

[shardian]

If you go the notebook route, check out Slickr.  I put mine on a wireless connection and when I update my Flickr account, the picture frame pulls from the account.

Yeah, that's what Schmokes used.

[Howard_Casto]

I've been looking for one for my mother and I can honestly tell you they are all over-priced crap.  The average price is around 175-300 for a 10 inch frame (which is what you really want because then it looks like an actual picture frame and doesn't scream "this is a device!").  Now that'd be a reasonable price for an lcd panel except for the fact that the normal resolution is around 640*238.  The highest I've been able to find at a price I'm willing to pay (175 or less) is 640x480.  Also the vieweing angles are fairly horrible, only giving aabout a 45 degree filed of view with most models. 

IF I could find a tiny, solid-state pc I'd just couple that with a standard monitor and save some money, but I doubt that is gonna happen. 


I found this site the other day, but I've never heard of the company and I've yet to check it out.  The store is routed through yahoo though(which probably means nothing).  With that being said, they offer frames in various sizes with the highest specs for the lowest price I've seen.  If anyone in that area of CA could drop us a line and let us know if the brick and mortar version of this store is fairly legit, that'd be helpful. 
 
http://www.zillionsof.com/8quot-lcd-digital-photo-frame--woo.html

[DaveMMR]

I've been looking for one for my mother and I can honestly tell you they are all over-priced crap.   
http://www.zillionsof.com/8quot-lcd-digital-photo-frame--woo.html

Heh, I thought I was the only one buying one for their mothers. Haha.

If anyone has good or bad words about the link he provided, let us know.  That seems like a great price and I'm interested.

[Malenko]

I bought the Kodak one from circuit city for like $150 10" 800x480 resolution , has 128MB internal memory but I picked up a 2GB SD card for like $18 it looks like a regular picture frame and the pictures look pretty damn good on it too.

[Howard_Casto]

I bought the Kodak one from circuit city for like $150 10" 800x480 resolution , has 128MB internal memory but I picked up a 2GB SD card for like $18 it looks like a regular picture frame and the pictures look pretty damn good on it too.

You got a link?  I just went to circuitcity.com and couldn't find it.

[shmokes]

I highly recommend building one.  The one I made is SOOOO nice.  1000x more classy than pretty much anything you can buy.  And, as mentioned, it uses Slickr so my in-laws don't even  do anything to it aside from plug it in and turn it on.  They live in Idaho and we live in Florida, but whenever we want we just upload pictures to a Flickr account we made for it, and the frame automatically pulls them down (over built-in WiFi) and displays them.  This means that when my wife's parents get home from work their picture frame is displaying brand new pictures of their grand daughter that they've never seen before.  Really cool.

There's a thread somewhere here with pictures of it.  It was lots of fun to build.  The secret is this fantastic website called americanframe.com.  They will make custom-frames and mats dirt-cheap.  IIRC the frame and mat for my project was like $25 total.

It may not be the most economical route if you're starting with nothing, but lots of people have old, unused laptops laying around somewhere.  Put that thing to use!  That's what I did, so I ended up with a 15", very high-res digital picture frame that can be updated from anywhere in the world over the internet, for about $25 and a little elbow grease.  Not a bad deal.

[ChadTower]

They live in Idaho and we live in Florida, but whenever we want we just upload pictures to a Flickr account we made for it, and the frame automatically pulls them down (over built-in WiFi) and displays them. 

Must... hack... shmokes' Flicr account...

[shardian]

I highly recommend building one.  The one I made is SOOOO nice.  1000x more classy than pretty much anything you can buy.  And, as mentioned, it uses Slickr so my in-laws don't even  do anything to it aside from plug it in and turn it on.  They live in Idaho and we live in Florida, but whenever we want we just upload pictures to a Flickr account we made for it, and the frame automatically pulls them down (over built-in WiFi) and displays them.  This means that when my wife's parents get home from work their picture frame is displaying brand new pictures of their grand daughter that they've never seen before.  Really cool.

There's a thread somewhere here with pictures of it.  It was lots of fun to build.  The secret is this fantastic website called americanframe.com.  They will make custom-frames and mats dirt-cheap.  IIRC the frame and mat for my project was like $25 total.

It may not be the most economical route if you're starting with nothing, but lots of people have old, unused laptops laying around somewhere.  Put that thing to use!  That's what I did, so I ended up with a 15", very high-res digital picture frame that can be updated from anywhere in the world over the internet, for about $25 and a little elbow grease.  Not a bad deal.

Wow, thanks for the link to the custom framer. I have had a limited edition panoramic print of my teams football stadium sitting in its canister for years. Custom framing locally is in the ballpark of $250. I just whipped up a quick and dirty complete frame over on that site with a double mat, plexi, and mounting board for roughly $75. I'll definitely be going with them for the real thing.

[ChadTower]

The concept of that self updating frame is pretty cool, have to say.  I may have to look into building one of those in the spring.  I'd much rather have it update from a local source, though, than have to open up the firewall for it, as this one will be local.

[shmokes]

Yeah . . . I've framed a few things through them.  Always fantastic (though I've only got metal frames from them so far so I can't comment on wood).  The only downside to frames for prints is that they only do plexi -- no glass.  I assume that this has everything to do with shipping concerns. 

Anyway, here's the thread with my project in it (with pictures).  If you go through them, be sure to buy a frame stand.  They're like $1 or $2 or something, but we forgot to buy one and ended up having to place another order (and incur s&h charges again).  They're really cool, too.  Much better than the typical triangle of cardboard most picture frames use.

Also . . . if you build one of these, remember that hanging it on the wall is not really going to be an option.  For one thing, it will have a power cord, which will look dumb dangling out of it.  But, more importantly, if there's a laptop inside, it's going to need to breath.  I drilled vent-holes in the backing (and even installed a little fan that I happened to be able to canibalize from the laptop).  But this would be useless if the thing was pressed up against a wall.  It would burn up in no-time. 

edit: heh . . . forgot the link

[shmokes]

The concept of that self updating frame is pretty cool, have to say.  I may have to look into building one of those in the spring.  I'd much rather have it update from a local source, though, than have to open up the firewall for it, as this one will be local.

Well . . . it's just a regular laptop running XP and using an IP address, so opening up the firewall for it isn't difficult, and since its only purpose is running a picture frame, I wasn't terribly concerned about it being hacked.  But even if you only wanted to update it locally, it's still great to have WiFi and a full Windows OS on it.  You can remote desktop into it from another PC and control it just like you were sitting at the thing with a keyboard and mouse attached.  I also installed PC Anywhere just for double-protection.

The way I set it up, though, so that it would be somewhat future/idiot-proof, is rather than set it up with a static IP, I set it up on DHCP, but found an XP version of the old winipcfg app that Windows 98 had (starting with Windows 2000 you had to run ipconfig from the command prompt).  I put a batch file in the startup folder that runs the winipcfg app at startup, so the machine's IP and MAC addresses will display shortly after the computer boots up, then like 30 seconds later the app is closed by the batch file and the Slickr app starts).  That way if my in-laws ever get a new ISP that uses different internal network addresses the frame will still connect up, and if anything needs to be configured (like telling the DHCP server exactly what address to hand out or to connect to the machine remotely to make changes, the information will be easy to find).

[JackTucky]

You got a link?  I just went to circuitcity.com and couldn't find it.

This one?

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Kodak-SV-811-8-Digital-Photo-Frame-8858946/sem/rpsm/oid/179117/catOid/-16361/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

I'm in the market for one too.

=J

[patrickl]

It's too bad the WiFi version costs so much extra (seems about $80 extra). Would be cool to just drag files from your own computer onto the picture frame

[AtomSmasher]

I was just at Staples and I noticed they had a 11.3'' digital frame for $130

I have no idea on the specs, but for that size of screen it seems like a pretty good deal regardless

[Howard_Casto]

You got a link?  I just went to circuitcity.com and couldn't find it.

This one?

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Kodak-SV-811-8-Digital-Photo-Frame-8858946/sem/rpsm/oid/179117/catOid/-16361/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

I'm in the market for one too.

=J

Ahh... that's 16:9 aspect and therefore useless to me.  I don't want cropped or squished photos. 

[ChadTower]

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. 

[hulkster]

wow shmokes!     what a cool project.  you prompted me to google a diy picture frame and i came up with this site thats kinda dedicated to it.  http://likelysoft.com/hacks/pictureframes.shtml  its got different projects, but upon just clicking on a few, i found this very simple install that doesnt require any extra glueing per se.  http://www.thewares.net/item/33  it does leave the back of it exposed, but its still pretty cool.  i may make one of these for my office desk.

[vader]

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. 

Have you tried hanging hundreds of pictures on your walls lately ? 

with that, I picked this one up for my sister.  It included a 2 gb card, but no wifi.  Since she's not computer savvy, I'll be loading pictures on the card for her, pre-loaded about 25 on so far.  The only thing I don't like is the 16:9 format, although it does a good job of self cropping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882590001


edit for link

[boykster]

Its frustrating; the deluge of 16:9 digital picture frames is due to lcd manufacturers ramping up that aspect for portable DVD players and the like, with surplus production being used for other purposes.  Its silly (but cheap) to make digital picture frames out of these since pretty much no digital cameras shoot 16:9 native pictures...

 

[patrickl]

I gave a Philips picture frame to my wife a couple of years ago. Great screen although extremely expensive (it was the only really usable one a few years ago)

That was a 3:2 screen (IIRC something like 720x480). My camera is a Digital SLR so it does indeed give 3:2 pictures, but I found that all compact camera's use 4:3. I ended up cropping the 4:3 pictures a little.

BTW portrait pictures are really poor on these picture frames (when put horizontal) You either need two or just use horizontally orientated pictures.

I set up a workflow in photoshop to treat the pictures for this frame. It needed extra contrast, slight color changes, scaling (and extra sharpness due to the scaling blur)

[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]

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. 

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]

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). 

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]

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. 
 

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.

[Edgedamage]

When the busy season with my job slows down and xmas is over I will make a frame for my touch screen monitor. Right now it's being used as a monitor for my file server. My wife says she won't like a digital frame. But I always catch her looking at the slide show.

[Justin]

There is a KOdak didigtla frame that suppoert wifi natively... this means it will stream your pictures wirelessly from your PC's hard drive (or MAME cabinet! hint hint) without ever going through the additional effort of copying to an SD card, etc etc.

That is my first choice, but Im saving up because it is not cheap.


http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail.aspx?dpno=7206801&store=onsale&source=bwbfroogle

[patrickl]

Wow that's $95 cheaper than the $280 one I was referring to earlier CircuitCity: Kodak 10" Wireless Digital Picture Frame

[Red]

Saw this on Yahoo-

http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/72/digital-picture-frame-guide

Red