#303715 - 02/11/2007 17:44
Wireless Digital Photo Frames
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I want to buy my parents a wireless digital photo frame for Christmas. It seems like a great way for me and my brothers to be able to share our photos with them (my Mum is always complaining that she doesn't have enough photos of the family).
I'm guessing there are empegers out there who have researched this already, so I thought I'd "rub the lamp" as tonyc put it.
- must be very, very simple to use day to day (my Mum doesn't get on with technology, ideally she should never have to touch it)
- must be able to be pointed at my own RSS feed (or equivalent) on my own server
- must be able to cope with the Internet connection disappearing for days at a time (my Dad turns his router off when he isn't going to be using it)
- needs to keep displaying photos when the Internet connection is down (either by showing photos it has downloading before or falling back to a memory card)
- needs to be as big and have as high a resolution as possible
- needs to be available in the UK
Nice to have features:
- it would be handy if it could download from more than one RSS feed (would simplify me and my brothers pushing photos to it)
- 3:2 aspect ratio
Edited by andy (02/11/2007 18:02)
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#303716 - 02/11/2007 18:11
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I quite like the look of the eStarling 8 inch frame, but I can't seem to find anywhere in the UK that sells them. http://www.estarling.com/products8w.html
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#303717 - 02/11/2007 18:19
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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It seems that the frame has to get pictures from the company's web site in order to work. What's the deal with that?
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#303718 - 02/11/2007 18:30
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Yeah, I am just playing with their demo software that emulates the frame on a Windows PC.
In a way it is very flexible, in that it can get photos from any RSS feed, email address etc
But all the flexibility is built into their website, so their web server fetches the images from RSS, email etc and the frame gets them from their website.
That makes me very nervous, if they go bust or decide to make it a pay website the frame becomes a piece of junk unless it can be hacked in some way.
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#303719 - 02/11/2007 18:44
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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http://www.udiggit.com/ claim to have them in stock, they're in Gainsborough, but don't let that put you off.
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Andy M
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#303720 - 02/11/2007 19:20
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Thanks, I had seen that site but thought they only had the 7 inch (as they don't have an 8 inch category).
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#303721 - 02/11/2007 22:15
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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I've looked for a picture frame with similar features and most of them are either crazy expensive or actually really clunky once you actually use it. Most of the cheapo ones are actually composite video LCDs bolted to some crappy DVD player chipset that also displays pictures off a SD/CF card.
The only thing that can do exactly what you want seems to be a laptop...
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#303722 - 02/11/2007 22:32
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I'm probably going to give the eStarling one a go, if I don't like it I'll send it back, the Distance Selling Regulations are one bit of government red tape that I do like 
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#303723 - 02/11/2007 22:57
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Bad review at gizmodo *shrug* Complains about really bad resolution on the panel.
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#303724 - 02/11/2007 23:37
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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That is the 7 inch screen, the 8 inch has 800 X 600 pixels, which is a much higher pixel density than the 480 X 234 on the 7 inch (and also a more useful aspect ratio).
All the complaints on that site appear to be for the 7 inch one, but who knows if the 8 inch is that much better ?
I think I might still give it a go, if I buy it on my credit card then it is pretty risk free even if the supplier gets antsy over the Distance Selling Regs.
I also figure it can't be that hard to hack if they go bust. All it should need is a local DNS entry to point the frame to a local server and some code to simulate what there webserver does. Unless they have gone to the trouble to properly protect the frame-server exchange.
I can't see any other frames that promise the same level of flexibility.
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#303725 - 02/11/2007 23:49
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
That is the 7 inch screen, the 8 inch has 800 X 600 pixels, which is a much higher pixel density than the 480 X 234 on the 7 inch (and also a more useful aspect ratio).
Oops!
I wonder why nobody else actually makes a digital picture frame that does what we want. I mean it can't be that hard. An embedded Linux board + big LCD + photo frame. Only limiting factor would be price...
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#303726 - 03/11/2007 00:04
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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By far the best one I've seen so far is the I-Mate Momento. My godmother gave us one for the wedding, and I like it a lot. The resolution makes the photos look great. You can set it up to track any RSS feed, though I'm still working on getting it to work with an Apple Airport Extreme (it seems to have some issues with the wireless security that Apple incorporates). If you just use the frame with an SD card like we are, it works perfectly fine. It's also very easy to use and has a nifty RF remote that stores in the back of the unit. The main issue with the frame is the styling. Your parents might not like the modern styling, but it looks pretty good in our place. Plus the build quality is far better than I've seen from your average display unit in Best Buy.
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#303727 - 03/11/2007 00:07
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
That is the 7 inch screen, the 8 inch has 800 X 600 pixels, which is a much higher pixel density than the 480 X 234 on the 7 inch (and also a more useful aspect ratio).
Oops!
I wonder why nobody else actually makes a digital picture frame that does what we want. I mean it can't be that hard. An embedded Linux board + big LCD + photo frame. Only limiting factor would be price...
Practically *all* of them out there *are* using Linux, and *not* releasing source code. Too small fry for most developers to fuss about, though.
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#303728 - 03/11/2007 00:30
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
Practically *all* of them out there *are* using Linux, and *not* releasing source code. Too small fry for most developers to fuss about, though.
Ugh. That sucks 
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#303729 - 03/11/2007 06:53
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
By far the best one I've seen so far is the I-Mate Momento.
I was looking at the Momento ones, but was put off by the yearly subscription that they seemed to need.
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#303730 - 03/11/2007 08:04
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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http://www.photovu.com seems to be what you're looking for. * They're simple to use * They're wireless * They fetch multiple RSS feeds directly * They're big (17, 19, and 22 inches) and very high resolution Only problem is that they're ridiculously expensive compared to something like that e-starling. Also I can find nothing on their website regarding any availability in the UK.
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#303731 - 03/11/2007 08:22
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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They do look interesting and I wouldn't rule them out purely on the basis of the cost. The lack of UK availability is a problem though.
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#303732 - 03/11/2007 11:31
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
They do look interesting and I wouldn't rule them out purely on the basis of the cost. The lack of UK availability is a problem though.
You should be able to get them from one of the resellers -- perhaps from the one in Canada.
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#303733 - 03/11/2007 11:38
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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WEP only, no WPA -- that's a deal killer.
They claim it might appear in a future software update, but an annual "Software Maintenance plan" (feeware) is required to even find out about possible future upgrades.
Duh.
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#303734 - 03/11/2007 11:42
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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One of us should really get our act together, and make/sell a tiny (gumstix size) Linux gizmo to drive generic PC LCD displays over DVI-D (or an HDTV screen over HDMI via adapter..).
It would easily sell tens of thousands of units, and wouldn't need to be priced more than $100-$200. The idea is that it would supply the "digital photo frame" smarts, and drive just about any single-link LCD display of the customer's choosing.
I want five of them here.
Edited by mlord (03/11/2007 11:43)
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#303735 - 03/11/2007 11:47
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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addict
Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
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This is a popular request - I know I'm interested  I wonder what could be done to make an opensource picture frame? Open hardware? At the very least different component builds with a list of components and instructions on how to assemble? This guy used an old laptop but that needs people to find just the right second hand hardware - not the right approach. * supersmall super lowpower svga/lan capable motherboard with wake-timer/wol * or a *really small* PC (5W apparently) : * low power lcd screen with tiny bezel suitable for picture-framing * connectors * nice hardwood picture frames (I knew there was something Mark could do) The software is probably easy by comparison... Sod it I just registered openpictureframe.org + com - lets see...
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LittleBlueThing
Running twin 30's
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#303736 - 03/11/2007 12:06
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: LittleBlueThing]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
* nice hardwood picture frames (I knew there was something Mark could do)
Ah, good. Thanks for remembering me.
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#303737 - 03/11/2007 12:07
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: LittleBlueThing]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
I wonder what could be done to make an opensource picture frame?
It would certainly help if we could inspire PCA to get involved..
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#303738 - 03/11/2007 13:17
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: LittleBlueThing]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
This is a popular request - I know I'm interested
Oooo... Me too!
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#303739 - 03/11/2007 13:24
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote:
Quote:
By far the best one I've seen so far is the I-Mate Momento.
I was looking at the Momento ones, but was put off by the yearly subscription that they seemed to need.
You only need that for their "Momento Live" subscription. It has nothing to do with RSS feeds or your ability to use the device with flash memory or other mediums.
So basically, you don't need it at all. I don't have it.
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#303740 - 03/11/2007 14:13
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
It would certainly help if we could inspire PCA to get involved..
One of his ARM boards that he was demoing in Manchester this year would be ideal and allegedly in the $100 range.
I was thinking about contacting him about it, but never got round to it.
It would be relatively easy with such a board and a small Linux distro to get something that worked. Taking it to the point where it was bullet proof and saleable would take a lot more effort.
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#303741 - 03/11/2007 14:41
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Quote:
It would certainly help if we could inspire PCA to get involved..
One of his ARM boards that he was demoing in Manchester this year would be ideal and allegedly in the $100 range.
Yeah. I have (probably) that board here, and that's what I may use it for (someday). It has built-in control for raw LCD panels, and the possibility of adding video-out onto that.
Cheers
Edited by mlord (03/11/2007 14:41)
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#303742 - 03/11/2007 14:57
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
Quote:
They do look interesting and I wouldn't rule them out purely on the basis of the cost. The lack of UK availability is a problem though.
You should be able to get them from one of the resellers -- perhaps from the one in Canada.
That isn't really the same as available in the UK though. I don't want to have to be shipping it back across the pond when it doesn't work.
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#303743 - 03/11/2007 15:16
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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addict
Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
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Hurricane?Available in batches of 100 - that's 5 for Mark, 3 for me and 92 going begging... Hmm, I'll keep looking ah... this looks betteroh wait .... That's the one A bit pricey if you go for their case but looks like a viable starting point...
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LittleBlueThing
Running twin 30's
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#303744 - 03/11/2007 15:28
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: LittleBlueThing]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Pico-ITX IA32 is way overkill for this application. What those of us with home servers probably want is more like the Displaylink stuff, where it's not much more than a wifi-attached framebuffer and the smarts are on the PC. Not that that would suit Andy's parents, but even they would be better off with some little ARM board. Some of the commercial photo frames probably have Sigmatel chips in, but they're done by Sigmatel Waltham (i.e. not Cambridge or Austin) and I've no idea what the software is like. Peter
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#303745 - 03/11/2007 17:24
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: peter]
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addict
Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
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Well, it's OS - there's no reason to limit it to a single solution I agree that the power's not 'needed' but I found that board based on cost and availability - and honestly it's having the flexibility to innovate in the software that's the key for me. I can see that a simple 'lash up' of a mini-iTX, an lcd display and a nice frame running an OS OS would solve Andy's problem in time for Christmas (and provide a more bespoke solution than the multi-$000 one, *and* be made by hand like all the best presents ) I'm going to look for an lcd display with a tiny bezel and a very low power consumption. I'm thinking 19" minimum though - this is a wall-hanging solution, not a mantlepiece.
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Running twin 30's
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#303746 - 03/11/2007 17:36
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: LittleBlueThing]
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addict
Registered: 25/06/2002
Posts: 456
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Quote:
This guy used an old laptop
[...]
The software is probably easy by comparison...
Last year for Christmas, I made each member of my family a wireless photo frame from old laptops. The software was my fun little project and was really just web-page scripting. The laptops just boot into a full-screen borderless browser.
All the commercial offerings at the time were either too low-res, too expensive, or required a monthly subscription to some service which didn't quite do what you wanted anyway.
I was thinking I had posted pictures here of my experimentation, but I guess I never got around to it.
It was a good learning vehicle for me, and resulted in fun gifts for the family.
Everybody can post pictures that everyone else instantly sees on their photoframes and you can adjust the randomization ratios when you feel like seeing more pictures of your kids and fewer of your brothers trip to Italy, or vice versa.
Anyway, I'm interested in a better, sleeker, open-source alternative for future upgrades. When I looked at Embedded Boards or stuff with the micro-ITX form factors, they all were more expensive than just ripping apart an old laptop.
(And I didn't want to take time to figure out how to interface cheap used laptop LCDs to these boards.)
Unfortunately, any software I have I can't contribute to this effort because it isn't really re-usable. (And anyway could be whipped up in short order by anyone remotely conversant with MySQL, PHP, and CSS. Which is probably most of you.)
I'll be following developments here with interest.
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#303747 - 04/11/2007 14:05
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: music]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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The hardware for such a product is about the easiest thing to get together. At least for a one-off. It's a little harder if you want to design something from scratch for mass production. But in all cases, the biggest development costs and difficulties will be in the software. That's where such a device lives or dies and what will eventually make all the difference to the consumer/user.
Recognizing this and also recognizing that there were no pre-made programs to do the while thing very wel, I decided to keep it as simple as I knew how.
I made a frame for my brother this past spring using an old Mac notebook. The slideshow is run using its screen saver and nothing more. The screen saver does zooming/panning and cross-fading (Ken Burns effect) which generally looks a lot better than commercial products. The frame was purchased at Ikea and the case to hold the computer parts was made by myself - pretty straight forward and simple design/implementation.
I took photos of the whole process but have yet to write anything up. Like creating your own software for such a product, that can be the most time consuming and difficult part.
In the end I spent more than I could have bought one for. But it ended with a 12" screen, better transitions, two gigabytes of internal flash storage, an additional 30GB of HD space that holds nothing more than the OS, WiFi, the ability to turn itself on/off on a schedule and of course the satisfaction of knowing I did it myself. And it means a lot more to the people I gave it to because of that as well.
Setting it up with dynamic DNS service one could share its resources and upload to it from the internet. Or even access it with Apple Remote Desktop or free VNC.
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#303748 - 05/11/2007 18:39
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: hybrid8]
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addict
Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
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I suppose I'm thinking a bit 'in between'. I was looking for a more 'off the shelf' or guided approach to make it accessible to more people. I know *I* could just (probably!) hack one together but I was hoping that it may be feasible to look for easily obtained components and design something that was accessible to more people - there aren't *that* many people out there that would attempt, from cold, to rip a laptop apart to do this - but I suspect that there are a lot who would follow a guide... especially one with a shopping list. Although there's always the problem then becomes keeping it up-to-date as hardware changes. I was also looking at bigger screens - I want a 19" one - and they cost in at £135. So some details on VESA mounting, some suggestions as to frame design, which model screens have the best construction for this kind of approach; which have good standby power etc etc. Hints to mount an old laptop behind a screen - how to silence a laptop; using CF drives instead of hdd drives; even network boot instructions? I don't have the expertise to even consider progressing peter's suggestion - however if others did take it forward then having 1 pico-iTX (or laptop or similar) display and several slave wifi-framebuffers would be interesting... And I'm not wedded to pico-iTX - it's not cheap! It may even be better to look for a very low-end laptop to sacrifice. I really don't know Hell, I'm lucky that SWMBO can bring home the odd old laptop destined for the skip - but suggestions gratefully received... I would *love* a thin client that controlled a simple 3D GPU chipset - especially if I could rig it inside a 19" monitor case and use the monitor PSU etc... I agree about the software - but it's not *that* hard. I'm thinking of a debian/ubuntu based (simply because I know it ) mini distro. Use as many OTS components as possible and look at the hardware requirements to determine selection/behaviour So the package selection is driven by: Do you have: * 3D graphics * sound * wifi * any peter-frame clients *... There's a little utility called gliv which looks like an interesting base - it does slideshows, has a 'server' concept and works with and without GL. (I've always wanted to do openGL code...) I've already got my laptop running with a minimal install and displaying pictures - I just need to package it now
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LittleBlueThing
Running twin 30's
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#303750 - 08/11/2007 14:20
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I saw that as well this morning, it does look good, but I wish it also had DVI, Wifi (or at least mini PCI) and no fan.
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#303751 - 08/11/2007 14:31
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
Here's the platform we need. Not as small as it could be, but cheap enough not to worry:
Its not that great tho. Significantly better board but for $9.99 more
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#303752 - 08/11/2007 14:34
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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addict
Registered: 25/06/2002
Posts: 456
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Quote:
Here's the platform we need.
Good work, Mark!
Now the question is what's the trick to driving a "replacement" laptop LCD from this that we install in our own custom wooden frame?
Or is the idea initially to just bury all of this stuff inside of a standard cheap LCD display?
And as already mentioned, having no fans would be best....
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#303753 - 08/11/2007 14:38
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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That one will also need a fan. Any photo frame I make will have to be completely silent, which means no fans. Which means a low power VIA board or an even lower powered ARM board.
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#303754 - 08/11/2007 14:41
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
That one will also need a fan. Any photo frame I make will have to be completely silent, which means no fans. Which means a low power VIA board or an even lower powered ARM board.
Yeah. I noticed that after I posted so I changed it
A fan wouldn't be too bad I guess in the living room but it'd be annoying anywhere else.
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#303755 - 08/11/2007 14:52
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
A fan wouldn't be too bad I guess in the living room but it'd be annoying anywhere else.
My parents turn the TV and Sky box off at the wall when they aren't using them. When you don't talk in their living room you can hear the clock on the mantelpiece tick. Even just a CPU fan on one of those boards would be horribly noisy.
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#303756 - 08/11/2007 14:55
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: mlord]
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addict
Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
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Via unichrome graphics? Not the best ISTR. http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2007-September/028578.htmlIf you're going with that much power then you want wizzy 3D graphics!! So either an onboard AMD/ATI chipset (and hope they were honest about 3D) or didn't Intel release a middle-of-the-road onboard gpu with OS drivers? Like the PSU Like the 100+ pricing more!
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LittleBlueThing
Running twin 30's
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#303757 - 08/11/2007 14:59
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
Quote:
A fan wouldn't be too bad I guess in the living room but it'd be annoying anywhere else.
My parents turn the TV and Sky box off at the wall when they aren't using them. When you don't talk in their living room you can hear the clock on the mantelpiece tick. Even just a CPU fan on one of those boards would be horribly noisy.
Wow. They'd go crazy then at my place. So much stuff hums or makes the HD ticking noises.
Good for the environment/electricity bill I guess
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#303758 - 08/11/2007 15:03
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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addict
Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 612
Loc: Reading, UK
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I do think that totally fanless is very important. I was thinking about heatpipes and the like. On the screen side, I'm interested in seeing if we can pull together information about reusing LCD screens, but also buying a 19" monitor and using a vesa wall mount... On another tangent, if this is going to work (for me) it needs to be pretty. So I'm working on splashy too.
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LittleBlueThing
Running twin 30's
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#303759 - 08/11/2007 19:08
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
I saw that as well this morning, it does look good, but I wish it also had DVI, Wifi (or at least mini PCI) and no fan.
Yeah. The price is the big point with that one, but major shame about the fan.
I wonder if the CPU can be underclocked, to eliminate the fan? Usually a C7 is fanless under 1Ghz.
Mmmm.. if it has something similar to "SpeedStep" built-in, then we can lock the CPU speed down low in software, and unplug the fan.
-ml
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#303760 - 20/11/2007 06:02
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
By far the best one I've seen so far is the I-Mate Momento.
I was looking at the Momento ones, but was put off by the yearly subscription that they seemed to need.
You only need that for their "Momento Live" subscription. It has nothing to do with RSS feeds or your ability to use the device with flash memory or other mediums.
So basically, you don't need it at all. I don't have it.
Are you really, really sure about that ?
All the information I can find says that without the yearly subscription it will only display photos from local storage or a PC on the LAN. Everything I can find says it won't do RSS feeds with the subscription.
To further confuse matters the Momento Live website talks about it being a free service, with no mention of any charges. Whereas the reviews talk about a £19.95 yearly charge.
Edited by andy (20/11/2007 06:06)
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#303761 - 20/11/2007 14:58
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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It's possible that the reviews are pretty old, and were never updated. Perhaps IMate changed that.
To be truthful, I don't have any way of verifying my claim that you don't need the Live service, because the frame appears to have issues connecting to an Apple Airport Extreme. It appears that it is not compatible with any security method that Apple has created - even WEP (is it standard WEP encryption? The description seems to indicate it's some other kind). I can connect without encryption, but I clearly don't want to do that, so I'm in contact with the company to try to get this figured out.
Still, on the frame its self, the Live service and the RSS feeds appear to be separate.
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Matt
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#303762 - 20/11/2007 15:02
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Thanks for that. I think I'll give a go.
Looks like there won't be any of the eStarling frames in the UK until the end of November at the earliest and even then supplies look limited. Plus their PC frame emulator + web server don't seem to work to well.
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#303763 - 20/11/2007 15:55
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Hmmm
The next problem is actually buying one...
As far as I can tell the only people who actually have the 10 inch i-mate Momento for sale in the UK are PCWorld. They want £199 for it, whereas the reviews reckon the RRP is £160.
Does anyone know of anyone else apart from PCWorld who is selling the 10 inch display ?
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#303764 - 20/11/2007 19:25
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Andy, sorry, but it appears I was wrong. I just removed my security for a moment to check the RSS thing, and it appears that you have to set up the RSS feeds in the Momento Live account. They are two separate options in the frame menu, so that's why I thought it was separate. Not sure why it wouldn't be. Seems like a pretty easy thing to me...
Anyway, I'm still looking into it, but I can't tell if the Momento account is free or not. It looks to me like it is, but I'm not sure...
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Matt
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#303765 - 20/11/2007 19:30
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Nevermind, it is ordered now anyway I guess I'll have to pay up if there really is a subscription or hack it.
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#303766 - 21/11/2007 14:24
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote:
Nevermind, it is ordered now anyway
I guess I'll have to pay up if there really is a subscription or hack it.
Well, I took my security off again for a moment, and tested the process of setting up an account on Momento Live. It's free, and you just need an activation code from the frame itself in order to sign up. Once you're set up, you can get feeds from Flickr, Picasa (Google Web Albums, where I put my photos), and some other places I haven't heard of (FrameCentral, SmugMug, and Windows Live Spaces).
I tried one of my Picasa albums, and it worked like a charm.
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Matt
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#303768 - 27/11/2007 20:18
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I was surprised to find a display of about ten or so digital pictureframes at the Best Buy when I happened to be there over the weekend. Hopefully this means that they are becoming more mainstream and will get better and cheaper as time goes on.
However, I did notice that many of them had a 16:9 aspect ratio. What is the deal with that? Who takes pictures that are not in the 4:3 or 5:4 neighborhood?
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Bitt Faulk
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#303769 - 27/11/2007 20:26
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
However, I did notice that many of them had a 16:9 aspect ratio. What is the deal with that? Who takes pictures that are not in the 4:3 or 5:4 neighborhood?
I guess it is just a case that there are plenty of cheap 16:9 panels around, with all the millions of cheap portable DVD players that China is churning out.
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#303770 - 27/11/2007 20:27
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Oh, and I meant to point out that they had some wireless ones from Digital Spectrum and Kodak. I don't know if any of them will be available in the UK or not.
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Bitt Faulk
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#303771 - 28/11/2007 04:46
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Quote:
Who takes pictures that are not in the 4:3 or 5:4 neighborhood?
3:2 - Everyone with an SLR. And anyone scanning or shooting film.
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#303772 - 28/11/2007 13:25
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Uh, you're right. And 16:9 actually loses less data via cropping for a 3:2 image than a 4:3 screen would, though it's a lot in either case: 10.42% vs. 16.7% of the original image is lost. For reference, though, cropping a 4:3 image to 16:9 loses 18.75% of the image.
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Bitt Faulk
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#303773 - 28/11/2007 14:07
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Uh, you're right. And 16:9 actually loses less data via cropping for a 3:2 image than a 4:3 screen would, though it's a lot in either case: 10.42% vs. 16.7% of the original image is lost. For reference, though, cropping a 4:3 image to 16:9 loses 18.75% of the image.
That doesn't sound quite right. Cropping a 3:2 image for a 16:9 screen is the same as cropping a 48:32 image for a 48:27 screen, so you're losing 5/32 or 15.6%. Likewise, cropping 3:2 for 4:3 is like cropping 9:6 to fit 8:6, so losing 1/9 or 11.1%. So 4:3 is better than 16:9 even for 3:2 originals. And cropping 4:3 to 16:9 is like cropping 16:12 to 16:9, losing 3/12 or 25%.
Peter
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#303774 - 28/11/2007 14:17
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Correct me if I'm wrong; my brain is having a weird morning: Quote:
cropping a 48:32 image for a 48:27 screen, so you're losing 5/32
I believe that means you're losing 5/48, which is 10.42%
Quote:
cropping 3:2 for 4:3 is like cropping 9:6 to fit 8:6, so losing 1/9
Again, 1/6.
Quote:
cropping 4:3 to 16:9 is like cropping 16:12 to 16:9, losing 3/12
And 3/16.
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Bitt Faulk
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#303775 - 28/11/2007 14:27
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Quote:
cropping a 48:32 image for a 48:27 screen, so you're losing 5/32
I believe that means you're losing 5/48, which is 10.42%
I'm pretty sure not. Imagine your screen were actually 48x27 pixels, and you were trying to display a 48x32-pixel image. In each 32-pixel vertical column, 5 pixels would be missed out. So the reduction is 5/32. In those horizontal rows which appear at all, all 48 pixels appear.
Peter
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#303776 - 28/11/2007 15:38
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Cropping a 3:2 image for a 16:9 screen is the same as cropping a 48:32 image for a 48:27 screen, so you're losing 5/32 or 15.6%. Likewise, cropping 3:2 for 4:3 is like cropping 9:6 to fit 8:6, so losing 1/9 or 11.1%. So 4:3 is better than 16:9 even for 3:2 originals.
For a 3:2 image on 16x9, the number I get is about 84% coverage (same as Peter).
For a 3:2 image on 4x3, my calculator says 88.8% coverage (same as Peter).
Excluding borders, title bars, and icons etc..
But I much prefer 16x9 for viewing photos, mostly because they tend to be larger screens for the same height/price as 4x3.
Edited by mlord (28/11/2007 15:43)
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#303777 - 28/11/2007 15:49
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Yeah, you're right. I told you my brain wasn't working well.
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Bitt Faulk
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#303779 - 03/12/2007 12:42
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: ih2]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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What about the the $50000 to $100000 you will have to pay someone (or someones) to develop the software to run the frame?
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#303780 - 03/12/2007 13:22
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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There are, I'm sure, dozens of free RSS screensavers out there for both Windows and Linux.
I don't think it really fits the bill, as an LCD monitor doesn't look much like a photo frame, but, still, those are pretty cool.
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Bitt Faulk
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#303781 - 03/12/2007 14:33
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Quote:
There are, I'm sure, dozens of free RSS screensavers out there for both Windows and Linux.
Ok, with the screensaver route it's doable and passable in many instances. I got away with it making the Mac-based frame for my brother. But one really needs more specialized software if the frame is intended for someone who isn't computer savvy. My brother can easily connect to a share on the frame to copy images to it, or remote login using VNC to copy images off a connected USB drive. My parents on the other hand could never do that.
Using RSS would hopefully give the savvy admin the ability to set up photos remotely on a frame connected to a high speed internet connection, but truthfully, I haven't seen any great programs yet (ones that are great at the slideshow portion of the puzzle). Of course the last time I looked was earlier this year when making the original frame.
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#303782 - 03/12/2007 23:16
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: hybrid8]
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addict
Registered: 25/06/2002
Posts: 456
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I set up a web-based photo upload (and captioning) engine for my frames without spending anywhere near $100,000 worth of my time.
Maybe I'm just a cheap date.
Granted, what I wrote isn't at all mass-market bullet-proof, and all my scattered family members are quite computer literate. So this proves nothing.
They'd be OK with getting it to work even if it were Comcastically bad. (or near-Microsoftian in its opacity)
Yet, I'd still say that my hardware is the weakest part of this equation (and I'm a hardware guy....)
because I hate having a spinning hard drive on this thing. And I hate that it's running Windows underneath.
I'd like to port it to Linux and have it boot off a USB flash drive and then run entirely in a RAM disk with no whirring spinning things and no writing to Flash (at least not for swap or tmpfiles, anyway).
Maybe someday.
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#315934 - 05/11/2008 16:03
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: music]
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veteran
Registered: 21/03/2002
Posts: 1424
Loc: MA but Irish born
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Bringing this back to the top as it is a year on, things have changed and I'm in the market for one for the Mammy so she can fawn over picture of the grand-daughter she'll rarely get to see.
My needs are very similar to what Andy outlined in his first post, easy of use is very important, as I'm not in a position to pop over and debug issue.
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#315935 - 05/11/2008 16:35
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: Phoenix42]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I'd like to think that things have improved, but I bet they haven't. I did look at Kodak's new frames, they had made three changes:
- added a random order option
- added a stupid not-quite-touch screen (you touch on the border round the screen)
- removed the useful remote
and nothing else
I haven't look at any other new ones though, so who knows, things may have moved on.
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#316212 - 10/11/2008 17:04
Re: Wireless Digital Photo Frames
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Kodak also has (or is releasing) an OLED photo frame. Only $999.
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Matt
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