Digital Photo Frames

Does anyone have any recommendations on digital photoframes ?

I'd be interested in this too.

All I've seen of the advertisements is that anything with higher resolution than VGA is very expensive. It all seems a bit of a retrograde step, really, for viewing photos... especially ones that are any good.

I got my 30 free prints from Photobox recently, and I was very pleased with the quality. Not convinced there's anything 'modern' that improves on prints yet.

I am undecided about these digital frames. I like to have my photos printed and framed the "old" way.

Maybe I am old fashioned!

The only conceivable use for them in my view is to have the picture changing automatically at pre-selected intervals.

Although I suppose you can see them in the dark, if that's an advantage.

G

I have some experience with a digital photo frame. My father in law was in hospital and we thought that a digital frame would bring some joy to him. So off I went to the next electronic mega market in town where I picked one randomly (I think it's an Aiptek "Monet" for about 150 Euros. I think the resolution is 800 x 480 pixels and the size of the screen about 15 x 10 cm (6 x 4). I uploaded some pics (at or near to the 800 x 600 resolution) on an old CF card and tested it.

I have to say it's quite amazing and the limited resolution isn't really noticeable on most pics (it's close to the size that one submits for the WEB anyway and most pics come across quite well at this size).

Vertical viewing angle is a bit of a problem since the picture varies a bit, but if you carefully place the frame to be in a good position for your most likely viewing spot it's fine. Horizontally the viewing angle is wide enough for most settings I would say.

Of course the picture changes at preset intervals (in the case of the model I bought there are three settings from fast to slow; would have wished for an even slower option).

It convinced me (and SWMBO) to get one ourselves, perhaps a bit bigger (the standard German flat is a bit bigger than the standard UK one). My wife was nagging for some time already to get one but I didn't want to buy into this fairly new gadget family until the market sorts itself and prices drop a bit. Having seen it with my own eyes, though, I'm ready to go ahead.

I haven't read any tests recently (though I remember there was one in my favourite computer magazine not so long ago) so I don't know if I was lucky or unlucky with my purchase. It did convince us, though, to buy another one. I think it is a great gadget (and probably not essential to have; the hallmark of a real gadget, then).

Prieni

P.S.: If you are really really interested in the specs of that model I will endeavour to find out (my memory gives conflicting information to Googling that model).

I looked into those.
on the wall you'd have cords dangling down...
as a nightlight on a bedstand...some potential....

but they cost as much as a television....
televisions can display images as well as, well television....

I'd prefer to have the Apple tv (or a simple adapter for my computer) streaming my movies/slideshows/music to my tv's and/or projector, when I want my images showing in my rooms.

How about this ?

That doesn't eliminate power cables - unless you want to change batteries whenever...

Kinda neat to be able to queue up your photos from your PC though...

I think the Apple tv is the best. It is also the most poorly marketed device apple has made since the newton which was years ahead of the palm pilot.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Classivino, the power cables would be hidden behind the TV.

I haven't done a comparison of the two yet, but the apple is around £200 in the UK, the device I linked to is about £60.

I believe the Apple TV will only play/show items imported into iTunes program, the cheap device will play from any folder on you computers hardisk.

you are right....but that is due to industry protectionism by the networks, apple left the backdoor open on the apple tv, and there are ways to unlock it to other fileformats, and even run it as a solocore mac with osx!
after unlocking it it is as easy and fun as everything else mac!

http://www.appletvhacks.net/

won't be long before apple ships proper content and more open platform...

You are now talking about a completely different beast, though. And be aware that while the picture might be big the pixel number you get on a bog standard TV is at best comparable to that of the (much smaller) digital photo frames. Also the power needed for your TV is higher.

And, last but not least, you can't enjoy your pics when viewing TV programmes (or the many adverts in between programmes).

(I'm assuming here that you spend your money for cameras and lenses and not the latest HDTV gizmos... (and don't get me started on the many different standards of HDTV or digital video broadcasts))

true..different beast...but if you already have a hdtv then you'd be amazed at the image quality...we do video and still photography and we shoot hidef...the lack of standards and the format war between blu-ray and hd-dvd left us looking for solution to deliver multimedia content to our customers...ipod classic and apple-tv fit the bill, the image quality on the apple tv is astounding! for the record the other media streamer mentioned looks like a great value, if the image quality is good.....I'd certianly consider it worth my time to look into.

Don, thanks for the link, I'll take a look.

I have no experience of these devices but i decided to look for alternatives after seeing cheap 6x4 displays at my local supermarket. These are selling at about £35. This thread then caught my eye and I googled for media devices and the one I linked to was one of he cheapest. it occured to me that this device seemed better value than the digital picture frames.

As yet i have no idea on resolution, usability etc.

time for more research.

While doing your research, you might look at versiontrackerhttp://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
for mactheripper and handbrake.....very useful utilities for getting your **Paid for*** collection of dvds (under ***Fair Use***) into iTunes to play on your apple tv.
I don't advocate piracy!