A Digital Picture Frame Without the Lock-In? 96
The Cisco Kid asks: "My mom, bless her soul, doesn't quite get the concept of digital photography. She always complains that we never print them out for her, and gets completely flustered at the idea of looking at them on a computer. I'm thinking of getting a digital photo frame for her, only I can't seem to find one that fits the bill. I am aware of the possibility of building one, and may end up going that way (most likely using a laptop), but I'm really hoping I can find a consumer one that meets my needs — and that's where things get tricky." One of the major features that is required is the ability to update the frame over the network, without the need of any third party software. Has anyone seen a digital picture frame that doesn't tie you to a piece of proprietary software or a proprietary network?
"I'd like to be able to hang it on the wall, and leave it there, so I want to be able to update/add pictures to it over either a wireless or wired network. I've found very few that have networking capabilities, but I can't seem to find any documentation as to what application-layer protocol they use. For example, I've found one that only connects to the manufacturer's website, to which you must subscribe — there is no option to use the network, directly. Kodak seems to only support using their proprietary Windows-only software for controlling or updating their frames (and I don't use Windows).
Is anyone aware of anyone that makes a reasonably priced digital frame that has networking and uses open protocols? Or should I expect to be taking apart the display hinge of a used laptop in the near future?"
Is anyone aware of anyone that makes a reasonably priced digital frame that has networking and uses open protocols? Or should I expect to be taking apart the display hinge of a used laptop in the near future?"
this is also flamebait (Score:1, Insightful)
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Flash memory card? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the best option out there I have seen and know of a few people who have made this work with parents. You could even send her a memory card with photos on it so that she can just put the memory card in and turn it on.
I would throw in a couple of links at this point to different products, but I have no idea where you are, so giving local product is a little difficult..
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Use a DVD Player (Score:5, Interesting)
The one we bought takes CDs with pictures on them and also takes SD cards
It will run them as a slide show, I assume that will work
You have to be a little carefull how you format things and send the photos to her but it does work and requires no subscription.
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That said, I have an old Ziga digital frame on my desk. The resolution is crappy and the colors are awful, and I have to burn my pics to a CF card, but I still like having it. Every
A few out there (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.boyink.com/splaat/comments/diy-digital
Yadda yadda google works wonders for this
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$800 for a 17 incher? (Score:1)
No, bite the bullet and start taking that old notebook apart.
The frame is not hard. The ports are right there.
xubuntu.
Customize the screen saver.
Done.
I can't wait... (Score:5, Funny)
Dunno about network-attached, but.... (Score:4, Interesting)
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I have another one (same make/model) for sale- yours for 70$.
Most of the time the resolution is just too low on these units to be worth much. Nothing lower than 1024x768 or you'll regret it. High quality LCD panels are expensive, but it is possible to drive (say) a 17" panel for 200$ plus a cheap computer (such as the VIA Micro board
estarling (Score:5, Informative)
Re:estarling (Score:4, Informative)
Re:estarling (Score:4, Informative)
While it's pretty close, it's exactly what the original poster does not want. From the spec list :
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Is there one with an RJ45?
Max.
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Just get prints (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that this doesn't answer the question that you've asked, but why don't you just print them? There are kiosk machines in lots of places now that print at photo quality. Prints are on the order of 20 cents each for a 4x6. I use them. They're great.
Your mom is more comfortable with prints, don't try to force an unwanted solution on her.
Re:Just get prints (Score:4, Insightful)
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That sure sounds like the Complicator's Gloves [worsethanfailure.com] story.
Re:Just get prints (Score:4, Informative)
one at the nearby kinkos totally destroyed my SD card of everything i shot from a particular vacation.
That's what you deserved! (Score:2)
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Re:Just get prints (Score:5, Interesting)
My mom (who gets both digital photography and computers) owned, briefly, a digital frame - and then trashed it after about a year. She has photos, old and new, all around the house - there was no way a single digital frame could replace all those, and the cost of well over a hundred digital frames (not to mention the maintenance) was simply out of the question. Nor is a slide show always a viable option.
When we were visiting in March, Mom had just finished a wonderful 'diorama'. On an end table were pictures of her dad (who died in 1987), pictures of her and her siblings growing up that featured them and Grandpa, and pictures of us kids with Grandpa. It was lit with his reading lamp - and the centerpiece was his Bible, opened to his favorite passage and with his reading glasses laid on top. A slide show wouldn't have near the impact as that little grouping of carefully selected frames and photographs. While we were visiting them, she was happily redoing her 'family' wall - a careful grouping of photographs of us kids[1] and her grandkids. (She needs to make room for pictures of the new grandbaby due in June.) I spent a wonderful afternoon helping her and reminiscing about when and where some of the photographs were taken. She doesn't want a slide show there - that would leave an empty wall. She just wants to have her photographs arranged and sized as she wants them. (And if the size or cropping doesn't suit her, Dad has a Mac, a high end scanner, several graphics and photoediting programs, and a high end printer - and Mom knows how to use 'em all.)
There's a time and place for geek cool - and a time and place for more traditional methods. The choice should be left to [the author's] Mom, not forced on her.
[1] Including one picture she just loves, which is also then one picture of me worse than any driver's license photo ever taken - my boot camp portrait. (Taken in the second week of boot camp when I was still shell shocked and waaay short on sleep.) If I could wave a magic wand and make just one picture of me disappear from human memory - that would be the one.
Costco (Score:5, Informative)
Mom seems to like them.
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Re:York (Score:2)
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You also might (in addition to printing) set up a slide show screen saver for her. My grandmother enjoyed that a lot (as would I, if I were a photo person).
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Why, when I was a kid our pictures were wisps of hydrogen gas held together by magnetic fields.
I remember the excitement that first day pictures started coming in hydrogen and helium!
-
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And God saw the resolution, that it was high: and God plugged in His 128MB memory stick.
PanDigital + Single-board computer (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, a SBC with USB will easily cost over $50, maybe $100. Even if altogether it costs $200 for the frame and the SBC, thats still probably better than you would've paid for a basic frame even a year ago, let alone how much decent SBC's have dropped in price!
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With a Ceiva (lockin, updates via phone lines) You're dropping $100-$150 on the frame, and $100 a year for the service - for a very limited service, IMHO - the frame isn't that great and you only get 20 pictures on it (on my Dad's anyway).
So for 2 years of service, you're already into over 3 bills - that SBC with Wi-Fi is looking better and better - though that may also mean plumbing the parent's place with broadband, adding a router...
Yeah, printing out 4x6es is looking b
my wife just got this for me!!! (Score:1)
It has 800x600 resolution, a card reader, plays MP3's, and videos (I've only tried AVI's, but it works pretty well)...and it's a USB host and client.
it's pretty slick, and with 128MB of memory, it can hold a LOT of 1024x768...so, I didn't even bother buying another card because after resizing 100 6MP pictures down to 1024x768, I still have over 120MB free.
(I size the pics at 1024x768 so I can zoom in to the picture
i-mate momento (Score:1)
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Widescreen on a photo frame?
Um, a 4x6" print is roughly 10.5:16 or, landscape style, 16:10.5. Sound pretty close to 16:9 (widescreen)? Closer than 4:3? That may be a clue... ;)
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Aesthetically, that's up to you. With, for example, a 4:3 screen that's exactly 6" wide, its height will be 4.5", calling for 0.25" tall black bars top and bottom. With, for example, a 16:9 screen that's exactly 4" tall, its width will
old notebook (Score:2)
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If you do it right, you can make it look like a jewelery box, with, um, a screen sticking out of the back. Ok, the idea needs work.
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If you do it right, you can make it look like a jewelery box, with, um, a screen sticking out of the back. Ok, the idea needs work.
That's exactly how I did it. I bought a wooden shadow box and finished it. I still had to heavily modify the laptop to get the screen to flip all the way around, and also fit securely in the box. I also had to write a number of scripts to support
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I installed Linux but NOT X...I used a console installation and zgv which has a slideshow mode. I installed Apache and Gallery to manage the photos in an easy way. The only scripting I needed to do was to start zgv with the correct parameters on bootup. I could have used a wireless PC card, but my desktop applicati
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I also wanted it to auto-orient and res
Battery life (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest problem for these things---and particularly for digital picture frames with wireless networking---is battery life. Unless you're planning to hook up a power cord wherever you hang it, that's going to be a real pain; backlights take a lot of power. Also, it will never be like looking at a photo because it is a rear-lit display.
What you really want is electronic paper. The technology is in its infancy (despite being decades in the making), but it has real potential to be used for all sorts of things---digital music stands, digital picture frames, digital billboards on the highway without obnoxious lights, etc. Its biggest advantage is that it takes no power except when you are changing it, making it absolutely ideal for what you're doing. Combine that with power-over-ethernet (which would be plausible for such a low power device), and you have a really cool toy. :-)
Re:Battery life (Score:4, Insightful)
Apart from battery life (or power supply) problems, they
1. typically have crappy, small, low-resolution screens with a poor viewing angle, and
2. are expensive.
What's the attraction? Printing photos is cheap, repeatable, and they look a million times better (larger, crisper, 180 deg viewing abgle, etc). Plus you're not paying for electricity to run them. I just can't understand who'd want those photo frames - if you want a slideshow, put one on the TV.. or laptop.. (and turn it off when you don't want it).
Seems like an expensive "solution" in search of a problem.
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Yes, but do you *honestly* think that your mother would want to deal with buying a PoE injector (which waste power) and installing a wired network hookup? Such a device would fit in well with the other devices at the Computer History Museum, in the "Cool Devices Built Without Real Users In Mind" exhibit.
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Bear in mind that the person buying it would probably not be the mother. The point was to have something where the kid could update the contents remotely, which requires constant network access and constant power. The suggestion of PoE was because it's an easy way to provide both without having to do too much additional wiring.
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I use the term kid loosely, in that the poster is the child of the mother. I have no idea how old the original poster was. Just to clarify my clarification.
Multi step (Score:2)
(Note, if she has no broadband connection and doesn't have the means to get it, you can set the box up with wifi
Is it you who doesn't get the 'concept', perhaps? (Score:4, Interesting)
I must say, I take exception to this opening. The 'concept' of digital photography is hardly that one must no longer print pictures. In fact, digital prints are fantastic quality and a very satisfying (and, relatively speaking, permanent) way to keep your pictures.
I would say that digital photography's key feature is the replacement of film with a reusable medium, and the corresponding ability to easily transfer and manipulate the pictures stored on that medium. Nothing in that description means that those pictures should not be printed.
Am I alone in finding electronic storage and display of pictures spectacularly unsatisfying? Not only do pictures look worse on a screen to my eye, the non-physical nature of the pictures also diminishes their permanence and impact. Furthermore, storing images on a computer encourages the habit of retaining hundreds or thousands of poor photographs (as there is effectively no cost for doing so) and thereby reduces the amount of time spent considering each photograph in detail and deciding which ones are worth looking at and enjoying.
Re:Is it you who doesn't get the 'concept', perhap (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA: "She always complains that we never print them out for her"
I guess you could say he answered his own question in the second line of the article.
Re:Is it you who doesn't get the 'concept', perhap (Score:2, Insightful)
I have been trying to tell people that the medium of transfer is completely different to the medium of displak, and the "digital photography" does not imply that *both* need to change. This seems to be falling on deaf ears, unfortunately.
Re:Is it you who doesn't get the 'concept', perhap (Score:2)
You mean "worth forcing our family and coworkers to pretend to enjoy".
I take pictures as a sort of documentary of my life. I usually look at them when I upload them to the computer, remove the really
Technobabble (Score:1, Troll)
Philips (Score:1)
http://www.google.com/products?q=Philips+digital+
I work in a photo lab... (Score:2)
Both the problems that come to mind are the screen. The first problem is the aspect ratio and is a major problem for every LCD on the market. Since there are only a handfull of manufacturers of LCDs, all brands will use the same parts, because of this 90% of LCD TVs on the market are 16:10 aspect ratio at a weird
Build One... (Score:1)
A bit off the topic but .... (Score:2)
Her needs not yours (Score:1)
Then, sit down with your laptop with ALL of the photos you have ( well, not the porn etc. ) and have her choose what SHE wants.
Explain about cropping, putting text on them, pretty frames etc. If she is willing to use a program to edit the photos herself, get her a basic computer and show her the BASICS. Otherwise YOU do the pretty bits, then GET THEM PRINTED.
You are looking at the pictures as "pretty bits that remin
Don't buy the Kodak EX-1011 (Score:2, Informative)
Can I second that? (Score:2)
Having got nowhere with a similar exercise myself these last few weeks since being intrigued by similar offerings at a recent photographic trade show, I made a similar suggestion while visiting a local Apple reseller. Now we've all forgotten the unfortunate HTML sidetrack that used that name, surely iFrame could be to iPhoto what iPod has become to iTunes.
I know my mother's immediate reaction is that she woul
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The complicator strikes again (Score:1, Troll)
Over at the Daily WTF, they have an article titled The Complicator's Gloves [worsethanfailure.com]. Perhaps the submitter of this Slashdot article might want to give it a once over, and if the message still doesn't sink in PRINT THE F*CKING PICTURES OUT JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER WANTS.
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MomentoLive (Score:1)
Wifi PLEASE (Score:1)
Streaming photos from your Gallery2 or Xvids/MP3s from your fileserver just sounds great. Sure you could have some permanent storage like USB-host (for reading USB keys) or built-in RAM for caching (or when the network is down).
I'd love a hackable version, bung Linux on it: wget, NFS, jees even a MythTV frontend!
Of course the easy route would be t
I made one (Score:1)
Do you want it "of the rack" or is DIY OK? (Score:2)
I'm SSHed in right now - she is in Nekarsulm, Germany, I am in Vancouver, B.C. - and am installing samba, so I can mount a directory full of pictures from her Buffalo Linkstation NAS. She i
i-Opener (Score:2)
The one and only logical piece of hardware I can think of for your purpose is an i-Opener. It's a slow PC with little RAM (but it is expandable!) and with 16MB of flash disk which appears as ATA. Thus it's easy to deal with. There's an IDE header in there, but you need to build a special cable to use it or something. There's information about it all over the web. And here is a page about a guy who did it [goliathindustries.com], here is an earlier slashdot story about doing it with linux [slashdot.org] (which includes some i-Opener info) and so
Check out Dr Dobb's Journal... (Score:2)
Make photo books (Score:2)
Sure, it takes some efforts to select the photos but it's really worth it.