Digital Picture Frames…I Want One
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Digital Foci released a new digital picture frame today and it looks really nice. I has a remote, an 8″ screen, auto on/off, and a place to insert memory cards.
Ever since I saw the first digital picture frames, I’ve wanted one. I’d love to get a large one to hang on my own wall. Also, I think it would be the perfect gift to give to grandparents. There are some that are wi-fi enabled. You could get it set up for them and just subscribe it to a feed of photos. Each day, the photo would change so they’d have something new to look at on the wall. I can just imagine my grandma eagerly awaiting the next photo.
The problem is that these frames are still so expensive. (The one mentioned above is $229 dollars.) I guess that’s not a huge amount in comparison to any other screnn (e.g, for a computer) but it’s not quite in the price range to be giving away as gifts yet. (At least not on my budget.)
Does anyone have a digital photo frame that you use and like?
October 25th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
There are some cheaper solutions, but you need a old laptop and some handyness.
http://www.applefritter.com/hacks/duodigitalframe/
http://www.odul.com/articles/dpf/digital_picture_frame.html
October 25th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Yep… I made one for my parents from an old Lombard.
I got the laptop off of ebay for less than $100. I flipped the screen around and glued it to the bottom of the laptop. I bought a shadowbox, cut some holes in it for cables, button access and ventilation (my first ever use of a handy dandy dremel). I used a few brackets to hold the laptop in place just right, and glued a matting on around the screen (I removed the shadowbox glass because it caused too much glare). It has a 2GB HD. It is networked, so adding more photos is a snap. It runs OS X 10.2. The photos are set as the screen saver, so they come on automatically after a couple of minutes. It runs a little hot, but the screen is way larger than any of the screens in pre-made digital photo frames.
One word of warning, though: I actually had to buy two Lombards, because the first one had a buggy screen that stopped working completely after I reversed it.
I have uploaded a few photos of the frame to my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrboma
October 25th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
This one is not too bad:
http://www.edgetechcorp.com/accessories/digital-picture-frame.asp
It’s only 640×480 but only costs $130 (after a $40 rebate).
October 25th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
I have another one built from a Wallstreet. It can display TV video (thanks to a zoomedvideo capture card), and is wireless (orinoco gold) - 2 PCMCIA slots in the Wallstreet.
It has a 6GB HDD as well.
October 26th, 2006 at 7:30 am
Wow, I didn’t know we had such handy readers. Now I just need to find an old laptop
October 26th, 2006 at 10:00 am
After doing a Froogle search for Digital Picture Frame I see that you can get a seven inch one for less than $100. Less than $30 for a 1 inch digital picture keychain.
My first reaction was that 640×480 is pretty poor resolution but after doing a bit of math I see that it’s not too bad with the small screen. My MacBook’s resolution is about 114 dpi and I’m pretty happy with pictures displayed on it. A 7″ picture frame (measured diagonally) that is 640 pixels wide would have 105 to 114 dpi (depending on the aspect ratio) so the resolution is actually pretty comparable to my MacBook.
One other thing that I would want gifted digital frames to have is remote control. Not 20-feet-across-the-room remote but 100s-of-miles-away remote. This is because I know my grandma is not going to know how to load pictures on it. And as much as I like her, it’s not always going to be convenient to visit her house every time she wants to change the picture. These cheaper frames don’t seem to have this feature.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Vern, great info. Thanks.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:12 am
Vern - an idea about your “remote” you can set it up with a static IP address and then remote desktop into it but then you’d have to pay for your grandma to have internet too.