Digital Photo Frames

[OkieLD]

I have a customer urging me to find a digital photo frame to put the photo's of her grandson on. She is not willing to pay a monthly fee for photos that already belong to her. There are several options, and I know nothing about any of them. Can anyone offer any advice?
Thank You,
Larry

[darkvibe]

Dunno anything about them but this link has some info.
http://www.shortcourses.com/how/digitalframe/digitaldisplays.htm

[OkieLD]

Thank you, Darkvibe, I am on my way to check it out.
Larry

[CoolToolGuy]

B&H sells them, as does 17th St Photo. Brookstone also has two sizes that they sell, and eBay or Google might reveal more sources.

I have about half a dozen with different configurations, and in my mind the best option is the one that takes the memory card. That way you can create "photo albums" on cards and switch them as desired. Other options can require cabling the frame to a PC which may not work if you want to give a frame to Grandma, who doesn't have a PC.

Post any specific questions here, and we'll try to help you out.

Have Fun,

[OkieLD]

Thank you Rick. I appreciate your help.
Larry

[Wilt]

The one from 17th St photo has the largest display size of the ones on the market. It does not require subscription to on-line download of images, it merely takes a CF card (and SD?). Resolution is limited on all these frames (if I recall 800x600 on the 17th St. Photo one) My wife loves it because she has images of her new grandkids and daughters on it, vacation shots, etc. and the pictures are perpetually changing.

[OkieLD]

Thanks, Wilt. I will check it out right now. So far, I am not impressed with what I have seen. Thanks again
Larry

[Chris Johnson 00 T/A]

DIY! (I wish I had some new/updated shots of this one. Those are REALLY old pictures - it's now running on a Dell 24" 2405 on my wall after the laptop LCD died)

:D

http://www.2000transam.com/gallery2/v/RandomImages/DigitalPhotoframe/?g2_enterAlbum=1

Although I realize that your customer won't do a DIY, maybe I can inspire someone here to do the same thing. It's really brought a HUGE enjoyment factor to both my photography and my living room

[SuzyView]

I bought one of these for my husband for Christmas and for Father's Day, I actually put pictures on it. :) my bad.

Anyway, it is easy to use and doesn't take much work. There is one that attaches to the phone line and you can change the pictures at any time, but I like this one because the CF card goes right into it and you can do with it what you may.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00076YE6S/sr=8-7/qid=1153525375/ref=pd_bbs_7/102-9443070-3939363?ie=UTF8

[Wilt]

Thanks, Wilt. I will check it out right now. So far, I am not impressed with what I have seen. Thanks again
Larry

I couldn't find them at 17th St. Photo when I checked earlier. The unit we have is 8x6 display area with 800x600 pixels, with overall 8x10 size. Don't be fooled by the so-called 5x7 units, where that is the outer frame size! We still have the box, and there was no brand name or model, just "Digital Picture Frame"

[Wilt]

eBay has lots of 'digital picture frames' including some from 17th St. Photo. None of them are quite as large or have 800x600 resolution, from the ones I sample shopped.

[CoolToolGuy]

Don't get too hung up on the resolution - they display fine at 640x480 (on a 6 inch LCD). You don't need or want high resolution images for the frame.

In fact, one of the things to check on is what resolution the manufacturer recommends, and what the load time is for each image. Most of my frames are older technology (Kodak Smartframe, Kensington, Radio Shack), and they request 640x480. If you put full-size images on your CF card, the frame will usually convert them to the recommended resolution to display, plus it may take forever to load the image into the frame's memory. Today's frames may not have that limitation. What I do when I create a CF card for one of my frames is resize them down to 600x900 before putting them on the card. It makes a lot of difference in the load times, as well as the number of picture on each "photo album". I have a large supply of 8mb, 16mb, and 64mb cards just for my "photo albums".

One really weird thing I discovered was on the Radio Shack frames. These have been discontinued for over a year, but they still show up on eBay. The other frames have no special requirements for how the images are loaded onto the CF card, but the Radio Shack frames require the same folders as are on the card in the camera. So you have to have a DCIM folder first, with others to follow. Don't quote me on the folder name, its been a while since I fooled with the Radio Shack frames. But they don't tell you that, and if you don't create the card that way the images won't load.

Hpe this helps.

Have Fun,