Is anyone using digital photo frames?

[Cinde]

A client sent me 250+ photos to scan for a digital photo frame. The original photos range in size from wallet to 8x10, even some Polaroid, but most are 4x6. I don’t have access to the frame, but in a phone call she said it is an 8x10 frame.

1) I scanned all the pix at 300 dpi. I remember a discussion here but can’t find it at the moment. I’m especially concerned that the wallet photos scanned at 300 might not be enough. I know it’s not reasonable to expect an original wallet size to be of good quality if printed at 8x10. I have looked at the wallet size on my monitor and don’t see much difference in the wallet size at 300 dpi and an 8x10 at 300 dpi.

2) I’m now ready to crop, but I am at a loss as to what size. At first I thought 8x10, but then I thought I really need to find out. In a quick Google search I found that most use the TV aspect ratio of 4:3. So that’s what I am leaning toward, unless some of you have a different opinion.

3) Another concern that I could not find an answer for is the horizontal and vertical orientation. I don’t know if she plans to use the frame horizontally or vertically. I know with PE we can place a vertically oriented pix and it will scale down to show the whole pix. But I’m wondering about the digital frame. If she places it in the horizontal position, will it scale down to show the whole vertical pix, or just crop off the top and bottom of the pix? Same question in reverse if she places it in vertical position, will it scale down the horizontal pix, or cut off the left and right side?

From the time of our first contact until she sent the pix to me by courier was 4 days later. Now she expects them back ASAP, like a few hours after I got them… Not gonna happen, but I would like to be able to return them within the next 24 hours.

This will be a Christmas gift for the wife of the man who owns our local TV, radio, cable, phone, and internet companies (yeah, it’s a monopoly in our rural area). So I want the final product to not be just acceptable, I need it to be top quality. It will give me a lot of exposure.

One final thought… when will we see digital frames that will play the movies w/sound that we produce with PE?

Anxiously awaiting replies from this group of multi talented people.

[Andy_E]

Haven't used one in anger yet but I've just bought one for my wife for Xmas, so I spent some time looking into them beforehand. Unfortunately, It *seems* that for scaling/cropping etc. it depends on the target device in question - some models I've seen reviews for don't cope well without the photos being resized (bit like PE ).

If you can get the make and model number I would suggest a google and search on sites like Amazon for reviews - this is where I've found the complaints and issues helpful.

The one I've just got seemingly has issues in the resizing department but it will play MPEG4 videos as well, so I'm planning on doing some slideshows for it.

[larryjd1]

Cinde,

Unfortunately, Andy_E is totally correct about the varying features/capabilities for each manufacturer/model.

Some will automatically resize, some won't.

Some models will only display horizontally.

You need to know the model to know what you wil lhave to do.

After looking at a lot of Amazon and CNet reviews I decided to wait before jumping into the digital frame waters.

Good luck!

[kodebuster]

Why Not ask the client if they could send you the 8x10 photo frame so you could use it to test and deploy something that would be satisfactory and appealing on final delivery.

With the wide range of frames in play, and so early in their development cycle, this might be the best approach.

Once completed, you can always ship the customer back the photo frame...

[tjodork]

I bought the Kodak EX1011 10" digital wireless frame for my parents...I scanned a bunch of 4x6 at 300 dpi and they looked nice.
The frame will scale the pictures.. if you have the frame in landscape and show a portrait picture it will scale but there will be empty
space on both sides. I can recommend this frame. Also the wireless feature was nice as it would pull pictures down from the Kodak
gallery web site through a wireless router. The only glitch i had was that if someone shared pictures to the Kodak gallery account configured
for the frame, Kodak says its supposed to show a little mail icon in the corner of the frame ....that never seemed to work....however if I
power cycled the frame it indicated that there were new pictures shared and you could select to view.

[Gregg Kimball]

I bought the Kodak EX1011 10" digital wireless frame for my parents.

tjodork, I just bought the same frame for my wife for Christmas but I just wrapped it up, I figured it would give me something to do on Christmas so I hope you get it all figured out by the time I have questions.

My thinking on the picture size is that I would edit pictures to the frame resolution size i.e. 800x600 and since it is basically a computer monitor I figured 72 to 90 ppi should be fine. Let me know if I'm headed in the right direction.

Gregg

[mark hansen]

I got my wife one that's under the tree now (nope, she not watching HA) I don't remember what kind but I figure it would be a good gift for a Mamarotzzi (and the Paparotzzi) since he gobs of digital photos. I remember it will take a chip so enough photos to fill the chip.
got to go, she's coming

[tjodork]

I cant remember what my total dimensions were for the photo's I scanned but I took a look at the dimensions of the demo
photos on the frame (that look gorgeous) and heres the dims of 4 { 1200x800, 2830x1594, 2304 x 1297, 1932x1097 }. I can't say that 800x600 won't work
but I wouldn't worry about making bigger.....the frame will scale nicely. Also, the frame will show videos but it would not play avi's I created
from Elements ...but I did create mpeg1 video and it played great. It was fun while it lasted....I finally had to GIVE the gift to my parents : )

[StephenMarris]

I have had one of these for nearly a year and it is very popular. It has 750 family photos on it which display for two minutes in random order.

I have now done a lot of research on the net because I want to give one to my son. I would strongly concur with those who say that this is not yet a mature product and that one needs to be very careful. A key point is that the big makes brought out widescreen frames when everyone's digital photos are 4:3!!!. This meant that I had to crop 750 photos. There are now a very large number of unknown makes on the market in Europe and the US which are 4:3 but whose other specs vary a lot. In particular quite a number of them do not have a random display mode, and this option is virtually never mentioned on anybody's spec sheet. To cut a long story short my recommendation would be
4:3
at least a 10 inch diagonal (unless only being used on a desktop)
preferably 800 by 600 (virtually all of these frames require resizing the photos, which is best done by batch processing in Photoshop)
random display
video if possible
ideally I timing system to turn it of and and at fixed times during the day.

[Cinde]

For all of you who received/gave digital photo frames during the holidays, how did they work out?

I was thinking if I could find an 8x10 that plays DVDs with audio I could do a demo and leave one at each of my 4 funeral home clients. That would be much better than a notebook portfolio.

Google found the eMotion MultiMedia Digital Picture Frame & DVD Player. But it's only 7" with a $219.95 price tag. There are also larger sizes, but apparently none of them play DVD.

[Andy_E]

I'd hesitate to recommend the one I bought my wife since the Amazon reviews are quite polarised - i'ts either crap or fantastic depending upon who you read. However it's a Linx with a 10" screen. Many of the complaints relate to the fact that "there are black borders round my photos" - indeed there will be because it's a widescreen display - not 4:3. It being widescreen was one of the pluses for me.

Doesn't have a DVD drive - I'm not sure if that's actually what you meant** or whether you simply meant you want it to play MPEG2 video. However, one of the main reasons I bought it is that it's able to play MPEG4 video. I've been able to export a slideshow from ProShow as uncompressed AVI and then run the DivX Pro converter on it. Result - small filesize and fantastic quality. This was a one-off over Xmas so I'm not sure if the video loops or not - something that sounds like a must-have for you if you want to leave demos running.

As a bonus my wife loves it. We have a 2Gb SD card sitting in it at the moment with 400+ photos from our holiday in Mexico last year. I've done no resizing or cropping at all - just rotating for photos taken in portrait mode.

Have you considered using portable DVD players? Price-wise, I don't imagine there's much difference. Obviously you'd need to author a DVD that loops - is that possible?

**EDIT: On re-reading your post I see that is what you meant.

[VernonRobinson]

For all of you who received/gave digital photo frames during the holidays, how did they work out?

I was thinking if I could find an 8x10 that plays DVDs with audio I could do a demo and leave one at each of my 4 funeral home clients. That would be much better than a notebook portfolio.

Google found the eMotion MultiMedia Digital Picture Frame & DVD Player. But it's only 7" with a $219.95 price tag. There are also larger sizes, but apparently none of them play DVD.

Cinde,
Before I did that I would get a small television with a DVD player built into. I bought a 13 in model many years ago to use in the car when the kids were smaller. Something like that would do the trick, cost less, and have a larger screen. Something like this guy... http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-MD13P1-13 ... B0001T0RNU


-Vernon