Simple hardware for digital photo frame?
mod
Alright so, most digital photo frames you can buy have horrible TN panels with bad-average viewing angles, and are fairly small. I can pick up a *VA panel 15" or 17" Dell Ultrasharp for like $10-20 from the local university surplus. Then I just need a wall mount and a simple device to run the thing(and something nice to do with the cables).
So far I'm looking at the Raspberry Pi, which is $25 but not released yet. http://www.raspberrypi.org/ Its a bit bare-bones and may require a bit more know-how than I posses but thats fun in a way too.
Then there is the Roku Box: http://www.roku.com/
And Moboplay: http://hsti.com/moboplay
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDV-1A-Digital-Photo-Viewer/dp/B00008XOK8"]Amazon.com: SanDisk SDV-1A Digital Photo Viewer: Electronics[/ame] Then there is this, which looks almost tailor made for what I want to do.
So I'm wondering if anyone has experience with these little devices or knows of any more that would be suitable for a really simple photo frame setup.
On one hand the raspberry pi thing seems really appealing as it would give more freedom to mess around with, on the other hand I'll probably build a few of these if it works and give one to my parents/inlaws, so simplicity would be a big plus.
So far I'm looking at the Raspberry Pi, which is $25 but not released yet. http://www.raspberrypi.org/ Its a bit bare-bones and may require a bit more know-how than I posses but thats fun in a way too.
Then there is the Roku Box: http://www.roku.com/
And Moboplay: http://hsti.com/moboplay
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDV-1A-Digital-Photo-Viewer/dp/B00008XOK8"]Amazon.com: SanDisk SDV-1A Digital Photo Viewer: Electronics[/ame] Then there is this, which looks almost tailor made for what I want to do.
So I'm wondering if anyone has experience with these little devices or knows of any more that would be suitable for a really simple photo frame setup.
On one hand the raspberry pi thing seems really appealing as it would give more freedom to mess around with, on the other hand I'll probably build a few of these if it works and give one to my parents/inlaws, so simplicity would be a big plus.
Replies
i have no idea what i'm saying lol
but you know.. praying only goes so far as to when one needs to certain things even tho' when heard things about photos annd other things when said.
That sandisk device is pretty cool, but I couldn't find anything specifying what kind of outputs it had. If you get it, make sure it has a vga or dvi output, to match the monitors you want.
Also, if you can find something like this cheap, it may be a better option: http://www.iogear.com/product/GUW2015VKIT/
It should allow you to transmit to multiple displays, with one PC. I don't have one though, so I can't say for sure.
If you feel like wiring things, you can make a cat5 to vga adapter, and run cat5 from a PC to the monitor (which is smaller and cheaper than VGA cables).
It looks like the Roku box thing can do HDMI->DVI, but i'm not sure what resolutions it supports, the monitor I want to use won't be native 720/1080 so I'm a little worried about that. Since its designed for TVs i'm not sure what sort of output it can handle.
I would really prefer to just get something small that I can duct tape to the back of the monitor... I've seen some DIY articles where people take apart old laptops for this sort of setup, but then you've got a questionable display and old questionable hardware too.
I'm assuming you're looking for an inexpensive solution, but I was going to suggest the Asus Eee. They are still a couple hundred buck to buy new, but maybe you can find a cheap one on Ebay (maybe an older generation). Or, even an old netbook. A lot of people bought those, then never used them, so they may be selling them for cheap on Ebay too.
Failing that, I found this thing while looking for things to connect up to a Raspberry Pi.
http://www.4dsystems.com.au/prod.php?id=15
As far as I can tell, if you load up an SD card full of JPEGs it will output a slide show to the VGA. But I think it requires a bit of setup before it will work like that.
A. Cheap
B. Quality screen
C. Reliable, I've had too many digi photo frames just stop working on me, end up buying a new one every couple years and they all suck the same(bad screen etc).
So using a surplus ultrasharp is really the way I think I need to go. I could do the laptop/netbook thing, but then the screen quality isn't likely to be much better than a decent digi photo frame. I've got a HP TC4400 tablet with a real nice screen that is sort of falling apart, but honestly its a bit too nice of a laptop to butcher... We'll see, maybe it will come to that. =P I would also like to do something that is easily reproducible so I can make a few.
Monk: I'm a little confused by your link, is that a hardware solution for the raspberry pi? I was thinking there would be some fairly simple software solution for it with a linux distro or even xbmc? I don't know very much about all of this linux stuff though.
The raspberry pi looks like it is probably the safest bet to be configurable, the only problem is that its not for sale yet and will probably sell out instantly, and i want it nowwwwww waaaahhhhhhhh
also linux
Oh, and that Acer Aspire that I linked WAS $36. I see its up to $75 now
Gave up on doing this silly project and bought a NIX 10" frame as a gift for in-laws(was part of the plan to build my own) which is superb, really excellent viewing angles etc. Seems these cheap-ish frames are getting a lot better than they were in the past where you could only see them from very specific angles. Maybe getting some e-IPS panels in them or something? Even if it doesn't last too long the cost($90?) and lack of hassle was worth it.
Will probably look into buying one of NIX's larger/higher end models for myself in the near future.