Digital photo frames

[callumacrae]

Do you think that it is worth buying a digital photo frame?

Decent ones can cost $199, but they are in fact much cheaper than buying 2000 photos worth of normal frames. (about $4000).

But if I didn't have a digital photo frame, I wouldn't put photos up.

They DO use much less space, and most of them are very easy to use, with either email or sd card, but some people think they use up too much energy. Some of them use very little, in fact.

What do you think?

 

[masteraa]

Do you think that it is worth buying a digital photo frame?

No, with cellphones, tvs, computers, laptops, portable dvd players, projectors, mp3 players and all the other digital screens in this world... you can display those photos some other way.

Decent ones can cost $199, but they are in fact much cheaper than buying 2000 photos worth of normal frames. (about $4000).

This is true, I don't know if I would hang 2000 photos in my house. Now don't forget the energy the frame may use.

5 watts (sounds reasonable)
bout $4-5 of power each year it runs (OK fine its smaller than I thought it would be)

But if I didn't have a digital photo frame, I wouldn't put photos up.

true

They DO use much less space, and most of them are very easy to use, with either email or sd card, but some people think they use up too much energy. Some of them use very little, in fact.

Usually very easy to use, some even have touch screens now.

What do you think?

Dont buy it?

 

[callumacrae]

I don't know electricity measure (still a kid, see) but if is impossible to get solar powered ones, which means that the energy consumption level must be very small.

How would you use a touch screen?

 

[naerey]

I don't know electricity measure (still a kid, see) but if is impossible to get solar powered ones, which means that the energy consumption level must be very small.

How would you use a touch screen?

Huh?
Solar power = the thing must be on the sun. If it's on the sun, the display must be very bright to display the photos. If its a bright display, it uses much energy. But maybe they know how to do it another way...

Touch screen = you use fingers instead of buttons..

My personal opinion = there's better ways to spend money than on some toy. Unless you're a rich businessman and don't know where to put money. (in that case I'd opt for charity).

Anyways, even if you would put 2000 photos, would you really see them all? Maybe in the time of 2 months or so.. Are all of them so good?

Personally, I think that a frame with a printed picture is much nicer, since you choose the picture for a particular meaning and not just "wow, can hold lots of pics! lets put them there!"...

 

[Sohail]

I would say it's worth it, it doesn't use much power at all and you can display many pictures on a single frame plus they look really stylish.

 

[callumacrae]

Touch screen = you use fingers instead of buttons..

Digital photo frames don't have buttons!

they look really stylish.

Most of them do, anyway. I saw a $5 one that was horrible.

 

[componentwarehouse]

Well I sell a sort of photo frame on my site (so this might be a bit bias), but I sell a fair few each week. I think they are far better than just a single photo frame, you can just leave them showing photos in an entrance hall or something to everyone who walks by, instead of having the same photo every time (which gets a bit boring after a while no matter how good it is).

When it comes to price, you can buy 10 inch ones for about £50 now, so thats about 5-15 standard frames (not digital), so theyre actually very cheap when you look at it that way.

Alex

 

[Spartan Erik]

Do any of us like the existing photo frames? Will making them digital make any difference?

I could care less, just seems like one more useless item to fill a household

 

[jms.chapman]

I think there is something soulless about digital photos shown on a screen, just my opinion. Just pick a few good ones and print them off, and then use a program like google desktop so you can see the other some times, and come off $200 richer

 

[zen-r]

Real prints are usually much nicer to look at than images from an LCD screen. However, the costs soon mount up & it can become tedious if you regularly take photos & need to print them off each time before you can display them.

The digital photo frame is, in the long run, a much easier way to always be viewing your latest photos. Its other advantage is that moving images attract the eye much better than static photos (the slideshow of images can be made to transition between each other in various fades & wipe patterns). This means that the digital frame is also useful as a message board, advertising display, or for anything else where you need to attract the attention of other people.

When a smaller display will suffice, I often use an old/spare PDA as a digital photo frame. It does the job nicely, saves me from having to buy anything new, & is a planet-friendly bit of recycling (old/spare mobile phones can be used for the same purpose, but their display is usually even smaller!)

 

[fempower]

No, that is way too much to pay when you can switch out pictures by hand. Besides, I think the point is that you have to power it in the first place, for something that wouldn't normally take any power at all. Energy is getting more expensive, both on the wallet and the planet.

 

[Smith6612]

Digital frames are pretty neat. But in general, depending if you like to show pictures off or not, it may or not be a worth while investment. Otherwise, for those of you who say back lighting uses too much power, try using white LEDs as a backlight. Seriously, I have this one LED lamp at home that has been running non-stop for 3 years, plugged into 6 capacitors on a single pair of AA batteries. It still has another 1.5 volts before it dies. also don't forget, many of the frames are battery powered. Those batteries can last a while depending on how much power the device uses. Sure, with a picture frame with a screen, processor, memory card reader, etc it uses more power than an LED, but they can run for a while and certainly shouldn't cost $5 to run a year.

 

[zen-r]

...Besides, I think the point is that you have to power it in the first place, for something that wouldn't normally take any power at all...

Actually, LCD displays use very little power while displaying a static picture. It is mainly the transition from 1 picture to another which uses the power. And don't forget printing pictures uses large amounts of energy - both in the printing process, & in the manufacture of the printer, the inks & the paper. If you want to be able to display hundeds of different pictures as you can with a digital display, printing thus also represents a considerable waste of resources.

...Seriously, I have this one LED lamp at home that has been running non-stop for 3 years, plugged into 6 capacitors on a single pair of AA batteries...

:dunno: You've lost me here. When building LED circuits I generally just use a resistor in-line with the power source to limit the current. How do you connect up & use the capacitors? (unless they are part of a more complex voltage regulating circuit?)
.

 

[Smith6612]

All I did was hook up very large capacitors to some 1.5v batteries and a 3V LED white diode. It's been going for a while now on one set (two batteries) AA batteries. So no, it's something extremely simple that an 8 year old can do lol.

 

[zen-r]

Yeah, I got that you "hooked it up". But I was wondering How (LED & caps both in parallel with the batteries, or something in series somewhere?) and Why (surely leakage in the caps is more likely to increase current consumption, & the batteries being DC don't need smoothing, so what are the caps for?)
Sorry if I'm being nosey, but this one intrigues me!
.

 

[Smith6612]

Yeah, I got that you "hooked it up". But I was wondering How (LED & caps both in parallel with the batteries, or something in series somewhere?) and Why (surely leakage in the caps is more likely to increase current consumption, & the batteries being DC don't need smoothing, so what are the caps for?)
Sorry if I'm being nosey, but this one intrigues me!
.

The whole circuit is running in parallel, and the caps are just there to screw around with (you know, to see how long they can provide power to the LED after I disconnect the battery, they ran for 25 minutes with the LED plugged into them. This is enough power stored to run an RC car for roughly 1 minute!). They are perfectly fine, no leaking what so ever. After all, those caps were 4.5v high capacity caps taken from some old RC cars so they're fine and are made for the use.

By the way the LED was even from a GameBoy Color light that broke, which I salvaged for the fun of it.

 

[zen-r]

Ah....so now I know -thanks for that!

All capacitors leak to some extent, by the way (usually the bigger they are, the more they leak) though I expect the leakage in yours is so small it isn't worth worrying about.

A simple test to see how much current gets "wasted" while they are connected across the battery, is to charge them, disconnect the battery, then time how long they power your LED for (you said ~25mins). Then repeat the test, but next time after disconnecting the battery, first leave the caps to stand for an hour or 2 (or a day etc) before connecting the LED. Time how long the LED runs for now. Obviously, how much less time the LED runs for will indicate how much the caps self-discharge (or "leak"). In fact, the leakage would be even greater than indicated by this test, because whilst connected to the battery, the voltage across the caps will be maintained (keeping the leakage at a max) rather than dropping off, as it would do when disconnected from the battery in the test.

Anyway, I'll stand-down now & let whoever wants to, return this thread to its original topic !
.

 

[Dan]

Can we please get back on topic now!!
Thanks

Anyway, I think they are OKish in that you can have 1 frame to display loads of photos which means you don't clutter up the place. But then they are also totally pointless and they just waste power..

 

[themasterrocker]

Can we please get back on topic now!!
Thanks

Anyway, I think they are OKish in that you can have 1 frame to display loads of photos which means you don't clutter up the place. But then they are also totally pointless and they just waste power..

They aren't pointless if they are saving picture space for more "valueable" pictures. They can't be much of a waste of power because one i found would only turn on when you tell it to and play the slideshow however many times you tell it to before turning off. (very intelligent one in Makro in UK)

 

[grushca]

those are great - i have a big 20" in my house, during house parties i play ambient videos on them.