UPDATED - LCD TV or Monitor for Digital Picture Frame

[photojunkie]

See update and solution I found on post #15-

I am researching the purchase of a LCD TV or Monitor to mount to the wall for displaying digital pictures on our wall at home. It would serve as a 26inch digital photo frame.

Have any of you done this yet and if so how are the pictures loaded?

I have seen some LCD TVs with DVD players but wanted to see what some other options might be. If I got a TV with a USB port could I just use a flash drive to upload my photos?

Here is a picture to give you an visual of what I am talking about


Any advice on how to set this up would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Sharon

[Detonate]

They are basically the same thing. TV's will have more options like a tuner, different inputs for s-video, component, hdmi, etc....

With a monitor you'll likely be able to get a higher resolution.

Some TV's even have built in flash drives for displaying pictures.

Other ways to get the pictures there is through a mediacenter, or now some DVR's have home mediacenter capabilities to pull pictures from your computer to your TV. If you use a DVD, you'll be getting a maximum of 480 lines of resolution. Which is fine if the TV you get only has 480 lines. But if you go with a TV or monitor with an even higher resolution, you'll want to use a method that supports higher resolution images.

[photojunkie]

Thanks so very much Jim. The option involving the mediacenter sounds very interesting. Could this be done wirelessly? In other words without connecting the wall mounted TV to a DVR? If you have any links for further reading or proper phrasing that I could use to google with I would be thrilled.

I have been researching this topic for a few days and can't seem to pick up the right terminology because my searches return no relevant hits.


Thanks again,
Sharon

[Detonate]

Mediacenter would probably be the most wireless solution, however you will still have to run some wires, and it won't be inexpensive.

Essentially you'll need a computer, they make small mediacenter ready computers, that would need to be plugged into the TV. Then the mediacenter could either store the files locally, or you could equip it with a wireless NIC, and let it pull images from your network.

[photojunkie]

Thanks so much for your input , Jim.

[photojunkie]

Jim,
Another question for you. If I went with the LCD Monitor approach would I be able to upload the pictures wireless? I know some monitors (I think Dell is one) that have USB ports on the side of the panel. Could I just insert a flash drive with the pictures or would I still need to connect to a computer?

Sharon

[Detonate]

Unfortunatley, you'd still need a computer.

They also have monitors with flash readers built in, but they are all meant to just be an extention to the computer.

I've seen some TV's with built in card readers that would not require a connection to anything, but I'm not sure if you could find one in the size tv you are looking for, but it might be worth a look.

[Dobick]

The cheapest thing to do, might be to get a video ipod, and then use the ipod to do the display to your television. This way, you can use the composite video in on just about any television made in the last 15 years. You will only need an ipod docking station which are like 40 dollars, and then you can update the photos on the ipod anytime you want by taking the ipod to the computer and resync

[photojunkie]

Dobick,
Since I plan to mount the screen to the wall, would I need to keep the iPod connected to the TV in order to run the pictures?

Thanks,
Sharon

[Dobick]

yes you would, but that is a whole lot less cluttered than worrying about how to attach a computer, and the "RCA" cables can be a fair amount of distance from the tv (they can even be run in the wall with an AV plate to flush mount it to the wall, and have the ipod in another room if you'd like.

There are a million ways to accomplish this. You can do it very inexpensive and by your self, or you can go all out, and have everything completely hidden, and have professionals come in and install everything. It will depend on your budget, and exactly the tradeoffs you want to make.

If I was wanting to do something like this, I would buy an ipod (cheaper than a media center PC and also smaller) buy an ipod docking station which would also do the video out, and then get the largest screen that I could reasonably afford, and mount that to the wall, with the ipod dock sitting on a small 3"x3" small shelf that I mount directly to the side or centered below the TV. I would paint the shelf the same color as the trim of the windows and baseboards in the room. it will be small enough not to be noticed, and will look tiny compared to the large screen above it, and be fairly unobtrusive.

I just thought about something -- if the mount is far enough from the wall, you could literally be able to have the ipod "shelf" be behind the TV -- we're not talking about a large piece of hardware here.

Another option of the all in one would be to buy a 24" IMac and remove the standard base and get a wall mount for it -- then you can control it wirelessly through a virtual pc connection

[Detonate]

Apparently Phillips owns the patent on doing what you are wanting to do.

Essentially a Stand Alone Monitor that can read a Memory Card.

http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?...DISPLAY=STATUS

[Detonate]

And here is their product.
http://www.consumer.philips.com/cons...+26PFL5322D-37

[photojunkie]

Thanks,
Perhaps for now my best bet would be to purchase a TV with a USB port on the side to run pictures off of a flash drive.

ATT uverse is supposed to be coming out with wireless adapters to their DVR units early 08. That would be a nice way to pull photos from the main DVR to the wall mounted TV.
I will have to keep on eye on that development.

Thanks,
Sharon

Originally Posted by Dobick

yes you would, but that is a whole lot less cluttered than worrying about how to attach a computer, and the "RCA" cables can be a fair amount of distance from the tv (they can even be run in the wall with an AV plate to flush mount it to the wall, and have the ipod in another room if you'd like.

There are a million ways to accomplish this. You can do it very inexpensive and by your self, or you can go all out, and have everything completely hidden, and have professionals come in and install everything. It will depend on your budget, and exactly the tradeoffs you want to make.

If I was wanting to do something like this, I would buy an ipod (cheaper than a media center PC and also smaller) buy an ipod docking station which would also do the video out, and then get the largest screen that I could reasonably afford, and mount that to the wall, with the ipod dock sitting on a small 3"x3" small shelf that I mount directly to the side or centered below the TV. I would paint the shelf the same color as the trim of the windows and baseboards in the room. it will be small enough not to be noticed, and will look tiny compared to the large screen above it, and be fairly unobtrusive.

I just thought about something -- if the mount is far enough from the wall, you could literally be able to have the ipod "shelf" be behind the TV -- we're not talking about a large piece of hardware here.

Another option of the all in one would be to buy a 24" IMac and remove the standard base and get a wall mount for it -- then you can control it wirelessly through a virtual pc connection

[photojunkie]

Ah yes Jim, that would be it!

Keith , I reread your posting. Yes I think you could place the ipod behind the TV. It would work.

[photojunkie]

Well I had been racking my brain searching for the perfect solution. I ended up coming full circle and decided that Dobick's suggestion would work with a Sony walkman MP4 player for $84.00 no docking station required.
So I am at Target today and I happen to glance at their sales ad, to my surprise I see an ad for a item called "TV Picture Viewer" on sale for the low price of $35 ! Bought it and its pretty darn close to perfect (wireless would have been perfect ) the box is the size of a DVD case and about 1"1/2 deep or thick. I tried it out on our 60" DLP TV and it worked well. I still need to figure out the ratio of sizing the picture but I will wait until I have purchased the 26" LCD in Feb.

Anyways, I had to come back and share my discovery in case it provides useful to anyone else.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions,
Sharon