'Digital Picture Frames'....????

[twich54]

Ok all you Photo experts....can anybody point me in the right direction for making a purchase of one these new fangled devices, I'm planning on getting one for my parents for X-Mas.

What to look for....which ones are good....which ones to avoid, etc

Thanks in advance !

 

[slowGEEZR]

Ha! I got one a year or two ago and haven't even opened the box, yet!

 

[Brad225]

My wife received one for Christmas last year. It took a while to do anything with it but it is great.
The only name on the frame and remote is SmartParts. This is an 8" screen. good size easy to view from across the room. I am getting ready to order a large SD card so we can put more pics on it.
It has been fun at family dinners to have pics from other family activities playing. Someone is always commenting on a past adventure.
One interesting thing is when the younger kids see themselves on the screen it seems to get them to involve them in conversations about what was going on and other family get togethers, it's pretty cool to see some that don't always participate get into it.

 

[TomDac]

Dave,
get one that is wi-fi enabled so you can push images to it from your home network.

easier to change the pictures that way.

 

[JMAUSGP]

My wife received one for Christmas last year. It took a while to do anything with it but it is great.
The only name on the frame and remote is SmartParts. This is an 8" screen. good size easy to view from across the room. I am getting ready to order a large SD card so we can put more pics on it.
It has been fun at family dinners to have pics from other family activities playing. Someone is always commenting on a past adventure.
One interesting thing is when the younger kids see themselves on the screen it seems to get them to involve them in conversations about what was going on and other family get togethers, it's pretty cool to see some that don't always participate get into it.

+ 1 on SmartParts Digital Picture Frame. I bought 4 of them and they work great. They were available thru Costco and at the time were the best bang for the buck.

I think they have a 10 inch screen now and with many things size counts. Go for the biggest you can get, that goes for digital picture frames too.

 

[twich54]

Thanks guys, is it fair to assume that you're better off with a 4:3 aspect ratio as opposed to a 16:9, since the former pretty much mirror images the digital sensor in our cameras ?

Tom, correct me if I'm wrong but my parents do not have Wi-Fi connectivity at their house so that feature would not work ?

 

[JMAUSGP]

Might be worth putting a WiFi in your parents house, just for the shitz and giggles of being able to pull pictures out of thin air and put them up on your parents digital frame seemingly without touching it.

Course you have to be careful with old people, they sometimes take things to seriously. One time my brother and I substituted an adult sex toy for a turkey neck inside the turkey at Thanksgiving, well needless to say my grandmother reached in the turkey and when she pulled out what she thought was a turkey neck, she screamed, fainted, and hit the table and floor. We had to take her to the hospital on Thanksgiving afternoon and missed the football game and most of the dinner.

 

[Brad225]

My brother and I put a mask fins and snorkel on the turkey when mom was in the other room one time. Fortunately she thought it was funny.

 

[MiTT]

Might be worth putting a WiFi in your parents house, just for the shitz and giggles of being able to pull pictures out of thin air and put them up on your parents digital frame seemingly without touching it.

Course you have to be careful with old people, they sometimes take things to seriously. One time my brother and I substituted an adult sex toy for a turkey neck inside the turkey at Thanksgiving, well needless to say my grandmother reached in the turkey and when she pulled out what she thought was a turkey neck, she screamed, fainted, and hit the table and floor. We had to take her to the hospital on Thanksgiving afternoon and missed the football game and most of the dinner.

That's a pretty funny story, but there's some real substance behind it. Dave, Sandy and I bought my parents a digital picture frame for Christmas last year. My dad knows how to get on the computer and do rudementary things, but my mom is completely unaware when it comes to technology. When I gave it to them I had to turn it on and show them how to operate it. My mom just didn't get it, and kept asking me if they could get copies of the pictures. I kept explaining to her that the pictures were in the frame electronically, and that they were hers to keep, but that yes, if she wanted prints of any of them I could make them for her. My mom has been diagnosed with early onset by the way, so that's a factor as well. A few weeks ago I saw the picture frame in the basement on my dad's computer desk. When I asked him about it he told me that my mom asked him to take it away because it confused her. I'm not saying everyone's experience would be the same, in fact we gave the same thing to my wife's parents and they loved it.

 

[twich54]

Tim, neither of my parents are 'techno - savy'.....hell, come to think of it neither am I !
So I suspect I'll do the set-up and intro for them, considering that they live less than five miles away that's not a big deal.

Right now I'm leaning towards either the Portable USA 10" model or the Smart Parts -SP15MW (15" screen with very good resolution)

 

[JMAUSGP]

Either of those sounds like a real winner, although the bigger the better, especially for older audiences.

Just make sure there are no turkey necks involved and you should be okay.

Seriously, I had to add pics to my parents digital frame from time to time because they just did not get it, but actually that was okay too, it gives you an excuse to hangout with them and make sure things are okay, my dad is 88 so that is not such a bad thing to do and it is not obvious that you are checking on things, just filling up the picture frame.

 

[zaphod]

my parents are completely computer illiterate. although dad does have a manual typewriter. mom gets email from her church group by having someone print it out once a week...

but they really like their digital cameras, and now instead of stashes of prints in envelopes Dad has stashes of SD memory cards. they burn a card to DVD - okay, the guy at the photostore burns them a DVD - to look at pictures on their TV.

i bet that a digital frame that lets them rotate through an SD card would be a great thing for them to enjoy. thanks for the idea!