Technical Question - non Pachi

[dattia]

In our diner, we had always wanted to make a 'wall of fame' type of thing to honor our customers. Unfortunately, it has never materialized. Now that our renovation is almost complete, we are looking to get a few 32" to 42" LCD TVs to put throughout the different sections. When I was out yesterday, I was looking at the desk top digital picture frames and I got an idea.

Dangerous, I know...but here goes. While still looking for a personal way to showcase our customers, I decided that we could use one of those TVs as a digital picture frame, only large scale.

Any ideas on the easiest way to accomplish this? Does anyone know of a photo cardreader that could be hooked up for that purpose?

Thanks!

[birdbrain]

just cut pictures to a dvd and play it. you would set it up as a slide show, you can even add music or comentary

[Sid]

What BB said...

its the easiest way and you wont really need any fancy equipment to do it with.

we use a similar set up here

1) with a dvd
2) with a tv connected to a PC that plays the same presentation over and over again.

[dattia]

I had thought about that, but here is my dilemna...

It would take a little while to grab pictures of the customers as they come in, so it would be an on-going process. I would have to burn new DVDs all the time to keep it up to date. I was hoping I could just pop the card into the camera, take the pic and put the card right back into some type of cardreader without disturbing the pics already on it.

I think the DVD idea would be great if it was pictures of an event instead of everyday additions. Do I make sense or am I way off track?

[birdbrain]

use a rewritable dvd and add pics once a day/week

[dattia]

That sounds like it would work for me. Would I set it up through Power Point and then burn it to a DVD?

[Sid]

yes you do it in powerpoint
then you have to convert the presentation...
im trying to remember what program we used to convert it... its a free program but i cant remember the name at the moment..

[d mowery]

I just got back in and reading this is the same way I have done it , I thought I did some and never finilized the disc and kept on adding to it as needed , I may be wrong on this as Im certanly no expert , I have used a Vidio camera and transferd from VCR to DVD and added more to VCR and done a redo on DVD before finilizing it

[compirate]

There may be LCD TV's with card reader inputs. Also, some cameras have av outputs, you just need to power the camera with a wall transformer.

[musky]

A lot of the LCD tv's out there have USB ports, you could put the photos on a thumb drive, plug it in and let the tv do the rest

[Lddrizzt]

There are TVs out there with USB and/or card readers. Another idea is to get a media player, I just got a Microsoft Zune and I can get an AV dock that hooks into the TV and Stereo. Also there are other media players available on Ebay that will do the same thing.

[luckydog]

this might do the job

Dell : Iomega 500 GB USB ScreenPlay Multimedia Drive : System Drives : Home & Home Office

make sure that some customers aren't in witness protection

[dattia]

Not too worry...they will only be broadcast in the diner... and if they are broadcast there, they were already being seen by anyone that will see them...

[hanabi]

I think you should be able to get a TV with a Card Reader built into it,

My own TV in the Living Room has that feature and it is really handy when family are visiting and want to see pics of the children...

[luckydog]

something a little cheaper, pictures up to 6 megapixals

usb to download, a/v to view

TV Photo Viewer Image Mate - SW-4240, $56.95

[alstonj1]

most of the newer flat screens have vga inputs a small computer ( just about any old pentium2 or better will do . This type of application doesn't need much power and a card reader is easy to get ) could work well with them and be used as a double use system showing menu selections and specials as well as many other applications as well as adding personal touches to the photo's .Similar to those wonderful new cash register monitors at the grocery store that show specials and news tidbits.

[revmondo]

I have seen a few digital cameras that come with a composite output cable and will play a slideshow of whats on the memory card. I think my wifes camera will do this, but will have to check.

[alstonj1]

Something like this could easily be converted to this use . once one unit is set up just copy the card and put it in the rest and there all uniformed .Adding new pics would just be drag and drop into the pic folder .And the screen saver function would act as a slideshow program .

Mini-ITX 1.8GHz iGoLogic i3368G-LF CPU HTPC Computer - eBay (item 220319501994 end time Dec-26-08 13:42:10 PST)

[Mike]

A Nintendo Wii can do a slideshow from photos saved onto a disc - it can double up as a game station as well!

[revmondo]

Of course if you had AT&T Uverse tv service you could just upload the photos to flickr and view them on any tv in the diner. Its one of those features of the service I probably wont ever use. Maybe because I dont own a diner?