I also compared energy consumption levels, but luckily with LED technology, most screens aren’t as energy-hungry as they used to be. Only one unit away from 15:10 (which would have been perfect) but still good enough. Most are 16:9 today, but I was lucky to find the ASUS VS24AH in 16:10 format. The problem is that you probably won’t find a monitor that has 3:2 format. I spent considerable time looking for the right screen that is suitable for the DSLR photo aspect ratio (3:2).
This article describes the hardware side of how to build a digital picture frame.Īll you need is a suitable monitor, a Raspberry Pi with accessories, and a frame.
In the spirit of reducing the pain for people with similar ambitions, I have outlined on this blog the critical steps for the setup. Many people have made this project possible through ideas, instructions, and forum advice. So I went on a long journey to put together the right soft- and hardware mix. Someone suggested using the Raspberry Pi, a mini-computer that had only been released a few years earlier in an online photography forum. It didn’t meet all my criteria, but it looked like a feasible home-brewed digital picture frame with the option of a future upgrade. Still, the lack of customization options made it a no-go.
Having had stopped computer homebrewing many years ago, I looked at various alternatives like the use of an Apple TV box. Still, I came up empty-handed because of my list of criteria that asked for high display resolution, a high-quality screen with wide viewing angles, and great image transitions – really important once you get used to it. I started extensive internet research on available off-the-shelf alternatives. It didn’t come cheap at around $ 1,500 (€ 1,350), but it was very well built and worth it.īy then, PhotoVu had gone out of business, so the choice of ordering a third one was gone. It turned itself on in the morning and off in the evening. You inserted a USB stick, and it beautifully displayed the photos with a high number of random transitions between them. The largest size was only a 19 inches screen, but with the matting, it looked quite big. In 2005 I bought my first digital photo frame from PhotoVu, a US-based company that produced tailor-made digital photo frames with high-quality matting and framing.
In a series of articles on this website, I will walk you through every step in minute detail so that you, too, can create a great digital picture frame and display your favorite images in your living room.
There is no reason to be afraid of any hard- or software issues. You can buy digital photo frames off-the-shelf, but if you are a creative person who likes to build things, then you will doubtlessly be interested in this project. If you love great images and don’t want to let them rot in the proverbial shoebox (or put it in a bit more up-to-date wording: harddisk folder), you should get a digital picture frame to enjoy them every day. But we all have images that we hold dear and that, for us, are priceless. Well, I am not suggesting that you or I own a Picasso. You don’t buy a Picasso and put it in an IKEA frame
To learn how to install the software, please read my post “ How to configure the software for your Raspberry Pi digital picture frame in 60 minutes“. Then I would ask you: how is the décor of the environment you are going to place this piece? Is it modern? traditional? a child room? an office? Depending of the décor and the place I would suggest a different frame…Īnother question I would ask is: where you are going to hang the piece:the dimensions of the wall, if the wall is very large and my piece too small, there is ways to frame the piece bigger so that the wall and the piece looks proportionate.This article describes the hardware part of building a digital picture frame. Getting the most of Picture Framing, I guess my response is what are you framing? Is it an original piece of artwork? what medium is it: watercolor, oil on canvas, pastel, acrylic, or is it a photograph, maybe a drawing or a two-dimensional piece? All of these mediums have different types of frames and recommendations… BARBARA KRAI BARBARA KRAI INTERIOR DESIGN MARK TREMBLAY MARC-MICHAELS INTERIOR DESIGN MICHAELA MILDENHALL PARGY & ALICE PALACE DESIGN