MarkBarbieri
Semi-retired
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 6,172
Spring time where I work is bonus season. For me, that usually means new photography equipment. This year, instead of spending that money on cameras, lights, or lenses, I decided to invest in a digital picture frame. I didnt want one of those little picture frames that sits on your desk. I wanted a jumbo sized one I could hang over the fireplace.
First, I researched the jumbo sized digital picture frames. I wanted one roughly 45 to 50 across. Surprisingly, I couldnt find anyone making one in that size. I did find that a lot of people make TVs that size, so I decided to repurpose one of those. A 55 diagonal screen matched my size requirements.
Digital Picture Frames (or TVs) that size dont run on batteries. They require an AC outlet. I didnt have one of those over the fireplace, so that was my first expense. It cost about $150 to have an electrician add an outlet over the fireplace. Not knowing any better, I had him add an ordinary outlet there. If I were to do it again, I would have had him add one that is recessed into the wall. That would make it easier to fit the plug in behind the picture frame.
When I looked at TVs, I found that there are significant differences between types of TVs, each of which has advantages and disadvantages for use as a digital picture frame. The main difference was the display technology. Plasma TVs produce a better picture than LCD/LED TVs. Unfortunately, they have downsides that make them poorly suited for what I wanted. Their maximum brightness level is lower, which hurts image quality in a brightly lit room like my family room. Their image quality also declines over time as the screen ages through use. That normally isnt much of an issue, but I want to have the digital picture frame on about 16 hours per day. That would age the screen at a much faster rate than the normal TV. Finally, they consume a lot more power. It doesnt look that way when you compare the out-of-the-box specs, but that is because the Plasma makers are gaming the system. They get their power usage ratings based on running at low levels of brightness. Once you calibrate the screen, the power consumption is about four times as much as an LED TV.
Power consumption was a significant consideration in my selection process. Given how much I planned to run the picture frame, I wanted to make sure that I wasnt going to bankrupt myself with power costs. The display I eventually chose uses about 80 watts when running. I currently pay $0.09/kWh. If I run the display for 16 hours per day and have it running 350 days per year, that works out to 5,600 hours of use per year. That is 448 kWhs or about $40 / year. I also happen to live in a very warm environment, and running the TV generates heat that I have to remove from my house through air conditioning. Im not really sure how to quantify that, but Ill take a guess and say that it costs me about ¼ of the power consumption cost to remove that heat. With that taken into account, I expect that it will raise my electricity bill by $50/year. I dont anticipate any significant increase in electricity costs because of the growing abundance of low cost, domestically produced, clean burning natural gas (can you guess what industry I work in?).
My first instinct was to purchase a Samsung LED TV. With my vague understanding of that industry, they are the leaders in LED TV production and, already owning one, Im familiar with what they sell. Just before I pulled the trigger on that purchase, a concern occurred to me. I already have a Samsung LED TV in that room that my family uses for watching TV shows and movies. I checked to see if I could control two different Samsung TVs in the same room without having the remote control affecting both TVs at the same time. Alas, Samsung has no provision for this situation. I could have worked around the problem with some complicated workarounds, but I decided that mixing brands would be simpler.
As luck would have it, I was making my purchase right at the time that the Japanese TV makers (Sony and Panasonic) were ending their model year (happens at the end of March). Because I didnt want anything they were preparing for their new 2013 TVs, I was able to purchase last years TV at a good price. I ended up with a Panasonic TC-L55DT50. I purchased it from B&H for just under $1,300, who shipped it at no charge. I looked at buying it locally, but I could only find the model above that one and the main difference between the two was the more expensive model having features that were irrelevant to my purposes.
To hang the TV on the wall, I bought a cheap wall mount from Amazon. It sticks out from the wall a little more than is fashionable, but I would have had to redo the electrical outlet if I had purchased a wall mount that was flusher. It was easy to self-install and suits my needs well enough.
Once I had it mounted to the wall, I needed to work out how to get pictures to it. For the first day, I just dumped a bunch of pictures to a USB thumb drive and plugged that in. After that, I set up a DLNA server on my home server computer and now I have the picture frame stream pictures from that server. I generally just have it stream all the pictures, but I have the ability to show only those in a particular folder, of a particular star rating, or matching a particular keyword. I use the folder option when I want it to repeatedly display a single vacation. I might use the star rating if we have company and I want it to only show our best pictures rather than all those pictures that arent impressive to other people but mean something to us. The keyword option will be useful for things like birthdays, when I can have it show only pictures with the birthday person.
My plan is to eventually mount a miniature computer (built on the Raspberry Pi platform) behind the display to give me more control. I want to set it up to stream both pictures and video snippets and to do so based on my own algorithm. Id like it to spend a couple of minutes showing pictures from a particular playlist. The playlists might match vacations or events, but they could include fun things like a sampler of soccer games throughout the years or some other theme. Between the playlists, Id like to display a couple of slides of useful information the weather forecast, upcoming events, etc.
One challenge I have to deal with is that using a TV as a digital picture frame means having to deal with aspect ratio issues. The TV is a 16:9, but the overwhelming majority of my pictures are 3:2. Ive been creating collections in Lightroom with virtual copies of the pictures and then I reformat the virtual copies to 16:9 before I export them. I export them at the TVs resolution (1920x1080) and sharpen them for screen display. At normal viewing distances in the room, they look great. Im very happy with the way things look.
Was getting an LED display a mistake? Ive already detailed why I chose it over plasma, despite liking the image quality of the plasma more. I could gone with OLED or a 4K display, but both of those technologies cost more than I was willing to pay. I suspect that Ill upgrade it someday, but that is probably a long, long time from now.
One other option that I considered was just using the existing TV and setting up some sort of screen saver that shows pictures. I think that is probably a better option for most people, particularly if they have an LCD TV rather than a plasma. I wanted a device dedicated to pictures for a variety of reasons simplicity (not having to worry about putting the TV back in to picture mode when you are done watching) and display location (I like having the pictures over the fireplace, which is higher than is comfortable for extended TV viewing).
Overall, it has been a huge hit. My wife loves it, which, of course, is the most important thing. I also get a lot of enjoyment from it. It is so nice to walk by and see pictures that bring back so many great memories. Im so happy with it that Im thinking about taking a 24 monitor in to the office and doing the same thing on my desk there. Ill probably wait until I get the Raspberry Pi solution worked out. The kids havent really mentioned it, but I think increased exposure to pictures of their youth will help reinforce their memories, which I think is a good thing.
First, I researched the jumbo sized digital picture frames. I wanted one roughly 45 to 50 across. Surprisingly, I couldnt find anyone making one in that size. I did find that a lot of people make TVs that size, so I decided to repurpose one of those. A 55 diagonal screen matched my size requirements.
Digital Picture Frames (or TVs) that size dont run on batteries. They require an AC outlet. I didnt have one of those over the fireplace, so that was my first expense. It cost about $150 to have an electrician add an outlet over the fireplace. Not knowing any better, I had him add an ordinary outlet there. If I were to do it again, I would have had him add one that is recessed into the wall. That would make it easier to fit the plug in behind the picture frame.
When I looked at TVs, I found that there are significant differences between types of TVs, each of which has advantages and disadvantages for use as a digital picture frame. The main difference was the display technology. Plasma TVs produce a better picture than LCD/LED TVs. Unfortunately, they have downsides that make them poorly suited for what I wanted. Their maximum brightness level is lower, which hurts image quality in a brightly lit room like my family room. Their image quality also declines over time as the screen ages through use. That normally isnt much of an issue, but I want to have the digital picture frame on about 16 hours per day. That would age the screen at a much faster rate than the normal TV. Finally, they consume a lot more power. It doesnt look that way when you compare the out-of-the-box specs, but that is because the Plasma makers are gaming the system. They get their power usage ratings based on running at low levels of brightness. Once you calibrate the screen, the power consumption is about four times as much as an LED TV.
Power consumption was a significant consideration in my selection process. Given how much I planned to run the picture frame, I wanted to make sure that I wasnt going to bankrupt myself with power costs. The display I eventually chose uses about 80 watts when running. I currently pay $0.09/kWh. If I run the display for 16 hours per day and have it running 350 days per year, that works out to 5,600 hours of use per year. That is 448 kWhs or about $40 / year. I also happen to live in a very warm environment, and running the TV generates heat that I have to remove from my house through air conditioning. Im not really sure how to quantify that, but Ill take a guess and say that it costs me about ¼ of the power consumption cost to remove that heat. With that taken into account, I expect that it will raise my electricity bill by $50/year. I dont anticipate any significant increase in electricity costs because of the growing abundance of low cost, domestically produced, clean burning natural gas (can you guess what industry I work in?).
My first instinct was to purchase a Samsung LED TV. With my vague understanding of that industry, they are the leaders in LED TV production and, already owning one, Im familiar with what they sell. Just before I pulled the trigger on that purchase, a concern occurred to me. I already have a Samsung LED TV in that room that my family uses for watching TV shows and movies. I checked to see if I could control two different Samsung TVs in the same room without having the remote control affecting both TVs at the same time. Alas, Samsung has no provision for this situation. I could have worked around the problem with some complicated workarounds, but I decided that mixing brands would be simpler.
As luck would have it, I was making my purchase right at the time that the Japanese TV makers (Sony and Panasonic) were ending their model year (happens at the end of March). Because I didnt want anything they were preparing for their new 2013 TVs, I was able to purchase last years TV at a good price. I ended up with a Panasonic TC-L55DT50. I purchased it from B&H for just under $1,300, who shipped it at no charge. I looked at buying it locally, but I could only find the model above that one and the main difference between the two was the more expensive model having features that were irrelevant to my purposes.
To hang the TV on the wall, I bought a cheap wall mount from Amazon. It sticks out from the wall a little more than is fashionable, but I would have had to redo the electrical outlet if I had purchased a wall mount that was flusher. It was easy to self-install and suits my needs well enough.
Once I had it mounted to the wall, I needed to work out how to get pictures to it. For the first day, I just dumped a bunch of pictures to a USB thumb drive and plugged that in. After that, I set up a DLNA server on my home server computer and now I have the picture frame stream pictures from that server. I generally just have it stream all the pictures, but I have the ability to show only those in a particular folder, of a particular star rating, or matching a particular keyword. I use the folder option when I want it to repeatedly display a single vacation. I might use the star rating if we have company and I want it to only show our best pictures rather than all those pictures that arent impressive to other people but mean something to us. The keyword option will be useful for things like birthdays, when I can have it show only pictures with the birthday person.
My plan is to eventually mount a miniature computer (built on the Raspberry Pi platform) behind the display to give me more control. I want to set it up to stream both pictures and video snippets and to do so based on my own algorithm. Id like it to spend a couple of minutes showing pictures from a particular playlist. The playlists might match vacations or events, but they could include fun things like a sampler of soccer games throughout the years or some other theme. Between the playlists, Id like to display a couple of slides of useful information the weather forecast, upcoming events, etc.
One challenge I have to deal with is that using a TV as a digital picture frame means having to deal with aspect ratio issues. The TV is a 16:9, but the overwhelming majority of my pictures are 3:2. Ive been creating collections in Lightroom with virtual copies of the pictures and then I reformat the virtual copies to 16:9 before I export them. I export them at the TVs resolution (1920x1080) and sharpen them for screen display. At normal viewing distances in the room, they look great. Im very happy with the way things look.
Was getting an LED display a mistake? Ive already detailed why I chose it over plasma, despite liking the image quality of the plasma more. I could gone with OLED or a 4K display, but both of those technologies cost more than I was willing to pay. I suspect that Ill upgrade it someday, but that is probably a long, long time from now.
One other option that I considered was just using the existing TV and setting up some sort of screen saver that shows pictures. I think that is probably a better option for most people, particularly if they have an LCD TV rather than a plasma. I wanted a device dedicated to pictures for a variety of reasons simplicity (not having to worry about putting the TV back in to picture mode when you are done watching) and display location (I like having the pictures over the fireplace, which is higher than is comfortable for extended TV viewing).
Overall, it has been a huge hit. My wife loves it, which, of course, is the most important thing. I also get a lot of enjoyment from it. It is so nice to walk by and see pictures that bring back so many great memories. Im so happy with it that Im thinking about taking a 24 monitor in to the office and doing the same thing on my desk there. Ill probably wait until I get the Raspberry Pi solution worked out. The kids havent really mentioned it, but I think increased exposure to pictures of their youth will help reinforce their memories, which I think is a good thing.
