Digital picture frames + Smugmug RSS

jfriend

I recently discovered that they now make digital picture frames with built-in WiFi that can fetch their pictures from a Smugmug RSS feed. You configure the WiFi to your home network. You set the Smugmug RSS feed and it fetches images directly from Smugmug. I am thinking about getting one of these for my mom. I can then remotely control the pictures in the frame just by changing the photos in one Smugmug album. I may even split it with my two sisters so we can keep photos of all the grandkids in there.

Have any of you ever hooked one of these digital photo frames up to a Smugmug RSS feed? Does it work? I haven't played much with feeds, but did you set it up for a feed via keywords? Or all images for a particular gallery?

This also seems like it would be a great marketing opportunity for one of the digital frame companies that supports Smugmug RSS to offer Smugmug users a discount and get promoted through ClubSmug. I bet the holidays are a big buying time for these too.

Andy

Photovu has RSS frames and the feeds worked there. I haven't seen any new frames lately, but it's a good time to research again

jfriend

Andy wrote:

Photovu has RSS frames and the feeds worked there. I haven't seen any new frames lately, but it's a good time to research again

Photovu is the one I'm looking at now. The RSS capabilities look really good. It looks like you can even configure it for multiple feeds which would work perfectly for me (one for me and one for each of my two sisters - since we all have Smugmug accounts).

The one challenge I'm looking at now is the wireless setup process looks like a disaster. I could certainly handle it for my own network, but I don't think my mom could do it for hers. Hmmm.

Rhuarc

So are there any decent frames out there that do this wifi stuff but are smaller and cheaper? Those thigns are awesome, but I can't justify $700!

caseserve

RSS Feed Limit?
I have the PhotoVu frames and they are a great frame. I do have a question regarding the feeds though.

Andy maybe you can assist?

I have multiple feeds setup but it seems that the feed from smugmug is only listing the first 100 images in a gallery. Does smugmug limit the feed to save bandwidth? or is there a setting that I need to add to the feed url

Thanks,

devbobo

caseserve wrote:

I have the PhotoVu frames and they are a great frame. I do have a question regarding the feeds though.

Andy maybe you can assist?

I have multiple feeds setup but it seems that the feed from smugmug is only listing the first 100 images in a gallery. Does smugmug limit the feed to save bandwidth? or is there a setting that I need to add to the feed url

Thanks,

John,

You can increase the number of images by adding &ImageCount=X to the feed url.

CHeers,

David

jfriend

Photo frame run-down
OK, I've done as complete a survey as I can of all the wireless digital photo frames without actually buying anything (to try to figure out what to buy). Here's my brief run-down and I'd like to know if anyone is successfully using a Digital Spectrum wifi frame with a Smugmug RSS feed?

Right now, it looks like this market space is very immature. Photovu owns the high end, has a great web-site, seems like they provide good support and you can talk to someone if you need to. But, the Photovu products are very expensive (as someone pointed out, they cost more than a typical laptop).

The only other player with something larger than a 10" display is Digital Spectrum. It sounds like they are a bit hit or miss. Some folks have had decent experiences and others have had problems and had trouble getting support and getting a person to talk to. It sounds like they have the right RSS support to pull photos from Smugmug, but I'd love to hear confirmation of that.

For a smaller screen, I trust that the Kokak products are probably decent, but I can't tell if they only work with Kodak gallery or if they have good, generic RSS feed support.

eStarling looks promising on paper, but the Amazon reviews are really not favorable. It does specifically mention Smugmug RSS support. The largest frame they make is 8" which is smaller than I was looking for.

I would avoid Momento and Samsung at the moment. There's just no detailed product info on the web for Momento that it feels just like a marketing company. Samsung only has one frame and the only reports I could find on it said it had serious bugs.

Here's my run-down:
Photo-Vu

• Clearly the high-end producer of frames
• Their web-site
• Only make large sizes with expensive prices
  • 17" widescreen ($699)
  • 19" widescreen ($899)
  • 19" standard screen ($999)
  • 22" widescreen ($1,199)
• Supports RSS feeds for automatically pulling photos into the frame and specifically names a bunch of photo sites including Smugmug
• Designed to go on a wall, have to buy a separate stand for desk/counter display
• You can specify the frame type/color when ordering
• Not available at retail (that I could find)
• Very high-res screens
• Most people I read about who had these were businesses (probably because of the cost)

Digital Spectrum

• Their web-site
• Has three sizes of wireless frames
  • 8" ($249)
  • 10.4" ($299)
  • 15" ($384)
• Available on Amazon and other retailers
• Claims general support of RSS feeds
• Reviews on Amazon are both good and bad, hard to tell
• I sent product questions to their support address and nobody responded
• Should work with Smugmug RSS, but I'm not sure it does
• Supports framechannel.com for pushing images to the frame

Momento

• Their web-site
• Has two sizes:
  • 7" ($179)
  • 10" ($279)
• Supports framechannel.com
• The web-site feels like a marketing company that buys the frames somewhere. Hard to find a lot of detailed product info

Samsung

• 7" size
• Supports framechannel.com
• Some user reports of serious bugs

Kodak Easyshare

• Their website
• Has two sizes in wireless frames
  • 8" ($199)
  • 10" ($249)
• Integrates with Kodak Gallery
• Can't tell if it works with other photo site RSS feeds

eStarling

• Their web-site
• A You-Tube video on unboxing this product
• Has two sizes:
  • 7" ($209)
  • 8" ($269)
• Integrates with SeeFrame.com for RSS feeds
• Does support Smugmug RSS feeds
• Supports multiple feeds
• Amazon reviews not very favorable

Anyone have anything to add to this?

blalor

That's a great rundown, John. I'd love to do something like this for my parents, too. I started down the route of repurposing an old laptop for my mom, but it died. I'm definitely interested in what experiences other folks have had! ... especially how well they work with Flickr RSS feeds.

Rhuarc

Hmm, any chance of getting this same type of rundown for non WiFi frames? LoL, I'm looking at getting a frame for my inlaws, but looking to keep it closer to $100. Yeah, I know the qualityu will probably be a load of BS, but for what they will use it for they don't need an expensive one. I plan on picking up several SD cards and mailing them to her with new pictures every few months. They can then send back the old cards for me to refill.

Anybody have a cheaper say 7" frame they got for under $100 they can reccommend? One other question. How does everyone deal with the widescreen format of some of the cheaper frames? Do you let the frame adjust the photo, or do you change the AR before putting it to the frame?

jfriend

Rhuarc wrote:

Hmm, any chance of getting this same type of rundown for non WiFi frames? LoL, I'm looking at getting a frame for my inlaws, but looking to keep it closer to $100. Yeah, I know the qualityu will probably be a load of BS, but for what they will use it for they don't need an expensive one. I plan on picking up several SD cards and mailing them to her with new pictures every few months. They can then send back the old cards for me to refill.

Anybody have a cheaper say 7" frame they got for under $100 they can reccommend? One other question. How does everyone deal with the widescreen format of some of the cheaper frames? Do you let the frame adjust the photo, or do you change the AR before putting it to the frame?

Nearly all of these companies make non WiFi frames. Just go to Amazon and do a search and you will get 30 products to look at. If you have access to Costco, they also carry this kind of thing and usually have a product with pretty good value/quality.

jfriend

jfriend wrote:

OK, I've done as complete a survey as I can of all the wireless digital photo frames without actually buying anything (to try to figure out what to buy).

Stay tuned. I ordered the 15" Digital Spectrum from Newegg for $323.91 + tax and shipping. I will get it next week and immediatly try to set it up with RSS feeds from multiple Smugmug accounts since that's how I want it to work for my mom. I'll report back how it works.

Grainbelt

jfriend wrote:

Stay tuned. I ordered the 15" Digital Spectrum from Newegg for $323.91 + tax and shipping. I will get it next week and immediatly try to set it up with RSS feeds from multiple Smugmug accounts since that's how I want it to work for my mom. I'll report back how it works.

:lurk

I usually shop on or around the 24th, so I'll be curious how this turns out. I like the look of a bunch of their frames.

charred_water

Hi,

I'm shopping for a wireless photoframe. The smugmug RSS feeds help page: http://www.smugmug.com/help/rss-atom-feeds
says "Feeds are only available for public, non-passworded galleries"

All but one of my galleries are private. Is there anyway to use RSS feeds with private galleries?

I want to have family photoframes which are restricted to a displaying photos from a private gallery. I was hoping I could use smugmug RSS feeds to do this.

xris

Non-public Pix

charred_water wrote:

I want to have family photoframes which are restricted to a displaying photos from a private gallery. I was hoping I could use smugmug RSS feeds to do this.

You can make galleries that are not publicised. Why not just create a category and galleries you can only access from the control panel home page tab? It can still be 'public.' But if no one can see it, it's still pretty private.

Rhuarc

Has anyone tried out the Momento frames? I think I'm going to order that one for the parents. Seems to be the cheapest of the frames offering Wi-Fi.

StevenV

Chris P. gives the eStarling frame 8.5/10 - not too shabby.

charred_water

xris wrote:

You can make galleries that are not publicised. Why not just create a category and galleries you can only access from the control panel home page tab? It can still be 'public.' But if no one can see it, it's still pretty private.

Thank you for your suggestion. I didn't know you could do this. I'll investigate categories.

jfriend

xris wrote:

You can make galleries that are not publicised. Why not just create a category and galleries you can only access from the control panel home page tab? It can still be 'public.' But if no one can see it, it's still pretty private.

I do not think you can do this. You can set a gallery to be non-public and it will then not show on your home page unless you are logged in, but then RSS feeds won't work on it either which is what these frames need to get images.

What I'm thinking of doing is creating a public gallery (so I can get an RSS feed to it) and then using CSS to hide the gallery from the home page/category. It's not totally non-public (a link to it is still in the HTML of the category page), but you'd have to know what you were looking for in order to find it.

charred_water

jfriend wrote:

I do not think you can do this. You can set a gallery to be non-public and it will then not show on your home page unless you are logged in, but then RSS feeds won't work on it either which is what these frames need to get images.

What I'm thinking of doing is creating a public gallery (so I can get an RSS feed to it) and then using CSS to hide the gallery from the home page/category. It's not totally non-public (a link to it is still in the HTML of the category page), but you'd have to know what you were looking for in order to find it.

I have been reading about categories and security on the help pages and I do not understand how I can use categories to hide galleries on my homepage as xris described...

Here are the settings I use on my galleries:
Public: no (don't show gallery on homepage)
Hello world: no (block google search)
Hello smuggers: no (block smugmug search)

I do not use passwords.

I have create sharegroups and place the galleries I wish to share in these sharegroups. I give family and friends links to these sharegroups.

Since I do not use passwords, my galleries are not REALLY private, but hard to find since you need the URL of the sharegroups or gallery.

So it seems like the RSS feeds should work. Perhaps this is the workaround xris was referring to?

jfriend

charred_water wrote:

I have been reading about categories and security on the help pages and I do not understand how I can use categories to hide galleries on my homepage as xris described...

Here are the settings I use on my galleries:
Public: no (don't show gallery on homepage)
Hello world: no (block google search)
Hello smuggers: no (block smugmug search)

I do not use passwords.

I have create sharegroups and place the galleries I wish to share in these sharegroups. I give family and friends links to these sharegroups.

Since I do not use passwords, my galleries are not REALLY private, but hard to find since you need the URL of the sharegroups or gallery.

So it seems like the RSS feeds should work. Perhaps this is the workaround xris was referring to?

According to this help page, "Feeds are only available for public, non-passworded galleries". I haven't tried it, but I think that means that RSS feeds won't work for the kind of galleries you are talking about. You can just try it to see.

charred_water

Using the sample Gallery feed example on the Feedtricks help page:
http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Customization/FeedsTricks

I was able to add an RSS feed to one of my "private" smugmug galleries to my Bloglines feeds.

Gallery feed:
[url]http://[/url][nickname].smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=[albumID]&format=atom03

If this RSS feed works with bloglines, I assume it will work with a wireless photoframe which handles RSS feeds.

The gallery I created the RSS feed for had these settings:
public: no
hello world: no
hello smuggers: no

So when smugmug help says "Feeds are only available for public, non-passworded galleries", this is not quite true, since I have public=no.

Perhaps the help should say, "Feeds are only available for non-passworded galleries"

Art Scott

jfriend wrote:

OK, I've done as complete a survey as I can of all the wireless digital photo frames without actually buying anything (to try to figure out what to buy). Here's my brief run-down and I'd like to know if anyone is successfully using a Digital Spectrum wifi frame with a Smugmug RSS feed?

Right now, it looks like this market space is very immature. Photovu owns the high end, has a great web-site, seems like they provide good support and you can talk to someone if you need to. But, the Photovu products are very expensive (as someone pointed out, they cost more than a typical laptop).

The only other player with something larger than a 10" display is Digital Spectrum. It sounds like they are a bit hit or miss. Some folks have had decent experiences and others have had problems and had trouble getting support and getting a person to talk to. It sounds like they have the right RSS support to pull photos from Smugmug, but I'd love to hear confirmation of that.

For a smaller screen, I trust that the Kokak products are probably decent, but I can't tell if they only work with Kodak gallery or if they have good, generic RSS feed support.

eStarling looks promising on paper, but the Amazon reviews are really not favorable. It does specifically mention Smugmug RSS support. The largest frame they make is 8" which is smaller than I was looking for.

I would avoid Momento and Samsung at the moment. There's just no detailed product info on the web for Momento that it feels just like a marketing company. Samsung only has one frame and the only reports I could find on it said it had serious bugs.

Here's my run-down:
Photo-Vu

• Clearly the high-end producer of frames
• Their web-site
• Only make large sizes with expensive prices
  • 17" widescreen ($699)
  • 19" widescreen ($899)
  • 19" standard screen ($999)
  • 22" widescreen ($1,199)
• Supports RSS feeds for automatically pulling photos into the frame and specifically names a bunch of photo sites including Smugmug
• Designed to go on a wall, have to buy a separate stand for desk/counter display
• You can specify the frame type/color when ordering
• Not available at retail (that I could find)
• Very high-res screens

I cliked on your photo vu link and it took me back to the DGRIN main page....from your description theses look like what I cannot find at the best buys CC's or comp usa's here.....just thought you'd like to know where your link took me.

jfriend

Art Scott wrote:

I cliked on your photo vu link and it took me back to the DGRIN main page....from your description theses look like what I cannot find at the best buys CC's or comp usa's here.....just thought you'd like to know where your link took me.

I fixed the typo. The proper photovu link is http://www.photovu.com/digital-frames/overview.php.

jfriend

charred_water wrote:

Using the sample Gallery feed example on the Feedtricks help page:
http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Customization/FeedsTricks

I was able to add an RSS feed to one of my "private" smugmug galleries to my Bloglines feeds.

Gallery feed:
[URL="http://"]http://[/URL][nickname].smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=[albumID]&format=atom03

If this RSS feed works with bloglines, I assume it will work with a wireless photoframe which handles RSS feeds.

The gallery I created the RSS feed for had these settings:
public: no
hello world: no
hello smuggers: no

So when smugmug help says "Feeds are only available for public, non-passworded galleries", this is not quite true, since I have public=no.

Perhaps the help should say, "Feeds are only available for non-passworded galleries"

I've verified that RSS feeds do work for private galleries (non-public galleries without a password).

jfriend

Digital Spectrum frame working with Smugmug

jfriend wrote:

Stay tuned. I ordered the 15" Digital Spectrum from Newegg for $323.91 + tax and shipping. I will get it next week and immediatly try to set it up with RSS feeds from multiple Smugmug accounts since that's how I want it to work for my mom. I'll report back how it works.

Got the frame today and set it up and it is now showing images from one of my Smugmug galleries. It all works! It took my about two hours to figure it all out (get it on my WiFi network, configure it to display photos from an RSS feed, then enter the feed URL right, then limit my gallery to XL). I don't think it should have taken two hours, but it did. Anyway, once I got all the correct config info in and limited my gallery to XL display size, it all started working.

I think the frame may have been choking on my large 12MP images when it tried to download originals via the feed. When I changed the max display size to XL (which changes the feed to use the XL size too), then it started working. That took a little troubleshooting since there's not much in the way of diagnostic info from the frame.

You can enter exactly one RSS feed URL into this frame. That could be the RSS feed URL of a single Smugmug gallery or you can sign up for the free FrameChannel service and it will aggregate multiple sources of information into one feed for the frame. I'm planning on setting this frame up to get pictures from multiple galleries (one of mine and one from each of my sister's out of their own Smugmug accounts) so I'm using the framechannel service. This also lets me remotely add or remove other RSS sources from the frame which is good since I need to manage the frame from 800 miles away.

Anyway, I found something that works over Wifi to Smugmug.

Rhuarc

I'm going to be picking up the Momento frame for my inlaws this week. Hopefully it will work with more than one feed.

jfriend

Rhuarc wrote:

I'm going to be picking up the Momento frame for my inlaws this week. Hopefully it will work with more than one feed.

If the frame only supports one RSS feed (like mine), you can just set it up through framechannel like I did. It combines multiple sources into one RSS feed for the frame and it's free.

charred_water

jfriend wrote:

Got the frame today and set it up and it is now showing images from one of my Smugmug galleries. It all works! It took my about two hours to figure it all out (get it on my WiFi network, configure it to display photos from an RSS feed, then enter the feed URL right, then limit my gallery to XL). I don't think it should have taken two hours, but it did. Anyway, once I got all the correct config info in and limited my gallery to XL display size, it all started working.

I think the frame may have been choking on my large 12MP images when it tried to download originals via the feed. When I changed the max display size to XL (which changes the feed to use the XL size too), then it started working. That took a little troubleshooting since there's not much in the way of diagnostic info from the frame.

You can enter exactly one RSS feed URL into this frame. That could be the RSS feed URL of a single Smugmug gallery or you can sign up for the free FrameChannel service and it will aggregate multiple sources of information into one feed for the frame. I'm planning on setting this frame up to get pictures from multiple galleries (one of mine and one from each of my sister's out of their own Smugmug accounts) so I'm using the framechannel service. This also lets me remotely add or remove other RSS sources from the frame which is good since I need to manage the frame from 800 miles away.

Anyway, I found something that works over Wifi to Smugmug.

I was reading the reviews on newegg about the 15 inch Digital Spectrum frame and the primary complaint appears to be the limited viewing angle.

What are your impressions?

jfriend

charred_water wrote:

I was reading the reviews on newegg about the 15 inch Digital Spectrum frame and the primary complaint appears to be the limited viewing angle.

What are your impressions?

I saw those same reviews and tested that out when I first got it. I'd say it has better than I expected viewing angle from left/right/top sides (you can see a good image from a significant angle to the side).

It has a really shallow viewing when viewing from below. I presume there is some sort of manufacturing limitation here in this price range and they had to have one angle not so good, so they chose to mount it this way.

For my use, this works fine as I expect it to be either up on the wall (probably a little below eye level) or on a counter and tipped back a bit. The only time I think this could be a problem is if you mount it up high and want people to have a good view while sitting.

I wouldn't say that the screen "blows me away" with it's quality. But, it's not bad either and will work well for what I need. I suspect you have to spend significantly more money (like photovu's products) to get a higher grade since really nice screens are definitely expensive.

blalor

I just ordered an eStarling frame for my dad for Christmas. I've got some reservations about it, due to their pretty poor first rev that came out last year (?), but the more recent reviews on Amazon and a couple of other places I found today suggest that it's far better than that. I'll give a report after it gets opened for Christmas (I had to ship it to him and I'll be there for Christmas, but won't have time to set it up before-hand). I'm a Flickr user, so I intend to feed the frame with a specialized selection of pictures, based on either a set or group of tags (like "for:dad", or whatever).

blalor

The eStarling frame arrived in time. I went through the setup procedure and configured a feed from my Flickr photostream, put it back in the box, and wrapped everything up all pretty-like. Unfortunately, the power jack on the frame went bad between the time it was wrapped and when it was opened and it would only power on if you held the cord just right. :cry So, dad's sending it back for a replacement. I'm pretty p*ssed, but hopefully they'll make it right. First impressions are that it'll work quite well, but only if it works at all.