See Digital Pics Of Our Baby Direct to TV
Written: Dec 26 '03 (Updated Dec 30 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Works great, simple setup, no confusing software, low cost
Cons: Deplorable instructions
The Bottom Line: Highly Recommended. Does what it says it does without any problems.
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| joetrent's Full Review: SanDisk SanDisk 6-in-1 Digital Photo Viewer for yo... |
The Digital Photo Viewer (DPV) is designed to easily hook up to the TV and play the pictures directly from the digital media used in most cameras without a computer or software. It’s all built into the little box. Just take the media chip out of the camera and plug it into a slot on the front of the DPV, power up the unit, and setback and enjoy the photo slideshow, or pause the show and peruse them one at a time with the included remote control.
I love simple technology that works, and anyone who has read my pithy attempts at writing these reviews know that I’m cheap and lazy. The SanDisk Digital Photo Viewer fits me like a custom-made calfskin glove. In the first case, it was free as a Christmas present from our nephew. That takes care of the cheap part. SanDisk took care of the lazy part with it’s simple to setup and use design. If it pushed out $20 bills instead of pictures, it would be perfect.
Aside from being with our 13 month old granddaughter, my favorite past time is taking digital shots of her, inserting them in MS Photo Draw, and making embarrassing collages with cartoon bubbles depicting her overcoming situations that would make Wonder Woman weep. These go into a scrapbook of “Super Baby” stories to show her when she grows up
Grandma’s least favorite part of this hobby is my hollering at her to get off her royal heiny and come to the computer to see the most recent photos. My least favorite is booting up a thousand dollar computer, hooking up the camera, and selecting files just to see and enjoy the pictures. SanDisk fixed all that.
The DPV says it handles the following types of digital media:
Compact Flash Type I and II
Memory Sticks
SD
Multimedia Card
Our camera uses Compact Flash, so that’s all I can attest to. The media card slides into one of the designated slots on the front of the unit. It supports the JPEG file format for cameras up to 6 megapixel. Our 3 megapixel camera works just fine.
The DPV came in one of those impossible to open, see-through plastic cases that are crimped around the edges. After using industrial strength scissors with a healthy dollop of after-Christmas swearing, I got the included pieces laid out at the castle designated assembly area. That is, my recliner.
There’s really no assembly to speak of. The box contained the DPV unit, the remote control, batteries for the remote, and the power adapter. Also included was an RCA video connector cable, and an included s-video cable. (I almost fell out of my throne when I saw they included that item). Finally, SanDisk included a folded up sheet of paper that they laughingly call the “Easy Set-Up Guide”.
It’s a really good thing that this device is extremely easy to install and use. Their guide is pathetic. It lists the package contents, and tells you that you’ll need a TV or video projector. The directions then tell you to install the batteries, hook up the unit, turn on the TV, and enjoy. They just forgot to say how to do the hookups or how to operate the DPV in the included six different languages. Fortunately, you can go to Sandisk.com and read the FAQ section if you might have any questions.
Hookup is a snap. The back of the unit has 3 places to plug stuff in, and you can only plug in the right wire. We have a home theater setup running everything through an audio/video receiver. I plugged the s-video connector to the back of the DPV into the s-video-in socket of my Video 1 slot. The last step was to plug in the power adaptor between the DPV and our handy power strip. All Done. The RCA connector works the same way.
The DPV unit is small. It’s 5.5 inches wide by 4 inches deep by 1.5 inches high. It has 5 buttons on top. They are Power, Play, Previous, Next, and Pause. I told her highness that I’d never use them because of the included remote control. Stupid me. The very first time I played with it, I used the buttons on top. She laughed. Oh well??
The remote is well laid out, small, light, and comfortable to use. The following is a description of the buttons on the remote, and what they do. You won’t find this in the guide.
1. Power - Turns the DPV on and off.
2. Play/Slideshow - Starts the slideshow with random transitions. The unit starts up in slideshow mode.
3. Pause - Pauses the slideshow. You need to do this for most of the controls to work.
4. Preview - Puts seven thumbnails of your pictures on the screen along with a larger image of the one currently selected.
5. Next - Moves to the next photo.
6. Previous - Moves to the previous photo.
7. Zoom+ - Increases the size of the photo.
8. Zoom- - Reduces the photo size after zooming up.
9. Rotate (right) – Rotates the photo 90 degrees right with each click. It only saves rotations during the show, not to the file on the media card.
10. Zoom (left) - Rotates 90 degrees to the left on each click with the same save caveat.
11. Delete – This one will delete the photo file off of your media card after prompting you if you really, really want to.
12. Menu – Pulls up the on-screen menu that lets you:
a. Select the type of memory card,
b. Display photo information such as date and name,
c. Slide show delay time to get more seconds between transitions,
d. Select the type of display on the TV, e.g. full screen, actual size,
e. Picture position on the screen such as up/down or right/left.
f. The language you want for the menu.
13. 4 Cursor Buttons - Used to navigate the menu.
After all this blathering, let me tell you that this thing works great. The pictures are clear, transitions and movement between photos is quick, and all the undocumented (yep, their documentation sucks big time) functions work great. All the pictures from the camera have been super clear without any jitters. The “doctored” photos I’ve made show up just as good.
We love this thing. There ain’t nothing better than a 35” picture show of “our” baby. There are probably devices out there that do this stuff, but I don’t know of any that work this well and cost less than fifty bucks like this one. We highly, highly recommend this to any digital photo fiend out there.
By the way, all misspellings and typos in this novel are the fault of the SanDisk DPV. I’ve had one eye on the computer screen, sometimes, but mostly on the big TV as “Super Baby” does her stuff.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
joetrent
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Location: Riverside, CA
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 6 members
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