Coby DP772 7-Inch Widescreen Digital Photo Frame with MP3 Player
by Coby
|
List Price: Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Coby DP772 7-Inch Widescreen Digital Photo Frame with MP3 Player
Customer Review: Great for Price
Summary: 5 Stars
Overall: This digital picture frame is a solid product with a moderate functionality. Very good for the price. Nicer picture frames will cost about twice as much.
Here's what I LIKE about this frame:
- Although the display is only 480x230, the image quality is very good.
- Rotary brightness dial.
- Interchangeable face plates (white or black).
- Extending support leg so the vertical angle of frame can be adjusted (mine is almost upright).
- Very nice compact remote remote control.
- Multiple card slots (CompactFlash, SD, USB FlashDrive, etc.).
- USB hookup (not sure if it's 1.1 or 2.0 -- haven't checked) (inserted cards show up as removable drives on Windows PC's).
- Audio/Video Out (but no cables).
- Will automatically start the photo slide show when powered up.
- Can be wall-mounted.
- Plays MP3's (I haven't tried this feature yet).
Here are my DISLIKES for the picture frame:
- When power is interrupted (either by off/on switch or pull the plug), the slideshow does not remember where it left off -- it will start at photo 1 again (not nice when you have 8,000 photos on it like I do).
- The built-in speaker constantly emits a slight hiss (white noise), even when the volume is turned completely down. I overcame this by inserting a rolled up piece of paper (kind of like a lollypop stick) into the Audio Out port, which tricks it into thinking there are headphones connected and kills the speaker connection.
- Does not have any sort of timer (but I don't think any digital photo frames do). It would be nice to have some sort of timer to have it come on only when people are expected home and awake (weeknights, weekends, etc.). It's not practical to turn on/off every time -- especially since it goes back to photo 1 on the slideshow.
- Odd screen ratio (16:9).
The 16:9 screen ratio is probably because Coby uses the same screen on this digital picture frame that they use on their portable DVD players, which also have the cinema 16:9 screen proportions. It a bit cumbersome to format photos to fit nicely on this screen, but it's not that bad if done as listed below.
Preparing Photos for the 16:9 display:
1. Download and install the freeware utility FastStone Photo Resizer (it's FREE).
2. Create a folder called "PhotoFrame" (e.g. "My Documents\My Pictures\PhotoFrame\")
3. Run FastStone Photo Resizer, select your photo source and add them to the left side by clicking the "Add" or "Add All" button.
4. Click the "Settings" button for "Output Format" and specify Quality=80, DCT Method=ISLOW, Photometric=(No Change), Smoothing=0, Progressive=<Unchecked>. Click OK.
5. Specify your output folder (the "PhotoFrame" folder from Step 2).
6. Click the "Advanced Options" button.
7. Under the "Resize" tab, specify In Pixels=<Selected>, Width=480, Height=270, Switch Width...=<Checked>, Preserve Aspect Ratio=<Checked>, Smart-Cropping=<Checked>. Click OK.
8. Set any other options, as desired (e.g. Rename, etc.)
9. Click Start.
10. When done, simply copy the files from the "PhotoFrame" folder to the media card on the picture frame.
The process above will create very small files that display nicely on the frame. Photos in the Portait orientation will be tall and skinny, but it's better than having heads completely cut off. Landscape photos will fit perfectly to fill the full picture frame's screen. A small slice is cropped out at the top and bottom of Landscape photos to make them fit the 16:9 format. Photos take up only about 35 KB/photo, so you can fit about 3,700 photos on a 128 MB card -- Nice, huh?!
I hope this was helpful! Enjoy!
UPDATE on 2008-03-31:
Although you can fit many of the small photos on a small memory card, I found that the photo frame only supports about 2000 file entries. So, if you put more than 2,000 photos on a card, after a while you'll wonder "why haven't I seen any of the photos from ...?" They're there, but the frame won't display them.
Also, I've had my photo frame running continuously for about 1 year and 3 months -- still working great.
Customer Review: You Will Be Slightly Disappointed
Summary: 3 Stars
The picture quality is very poor. On a not-so-close inspection, you can see the large pixels that make up the image.
Standard size photos must be cropped to a wider-than-normal (panorama-like) size in order to fill the frame, which is really annoying, since 99% of my pictures aren't that size already. What this means is that you're only using about 5" of your 7" frame because there's about an inch on either side of your picture that won't be used.
Slideshow options are okay, although I would have liked to see an option for that slow-moving/panning/zooming photo effect that a lot of slideshow software on PC is doing now. That would be a good way to use the full screen on this frame; alas, it does not have it, or not that I can find anyway.
Strangely, amazon isn't showing pictures of the actual connections on this device. I was curious about them. They're all on the side, which means if you want to plug in a USB thumb drive, it's going to visibly stick off the side and will ruin the look of your frame.
The buttons on the top of the frame aren't very user-friendly. The buttons: Menu, Enter/Slide, up arrow, down arrow, left arrow, right arrow, and a little wheel for controlling brightness. You have to hold the Enter/Slide button down for a few seconds to put the frame in Slideshow mode. When an mp3 is playing one set of the arrow keys (i forget which ones now) control volume -- not the slider that looks like it has a volume control symbol on it.
The frame doesn't support batteries, so before you think you're going to hang it on the wall, remember that there will be a black power cord hanging down from the frame. Not very good considering I have a 2 year old daughter, so now it has to sit on the kitchen counter.
The look of the frame in the pictures on this site are a little bit misleading. I stupidly assumed the whole frame was that sort of translucent color. It's not. Only the outer edges are like that, the part around the screen is solid white. You can switch it out for solid black as well, if you prefer.
I've only mentioned bad things about the frame so far, but it's not all bad. It's actually OK, which is why I gave it 3 stars. For most people that can't see well (like my mother and grandmother) they'll never notice that you can see the individual pixels, so it'll be a great gift for them. Also, a lot of people complained about the music quality -- well, don't buy a picture frame if you want an MP3 player, but still - i was rather surprised that it sounded as good as it did, and again, for people like my mother and grandmother, the sound quality won't matter. I'm sure my grandma doesn't even know what an MP3 is anyway, so the fact that *any* music comes out of it will delight her.
Customer Review: low picture quality
Summary: 2 Stars
If you look at very many of these reviews you either get "good picture quality" or "poor picture quality". Clearly, some people are not very picky.
If you think about pictures on paper, this frame displays about the same size as a 3.5" x 5" photo. The vertical resolution of this frame is only 234 pixels. This is equivalent to about 1/14 mega pixel (312x234)... most digital pictures would need to be about 1/2 to 1 mega pixels to be printed on 3.5" x 5" paper with acceptable resolution. If you take a digital photo and re-sample (resize) it to 312x234, then print it out at the 3.5 x 5 size, you'll get a close approximation of what the photo would look like in this frame.
Since the frame is 480 pixels wide, about 1/3 of the frame is not used to display your pictures unless re-cropped. (Or stretched to fit.) The effect is much like watching a standard def. TV program (4:3) on a widescreen display (16:9). Some photos, like outdoor landscapes, may look o.k. But anything that requires much detail, (like portraits) the low-resolution limitations are very obvious.
The good news is that if you pre-shrink your digital photos to closely fit the screen size (320 x 240 would be a common size) they take up much less room. (10-25K per picture) A 1G memory card, [<$20] could store up to 40,000 or more photos!
The screen has a strong brightness bias for your eyes to be at a level slightly above the frame. If you hang it on the wall at slightly lower than eye level the pictures will be viewable, but if you sit on a chair and look up at the frame you will only see a dark screen with some vague shadows on it. The left to right viewing angle range is much better.
The MP3 player is a novelty, but the volume control only has a few steps, so you'll have a difficult time getting the level to your liking. The speakers are tiny, so it's like listening to music over a speakerphone. Maybe o.k. for some background music to impress grandma during a slide show, but not something you're going to listen to very long.
The pictures seem to play "in order" when they are all in a folder together. But if you have your photographs in many folders (say, by date) the folders seem to play in the order they were dragged to the memory card. I forced them to play in order by renaming all the files based on the date and time stamp of when they were taken, then placing all of them in the same folder.
Overall, I should have spent a bit more money and gotten a frame with much higher resolution. I've seen similar sized frames that have 640x480 resolution. At that point the picture is much more pleasing to look at. Why is obvious -- given that it has 4 times the number of pixels.
Customer Review: Works as billed
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had one of these for a day, and it seems to do what the manufacturer says.
When properly formatted (see below), the pictures are bright and accurate -- just what you'd imagine a digital picture frame would look like.
Here are the two main lessons I've learned so far:
1. Formatting: Resize your pictures to fit within the frame's resolution of 480 pixels by 234 pixels. It will display bigger pictures (say, 2000x3000 pixels from a six-megapixel camera) but its algorithm for downsampling must be really stupid, as the results are awful -- the pictures look twinkly, oversharpened, overprocessed, and just plain ugly. Downsize them yourself, and all that goes away. If you have a lot of pix, this process can be somewhat tedious, but there is a very good freeware image manager called XnView that will do it on batches of pictures at once with a minimum of muss and fuss.
2. It won't display grayscale pictures (i.e., black-and-whites where the color count is reported as 256). To make these display, you have to convert them to RGB mode. They're still B&W in appearance, but internally they're full RGB, 16 million colors, and that makes little Coby very happy. Go figure.
When you downsize to 480x234, you get a very small file -- less than 30KB, oftentimes. That means you can store hundreds of pictures on even a small memory card of 256MB. Put it in the slot, set Coby to either go through them in order, or shuffle them, and sit back and watch your life pass before your eyes in dazzling color (or dazzling black and white, if you must).
My Coby was a little over $100, including shipping to Alaska. The image screen is only 7" diagonally, meaning you can't really display it on a wall, but it does make an excellent display for your desk. If they can get a wall-size version (say, 11x14) down under $500, I'll probably give that a try next.
In case it's not clear from the product writeup on Amazon, you have to plug this thing into a power socket to use it. There's no battery. And, even if there was, it wouldn't be too feasible -- you'd have to either take the thing apart every few hours to stick in new batteries, or keep it plugged into a charger part of the time. Mo' bettah just to give up and accept that it's an AC device, not a battery device.
Stan Jones
Anchorage, Alaska
Customer Review: You get what you pay for...
Summary: 2 Stars
We received a Philips digital photo frame as a gift, and had issues with it - lots of freezing/locking up. Looking to purchase a gift for 2 other people, we went with the Coby since it was half the price of the Philips. As the title says, you get what you pay for. I'd probably give it 2.5 stars if that was an option, but it's not a 3.
Pros:
* mp3 - very nice to be able to include music to go along with the photos
* remote - it's tiny, but does everything you need. Great idea
* setup/playback is relatively simple, in theory (see cons below)
Cons:
* picture quality pales in comparison to the Philips. From a distance, it's not bad, but up close the pictures definitely look digitized. We've put the same resolution photos on both, and you can clearly see a difference side by side
* loading photos is hit or miss. Click and drag interface is great, but it didn't always work. Some photos would copy immediately, others just wouldn't copy unless you tried to move them 8 or 9 times. Bulk copying was therefore impossible. Same issue with several memory cards, so I'm inclined to blame the frame. The current card is only 25% full, but the Coby won't let any more photos be copied over. [Using a card reader, all of the above works fine. But if you don't have one, you may run into issues. At the very least, buy the same type of card as your camera so you can copy via the camera instead of the frame]
* widescreen is good, and bad. Make sure that it's actually what you want. If all of your photos are from a widescreen still or video camera, you'll be fine. But standard digital photos are 4:3, not 16:9. Mixing and matching photos looks kind of cheesy in a slideshow.
Depending on what you're doing with it, it's not a bad purchase. To the less discerning photo enthusiast, it's fine. Other than the photo quality, all of the cons can be overcome. But if you really want a fine photo quality, I'd look elsewhere.