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Digital Picture Frame

J

jfinke

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 27, 2006
18
0
Hello all,

I am wanting to build a Digital Picture Frame as the commercial offerings are from bad to craptastic.

I have been thinking about using a Apple TV for the heart of it as they are cheap, quiet, and small. I can get one on Apple's Refurb site for $200.

My questions then are:
1. Can I hook it to a 19" 1280x1024 monitor over DVI?
2. How is the flickr integration?

Thanks!
 
Sounds good but....where would you position it so you can use the controller? Also don't forget the resolution. Apple TV is designed for 'TV's and therefore supports standard (4:3) rather than widescreen (16:9) displays using 480i or 480p, however the resolution is something like 640x480, 576i/p would only give you 720x576. If your monitor stretched this to fill the screen, images would appear blurred and not very crisp. Other resolutions like 720p (which is the same as the horizontal resolution of the monitor you mentioned, but the height would only be 720 so you wouldn't be using the full screen.

I think your best bet would be to get a 19" widescreen display that did something like 1440x900 or 1680x1050. This would allow you to get a higher res (720p upscaled to fit the screen if the monitor strecthed to fit).

On the plus side, Flickr intergration is awesome. If you put new pics on a Flickr stream, the Apple TV gets them and displays them. Its all very cool.

pac
 
I'm doing this right now, but with my HDTV. My tv plays a slideshow of my favorite photos when I'm not using it so my TV acts as a big frame. It's a nice way to catch some old photos that I hadn't seen in a while.
 
Not so fast...

pacmania1982 said:
Sounds good but....where would you position it so you can use the controller? Also don't forget the resolution. Apple TV is designed for 'TV's and therefore supports standard (4:3) rather than widescreen (16:9) displays using 480i or 480p, however the resolution is something like 640x480, 576i/p would only give you 720x576. If your monitor stretched this to fill the screen, images would appear blurred and not very crisp. Other resolutions like 720p (which is the same as the horizontal resolution of the monitor you mentioned, but the height would only be 720 so you wouldn't be using the full screen.
Click to expand...

Pac - I'm not sure that is right - my Apple TV is designed for High Definition TVs and have a 16:9 output. Also - I have to do a bit more digging on the resolution, but it is certainly greater than 480. I THINK it can output 720. Would be happy with corrections though.
 
pacmania1982 said:
Sounds good but....where would you position it so you can use the controller? Also don't forget the resolution. Apple TV is designed for 'TV's and therefore supports standard (4:3) rather than widescreen (16:9) displays using 480i or 480p, however the resolution is something like 640x480, 576i/p would only give you 720x576. If your monitor stretched this to fill the screen, images would appear blurred and not very crisp. Other resolutions like 720p (which is the same as the horizontal resolution of the monitor you mentioned, but the height would only be 720 so you wouldn't be using the full screen.

I think your best bet would be to get a 19" widescreen display that did something like 1440x900 or 1680x1050. This would allow you to get a higher res (720p upscaled to fit the screen if the monitor strecthed to fit).

On the plus side, Flickr intergration is awesome. If you put new pics on a Flickr stream, the Apple TV gets them and displays them. Its all very cool.

pac
Click to expand...

aTV's are designed to drive 16:9 displays, and actually don't work well with 4:3 (in general). Default output is 720p, but it can output 1080 as well.
 
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