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Homebrew Digital Picture Frame w/Remote

Posted by timothy on from the hi-fi-jumprope dept.

feagle814 writes "I've always wanted to create one of those digital picture frames out of an old laptop, and on the heels of a recent slashdot story, I've written up my Digital Picture Frame project. What's unique about this particular incarnation of the digital picture frame is that mine includes a homebrew remote control recognizer made out of a programmable IC, the Microchip PIC16F628. The article discusses everything from design considerations to custom slideshow software, all the way to final presentation, with lots of photos along the way."

9 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing New by Performaman · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I saw one of these made with an old Powerbook Duo about 3 or 4 years ago.

    --

    I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
  2. IR control by RedWizzard · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What's unique about this particular incarnation of the digital picture frame is that mine includes a homebrew remote control recognizer made out of a programmable IC, the Microchip PIC16F628.
    Perhaps it's unique because it's unnecessarily complex? I'm using LIRC under Linux on my home theatre PC for remote control with a homebrew receiver that connects to a serial port. The reciever is very simple (see circuit diagram on this page). I guess if you're determined to use Windows you might need to build this sort of PIC-based solution, but surely the LIRC based solution is cheaper and easier? No wonder his "Linux loving friends" gave him a lot of flak for going with Win 98.
    1. Re:IR control by feagle814 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well the reason I went with my PIC-based IR receiver was that I had already built it several months ago, when I did not find any of the remote control solutions suitable for my purposes. When I created it back then, I re-used a custom scripting engine that I had made. All I did this time around was solder together a second IR/PIC combo unit (which took me a half hour) and I had a working remote receiver. Granted, I had to tweak the code to move from a least-squares recognition algorithm to a pulse-tolerance algorithm to improve reception, but that was really more fun than anything.

      I'm actually really sad that I couldn't use Linux for it, because I had the time constraint of having to give it to my sister for Christmas, and that was not enough time for me to learn everything I'd need to do the equivalent in Linux.

  3. Why not? by CodeYoddler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why not just take a portable dvd player (7" for $129) and put a DVD into it filled with all your favorite pictures, then it'll display them. Then you just mount the thing in a frame.

    --
    http://codeus.info
    1. Re:Why not? by Bill_Royle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yet if it's ready-made and mass-produced, does a problem really exist, and is there really a struggle involved?

  4. Perhaps these aren't a good idea by nsuccorso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Folks, I realize that digital picture frames are "cool", but may I please present another perspective?

    Until we figure out a way of generating clean, renewable power, perhaps this isn't the time to be coming up with more and more ways of consuming power for trivial applications, such as digital picture frames and blowup lighted Christmas figures that run an electric blower motor all night(!) Just consider it, please.

    It's just as interesting to come up with ways of reducing household power consumption.

    1. Re:Perhaps these aren't a good idea by MobyDisk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is why digital ink systems are going to be very important in the future. They only use power when the image changes.

  5. Awesome example - Low Tech by krudler · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My crazy Uncle Tony built a dynamic picture frame. It was way cooler than these fancy lcd dealies you're hearing about these days. He printed out a bunch of pictures on one of those old sk00l dot matrix printers that used the paper sheets with the holes on the sides, that you had to rip off after it printed; you know what I'm talking about. Anyways, he printed a bunch of pictures on a long sheet. Then he put em in his dynamic picture frame, which allowed you to switch pictures using a crank that rolled the sheet picture to picture. It was totally cool.

    But I hear that in korea, only old people use low tech dynamic picture frames. Uncle Tony lived in South Jersey, and if you called him old, he'd fucking kill you by bludgening you with a baseball bat.
    Krudler

  6. Re:It's not scapping a laptop by grahamsz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well the laptop in question has a failed battery, no networking capabilities, and is maxed out with 8MB ram. They keyboard is flaky and i think the floppy drive has failed.

    A system of that spec is of limited use to anyone given that a desktop would be more useful and work better. However it's an ideal photoframe project since it has a 800x600 active-matrix lcd.

    I've donated odd computers to schools or needy friends, but if i'm going to have to support it i'd rather give away something good.

    I agree that it's no great hardware hack, but consider how difficult it is to interface with a mono lcd, i can't imagine investing that kind of effort for a digital picture frame.