Digital frames take the display of audiovisual elements to the next step by offering an amazing electronic version that displays pictures, slideshows, and serves also as a DVD and mp3 player.

PRODUCT FEATURES

Regardless of where digital pictures or videos are stored, digital frames provide an excellent, enjoyable experience, offering a print-like quality display of images on a high-resolution screen.

HOW A DIGITAL FRAME WORKS

With just taking any major digital memory device out of a camera, and inserting it into the appropriate slot located on the back of the digital frame, pictures or videos will displayed on a screen as thumbnails or a slideshow with options for random play, transition effects and slideshow intervals.

PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS

Digital frames incorporate a wide variety of features, performance qualities and external presentations depending on the technical complexity of each model.

SCREEN

Screen quality is the central aspect to consider before choosing a digital frame, and depends directly on the following factors and features:

Display Technology

The two initial flat screen systems: LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and TFT (Thin-Film Transistor) have evolved to new standards of quality with the Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display (AMLCD) and the Active Matrix Thin-Film Transistor (AMTFT), currently the overwhelming choice of screen manufacturers, due to light weight, very good image quality, wide colour gamut and response time.

Size

Determinant key of the displayed image and the final price of the product. Most digital frames are 5 x 7 inches and display images in 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 1024, although there are even smaller and bigger sizes.

Resolution

It describes how many pixels can be displayed vertically and horizontally on the screen.

Pixel Density

It means how many pixels are displayed in a certain amount of space. Obviously, the higher of number of pixels per square inch, the better the images will look.

Pixel Pitch

Related to the previous concept, it determines the distance between pixels on the screen. The smaller the number, the higher resolution of the displayed image.

Colour Depth

It referrers to the number of colours a screen can display, which has a huge importance on the final image quality. Thus, low-quality systems have usually 256,000 colours, and others support millions.

Brightness and Contrast

Adjustable brightness and contrast dramatically improves the quality of audiovisual elements in specific lighting conditions.

Contrast Ratio

It defines the ratio of the brightness of a white image to the brightness of a black image.

Viewing Angle

Directly related to contrast ratio, indicates the angles at which images can be viewed horizontally and vertically, and it is the maximum angle from which doesn’t cause the images to be obscured.

Aspect Ratio

It can be defined as the ratio between the width and height of the screen. Most digital cameras and TV sets offer a 4:3 aspect ratio. Thus, in some cases, digital frames with different aspect ratio automatically crop images so the screen is filled by the central portion of the images.

The only way to prevent this undesirable effect is to prepare the pictures in an image-editing program.

CONNECTIVITY AND STORAGE

There are different ways to feed images and videos to digital frames. Some systems are designed to stand alone, with pictures fed to the screen from an internal memory or a memory device, which is always the easiest option; or USB connection, when the user wants to edit the pictures before taking them to the frame.

Memory Cards

This is the easier way to feed images to digital frames, which usually support most common cards. In other case, a card adapter allows the operative to use a different format card.

Internal Memory

It allows a permanent storage of images and videos within the digital frame, including software applications that adapt them to the frame size, and diverse storage capacity depending on the model.

USB

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard to interface devices, originally designed for computers, but also commonplace on portable memory devices, video game consoles, PDAs, portable DVD and media players, cell phones, televisions and now digital frames.

Phone Line Connection

It uses the traditional modem to dial up a web page and download images and videos.

Wireless Capability

By using a Wi-Fi-enabled digital camera supported by the digital frame, it is possible to transfer photos directly from the camera into the digital frame.

Bluetooth

It allows transferring images and videos from any other Bluetooth device, such as a camera or mobile phone.

DISPLAYING IMAGES AND VIDEOS

Supported File Formats

Digital frames support a variety of image, audio and video formats.

Image: JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, etc.

Audio: MP3 and WMA.

Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and 3GP.

Nevertheless, playing video elements may require a high-speed card.

Image and Video Management

Digital frames incorporate a series of features that make possible to crop and rotate pictures for a display in portrait or landscape mode, copy and delete images, apply special effects, add masks and borders, change colours, apply transitions between images, and organize images in folders and albums.

Audio and Video out Connections

Digital frames incorporate a screen and built-in speakers. Nevertheless, it is possible to display images and videos on other external systems, such as TV sets and screens by using diverse cables and connections.

OTHER FEATURES

Remote Control

It allows changing settings and control diverse functions and features when displaying image and video elements.

Touchscreen

It displays overlays which have the ability to display and receive information on the same screen as an input device for interacting with the display's content.

Built-in Clock

It turns the digital frame on or off at selected times, enabling to specify dates, such as birthdays or anniversaries.

POWER SOURCE

Digital frames can operate on AC power, or cordless with a built-in or replaceable rechargeable battery.

It is not an irrelevant matter when focusing on the specific aesthetic result derived from the use of both an outlet and an electric cord.

STYLE

Framing Options

Style is an important subject when considering the external presentation of a digital frame, which has led to the design of a complete catalogue of user-customizable accessories for this particular product, including interchangeable frames and matboards enabling a change of look for the integration of this product into any decorative environment.