PhotoVu offers two types of digital picture frame LCD display products - standard and widescreen. How your digital photos from your digital camera will look on your new digital picture frame depends not only on the aspect ratio of the LCD display, but also on the type of digital camera you use. Aspect ratio of the photo frame is the ratio of the horizontal size (as measured in pixels) divided by the vertical size (as measured in pixels) of its LCD display. Pixels are the little dots of light on the LCD panel that make up your digital image.

For example, our standard 19″ digital frame features a 1280 wide x1024 tall pixel LCD screen. Doing the math you will find that for every 5 horizontal pixels there will be 4 vertical pixels, which results in a 5:4 or 1.25 aspect ratio display. Whereas our widescreen 22″ digital picture frame has a 1680×1050 pixel resolution, which doing the math, results in a 16:10 or 1.6 aspect ratio digital frame display. Our other widescreen 19″ digital photo frame, also has the same 1.6 aspect ratio between the width and height of the LCD panel. In other words, the standard screen is more “square like” and the widescreen is more “rectangle like.”

Some cameras also take more “square like” pictures in a 4:3 or 1.33 aspect ratio and some higher-end digital SLR’s take digital picture pictures in a 3:2 or 1.5 ratio format. To determine the aspect ratio of your camera, you can do the same as for the LCD displays above — divide the horizontal pixels by vertical pixels as found in your camera’s manual or on its own menu display. As a general rule, typically, but not always, small digital pocket cameras and digital cameras without changeable lenses are classified as consumer digital cameras and take pictures in the 4:3 or 1.33 ratio format. Higher-end, more expensive cameras, known as digital SLR’s which usually also have changeable lenses, take digital images in the 3:2 or 1.5 ratio format. There are also some more expensive cameras, or “prosumer” cameras, that take photos in this 1.5 format as well.

Here are some real world photo examples of all the above technical jargon in action:

If you have a consumer type of digital camera (sometimes considered a point and shoot), which will cover most cameras that do not have a detachable lens as well as all “pocket type” of cameras, then your digital photos would like this on our digital photo frames:

However, if you have a higher-end, digital SLR, or “prosumer” type of digital camera, then your images will be taken in more of a wide screen format (1.5 ratio / 3:2) and your digital photo will be displayed like these photos below on our digital picture frames:

As you can see, none of the digital aspect ratios on the digital camera input side match any of our PhotoVu digital LCD photo frame aspect ratios on the output or display side. This is a very common problem, but fortunately, PhotoVu digital picture frames, unlike other cheaper LCD photo frames on the market, automatically handle these issues dynamically “on-the-fly” with ease. No matter what kind of digital camera you have (1.3 or 1.5 ratio images), all of our PhotoVu LCD photo frames will display your digital photos without any distortion. However, some of the outside edges of each digital picture will be slightly cropped or cutoff as we scale the input picture from the digital camera to fit the output display of the digital photo frame. Usually this is not very noticeable and makes for a picture that completely fills the frame.

However, for the digital photo purists, there is an option to turn our smart resize (TM) feature off. In this case, your digital photos will not be cropped, but you will have small black bars either on the top and bottom or the left and right, depending on your camera and your particular PhotoVu model (widescreen or standard). This effect is similar to playing a DVD on a standard definition TV where black bars will appear on the top and bottom - because the movie was filmed in wider screen format and then played and viewed on your standard definition TV (4:3 or 1.33 aspect ratio).

Lastly, many people, after they buy a PhotoVu and get to enjoy their digital photos every day, also start scanning their old photos so they can enjoy them too. Most older film cameras were 35mm, which is a 3.2 or 1.5 ratio format as covered above. However, scanning slides and negatives, while producing the highest quality results, can be very laborious. Therefore, many people choose to scan their photo prints. This brings up yet another interesting dilemma as traditional prints were sold in a whole range of sizes and formats — 3×5 (1.66 ratio), 4×6 (1.5 ratio), 5×7 (1.4 ratio), 8×10 (1.25 ratio). Regardless, per the examples above, your PhotoVu digital picture frame will display them beautifully and automatically scale and crop them for the ultimate viewing experience.

You can go to our store at www.photovu.com/store, register for an account, and go through the checkout process. Before completing you order, you will be presented with a shipping quote from Fedex. You do not have to complete your order to see this quote.

We ship to locations supported by Fedex. Please note, additional verification will apply to your order.

We have no current plans to support 802.11a access points.

First, each PhotoVu is a unique product manufactured and customized just for you. Our large digital photo frames are not made in a high volume electronics factory in China so we cannot take advantage of the cost savings that higher volumes and cheap labor would bring. Instead, PhotoVu is a boutique high-end custom electronics designer and manufacturer. You get a high quality, custom crafted, “Made in the USA” product from a company that only makes wireless digital picture frames and nothing else.

We don’t skimp on anything when it comes to building the world’s best and largest digital picture frames. For example, we could use a cheap plastic housing to hold the electronics, but instead we use an all aluminum enclosure (costs us about $80 alone!). This allows for greater heat dissipation so we don’t have to use internal fans (the last thing you want on your wall is a noisy fan blowing around a bunch of dust). We could also use steel at a third the price, but we use aluminum so that it weighs the least possible. All our frames are real wood from high quality manufacturers such as Larson-Juhl and Picture Woods. We could use plastic cheap molded frames, and the price would be lower, but then all you wold have is a cheap ugly frame at a cheap price. Internally, we use the best electronics, LCD panels and power supplies we can find. Our dedicated internal computers are also fanless which cost considerably more and our memory is large enough to display today’s largest digital camera images today and beyond. Our powerful internal computer and memory allow for such things as real time auto-scaling, cropping and auto-rotation of images that simply cannot be done with cheaper, underpowered electronic components found in cheaper table top frames. All our hardware then comes together with four years of software development to bring the best features and capabilities on the market today that doesn’t crash, lockup, or need constant rebooting.

Everything detailed above costs real money. In the end, you would be surprised what little profit is left in the end for us to run a business and pay people so they can earn a living wage.

Don’t confuse companies that are selling digital picture frames from PhotoVu – we design, manufacture, sell and support our very own digital picture frames. All we do is live and breathe digital picture frames day and night. We are totally obsessed with digital picture frames and have been for over 5 years!

Most companies you see on the Internet are so called “schlepers” who merely stick some cheap plastic digital picture frame in a box and ship it to you. If you have any trouble with it after your credit card has cleared, good luck! All support and especially any warranty work are referred back to the manufacturer. At PhotoVu, we service, support and care about what we manufacture and sell – it’s that simple.

When considering purchase of a digital picture frame, ask yourself, “self, do I really want to watch videos on my digital picture frame?” We don’t think so – that’s what your HDTV is for! Worse yet, ask yourself, “self, do I really want to listen to my music from a tiny speaker inside a digital picture frame, coming from somewhere up on a wall?” We again don’t think so — that’s what 200watt audio amps and big floor speakers are for!

Bottom line, we decided not to add video or audio to our PhotoVus, because playing videos or music on your digital photo frame is a very unsatisfying experience for the reasons above. We believe that a PhotoVu should display your super high resolution digital photos and do it very well. If you’ve spent as much as we have on photo processing over the years, that money alone warrants a dedicated device to maximize your enjoyment of that investment. PhotoVu simply focuses on doing one thing very, very well — we turn your lifelong investment in photos into a never ending stream of smiles. And we’ve been doing it for five years now like nobody else.

While you can certainly watch your digital photos on your TV with a media adapter, it is a distinctly different experience which becomes more of one time event, with everybody gathering around the TV to flip through some photos. It’s an interactive, planned event experience, rather than an everyday enjoying your life’s great moment’s experience.

This is probably the most powerful concept and feature of our PhotoVus’, but one that is the hardest to understand the power of, until you actually own one. In fact, many of our customers comment on this powerful concept after they get their first PhotoVu up and running on their wall, shelf, or fireplace mantle. The idea with a PhotoVu is to have a dedicated device that displays ALL your photo collection silently, day in and day out. It’s meant to be unobtrusive, silently playing your life’s special moments up on the wall. It’s there for you when you glance up at it while you’re preparing or eating dinner in your kitchen. It’s there for you when you wake up in the morning getting ready for work. And it’s even there for you, yes, as you are watching TV!

In fact, we are always amazed to see how well our own PhotoVu’s work in the same room with our own LCD HDTV’s when we have guests visiting. They are constantly gazing at the PhotoVu at the same time they are watching the HDTV. We initially thought this would be “too much overload,” but we quickly realized, that as long at the PhotoVu is not in the direct line of viewing of the LCD or Plasma HDTV (a head turn away on another wall), that it was a very complimentary experience.

Lastly, our PhotoVu wireless digital picture frames have been designed from the ground up to be a digital photo frame and do one thing and do it very well. Any time you have a multifunction device, there are always design compromises involved and playing your photos on your TV is no exception. Properly formatting and auto scaling the pictures to fit the screen without distortion is not a trivial process. If the adapter uses a wireless connection, will it be able to properly maintain a wireless connection for weeks and months without having problems?

Simply plug the USB hard drive into the computer where you current digital photos are stored, it will show up as hard drive with your particular operating systems icon (Mac or Windows), and then drag-and-drop the top level folder where your digital photos are located and drop them onto the hard drive icon. Disconnect it from your computer and drop into to the top pocked of your PhotoVu and a random slide show of all your photos will automatically begin to play. That’s all there is to it!

We have many customers that didn’t think it was a good value to purchase the new software features upgrade at time of purchase and then panic when we came out with some new cool feature. No problem, new software feature updates are always available for $19.95 that will bring your PhotoVu up to date with the latest new features release, and they are good for an entire year’s worth after.

In the event that we find any bugs in our software, we always offer those software releases for free.

Many people are somewhat taken back that we ask them to pay for software feature updates even though this it is a very common practice in the software industry to pay for new versions of software. For instance, the latest Mac OS X upgrade, or iLife upgrade, which also includes updates to other Apple applications like iPhoto, are not free.

PhotoVu digital picture frames and iPhoto work so well together because we put a lot of time and effort into making sure they do. When Apple releases their new iPhoto release, it may come as a surprise, but Apple doesn’t notify PhotoVu ahead of time on what they plan to do. Unfortunately, these updates to iPhoto often will “break” the compatibility between the PhotoVu digital picture frame software and the basic iPhoto package and require substantial upgrade and efforts on our part . So we have to spend lots of man-hours and real development dollars updating the PhotoVu software to ensure seamless integration. This is one of the many reasons why we charge for feature upgrades to our software. Remember, you are never required to subscribe or pay for new software feature updates for your PhotoVu to continue to work flawlessly; it just won’t have the latest up-to-date software feature enhancements.

This is a very powerful and a very deep feature of the PhotoVu that has a lot of capabilities that can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, it can allow a PhotoVu owner to automatically see photos posted by other friends and family members. Or, we have many customers who buy a PhotoVu to give to a loved one that may be a little older or not very technical. They will configure it at the remote location and set it up to automatically sync to a photo sharing website and their corresponding RSS feed. This way, they can automatically manage what pictures the remote frame plays by posting or deleting the corresponding pictures on the photo sharing website. Lastly, many photo sharing websites have groups or “pools” of themed pictures (i.e. sunsets, flowers, sports, landscapes, beaches, etc.) that their users can submit for other to see by simply “tagging” the picture when it’s uploaded with the appropriate tag. A popular group here at PhotoVu is “flowers.” If you subscribe to the Flickr “flowers” group feed, you can have your PhotoVu automatically go to the Flickr website every X minutes to download new beautiful flowers and display them as part of your overall photo show, or even by themselves on a timed schedule in its own separate photo show.

The above just barely touches on all the capabilities of RSS and the PhotoVu. We expect to add many more capabilities to the PhotoVu involving RSS technologies, so stay tuned, and don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list to a keep abreast of all the latest features an enhancements.

• Apple iPhoto (current version and one prior)
• Google Picasa (current version)

Integration of Photo Management Software with the PhotoVu is driven by the needs of our installed base.  If you have a suggestion on an additional software package, please let us know.  We might already be working on it!