Help with Digital Photo Frame and SD Card on Mac

[iSaint]

For Christmas, I bought my mother a Westinghouse digital picture frame. Never one to read directions, I inserted the 2gig SD Card I also bought into the frame, and plugged the mini-usb cable from the frame to my Powerbook. Both the card and the internal memory of the frame were recognized in Finder, so I began to transfer photos from iPhoto to the card.

Most of the photos were visible in the frame. However, there were indications that many were not compatible, even though they were all jpg photos. I wondered if I needed to format the card for Mac (not thinking that then the frame wouldn't be able to read it)?! So I reformatted the SD Card for Mac, and, of course, the photos weren't recognized on the frame.

I assume the only way to place photos on the SD card that the frame will recognized is to format it back to MS DOS.

Does anyone have any other ideas or tips? Can I make copies of the photos on my Powerbook in a way that will ensure they are readable on the MS DOS formatted card?

Thanks in advance.

PS there are slots on the frame for other types of memory cards. Would there be a better solution there?

 

[jpfisher]

My first two instincts on troubleshooting this one --

-- Reformat the card, preferably in a camera
-- Run a batch resize on all the JPGs you want to load up on the frame to give them a resolution approximate to that of the LCD screen in the frame.

You may also want to try and load the card using an SD card reader/writer, rather than via the USB cable when the card is in the frame.

 

[ChrisA]

I just went through this process myself. I put abunch of phots in a picture frame I'll give to my parents. Some observations:

1) Even a 1GB SD card is WAY to large. Total overkill but of course it will work fine. This is a great use for an old 64MB card you might have laying around, maybe in a bag with your old camera. Images that are sized for picture frames are at most 200K (five images per megabyte or 5,000 per GB)

2) To make the pictures look their best you really should crop each one to the exact aspect ratin of the frame. In my case this was 9:16. But if you ca live with black bars and/or random crops don't bother

3) The colors on the typical cheap picture frame are horrible. Put in a few, look at them and go back and edit the colors and contract on the computer. The trick is to distort it in the oposite way the frame does so in the end the color is correct. Learn how to adjust the color so it looks good before you spend all the time to load in 500 pictures. I noticed that my picture frames color space was _much_ smaller than sRGB

4) Memory cards should always be formated with a FAT file system (aka "MS DOS" filesystem) and all the images need to be in the root directory, not inside folders.

5) if you do put over sized image files on the SD card navigation using the buttons on the picture frame will be very slow.

 

[iSaint]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm going to create an automator workflow to change the size of the pics. the 2g SD is definitely overkill! I have just over 200 pics, and I think once I resize they will all fit on the 128mb of internal memory.

However, Westinghouse doesn't give specs detailed enough that tell resolution or photo size for their frame. It's a 7 inch widescreen. What was your 9:16 in pixels, ChrisA?

I wanted to buy the Kodak model. A little better quality, probably easier to format, etc.

 

[iSaint]

Ok, I'm guessing here.

I changed my automator to scale pictures first, then crop. I chose the default 480 pixels for the scale, then 853 X 480 for crop. It looks as though they'll be a bit small. Let me know if you have any other ideas on where I should go with this.

thanks...

 

[mgguy]

Just got a digital frame. When I plugged it into USB on my iMac and tried to move pictures to it, I ran into a problem similar to one I had when I tried to move MP3 songs onto my cell phone. The problem is that OS X creates "hidden" format-type files that gets moved along with the photos (or songs, in the case of music transfers). These files are not "visible" on the Mac, but are on the digital frame. When you look at the photo files on the frame after the transfer, these unnecessary files show up as being "incompatable" or some such thing. The actual photos show up in the frame, but these other format files are not readable and clutter the index of photos shown in the frame window. There is a way to get rid of these unnecesary format files, to get them not to transfer the storage device (the frame in this case). This is not easy to do without software created for this purpose. One application that is very effective and easy/fast is called FinderCleaner. Go to VersionTracker to find it, or Google it. It works great and many people I know use it for this purpose. Its a snap.

 

[SoLaTiDo]

Help with Digital Photo Frame and SD Card on Mac

Thanks, mgguy! I had started a similar thread relating to my problems with my Pandigital frame. I downloaded the FinderCleaner, used it on my JPGs, but then my frame's icon wouldn't show up on my desktop!
By the way, I made copies of all the JPGs I wanted to use in the digital frame before "cleaning" them. Then I put them all on a USB flash drive, and moved them to my daughter's PC. From there I figured out how to put them into the Pandigital photo frame. Even THEN, I noticed that somewhere in the process, unreadable duplicates of each file had appeared. I deleted them before uploading them to the photo frame. Now it is working great, and the transitions are faster since the frame isn't trying to read all the bad duplicate files.

Just got a digital frame. When I plugged it into USB on my iMac and tried to move pictures to it, I ran into a problem similar to one I had when I tried to move MP3 songs onto my cell phone. The problem is that OS X creates "hidden" format-type files that gets moved along with the photos (or songs, in the case of music transfers). These files are not "visible" on the Mac, but are on the digital frame. When you look at the photo files on the frame after the transfer, these unnecessary files show up as being "incompatable" or some such thing. The actual photos show up in the frame, but these other format files are not readable and clutter the index of photos shown in the frame window. There is a way to get rid of these unnecesary format files, to get them not to transfer the storage device (the frame in this case). This is not easy to do without software created for this purpose. One application that is very effective and easy/fast is called FinderCleaner. Go to VersionTracker to find it, or Google it. It works great and many people I know use it for this purpose. Its a snap.

 

[mgguy]

Thanks, mgguy! I had started a similar thread relating to my problems with my Pandigital frame. I downloaded the FinderCleaner, used it on my JPGs, but then my frame's icon wouldn't show up on my desktop!
By the way, I made copies of all the JPGs I wanted to use in the digital frame before "cleaning" them. Then I put them all on a USB flash drive, and moved them to my daughter's PC. From there I figured out how to put them into the Pandigital photo frame. Even THEN, I noticed that somewhere in the process, unreadable duplicates of each file had appeared. I deleted them before uploading them to the photo frame. Now it is working great, and the transitions are faster since the frame isn't trying to read all the bad duplicate files.

I think your problem might be that you made copies of the pictures before "cleaning" them. The way you should do it is to just "drag" (copy) all the pictures you want from your pictures file on the Mac to the icon for the picture frame that shows up on your desktop. Then, just before removing the frame connection, run FinderCleaner and identify the frame icon or file as the thing that you want to be cleaned. Then just click the eject button in FinderCleaner and your picture frame memory should be free of any of the useless Mac-format files. This works fine for me. Good luck.

 

[ChrisA]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm going to create an automator workflow to change the size of the pics. the 2g SD is definitely overkill! I have just over 200 pics, and I think once I resize they will all fit on the 128mb of internal memory.

However, Westinghouse doesn't give specs detailed enough that tell resolution or photo size for their frame. It's a 7 inch widescreen. What was your 9:16 in pixels, ChrisA?

I wanted to buy the Kodak model. A little better quality, probably easier to format, etc.

Wen I was at the store, reading the specs printed on the boxes I noticed that not all 7 inch frames are the same resolotion some are as lpw as (I forget the exact numbers) some as low as ablout 230 by 550. some higher priced models were twice that and some even more. Prices for 7 inch frames ranged from $60 to $180. I don't tink there is any "standard".

I think I sized mine for 1/4 the size of a 720P TV which is 640 x 360.
frame.

 

[kelmaz]

Westinghouse digital picture frame

I have a Westinghouse digital picture frame, I have had it for about a year. Some of my pics that I loaded on it are not playing.. so I was thinking maybe it needs to be reformatted, However I have no idea how to do that. I didn't buy an additional card. I have deleted all the pics off and added them again. When I hooked it up to my computer it said something about a bad... something (LOL) and asked me if I wanted to fix the problem... (funny it ran fine before that) I said yes then it said it fixed the problem only now some pics won't play??

Any Ideas

Thank You,
Kel

 

[novamedia]

There is an App for that

Hello,

we just recently released an app to make a sync between SD cards, digital Pictureframe and OS X much easier. It's called FrameLoader and it will automatically convert your images to the ideal size and resolution for your pictureframe and sync iPhoto albums, iTunes playlists and custom media files. I hope the demoversion can help you, so that you will not have to manually edit all the pictures every time. http://www.novamedia.de/en/mac-frameloader.html

Kind regards,

Jan Fuellemann (nova media)