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Visioneer PhotoPort TV 100
August 7, 2002 Sharing digital photos with family and friends just got easier and more fun. We recently previewed one new program and one new device, both introduced at PC/TECH Expo NY 2002 last month (send a SASE if you missed our column on all the other cool things there). We think you’ll find each device an appealing way to use those digital photos you’ve been taking and want to share with family, friends, or even business associates. 3D-Album (Micro Research Institute, Windows 95+, 3D graphics accelerator display adapter, $39.99) is easy to use and a novel approach to displaying and sharing your digital photos on a computer. The device allows you to have your pictures spin, slide, explode (and more) across the screen, resulting in a fascinating, ever-changing photo display. We were intrigued by all the possibilities available. The program includes more than 20 styles of display, from simple to outworldish, with more than 30 additional styles available for free download from their Web site. For example, one style features a slowly turning 3D cube with your photos on each side, changing perspective as it turns. Another style shows the photos as walls of a rotating room. Still another cool style has flashing lightning bolts zapping out from a center sphere to the rotating pictures. You can have pictures travel along the sides of train cars, on a balloon, a sailing ship or as 3D Christmas tree ornaments--or choose one of the available straight-forward styles if you prefer. Each style has different selectable variables, such as background colors, speed of rotation, or size of the photos. Some of the styles let you add text that crawls, slithers or rotates across the screen. One style displays a 3D movie theater, with titles appearing on screen as the curtain opens to your photos. Or add a photo image that includes your desired text. There’s an option for adding music or narration to play in the background as your album runs. An included image browser makes it easy to add, remove and arrange the sequence of your photos. Once you’ve selected all your images, sound and style, you can save your 3D album on a CD-ROM. You’ll need a CD writer for this (the album is automatically saved on your hard drive). The CD-ROM includes compressed versions of all your images, sound files and a viewing program, so it can be played on any computer. There are options for saving the images in a lower resolution to help minimize file sizes. You can also save the album to run as a screen saver, an e-mail attachment, or as an HTML file to add to a Web page (a great way to add interest to Web pages). Be aware that the speed of your computer, RAM and display card can all have an impact on how briskly the displays show. The included tutorial and demo CD-ROM help you get the most out of the program. Another option for easy digital photo display is the new PhotoPort TV 100 (Visioneer, $99), which shows your digital photos on a television screen. Though many digital cameras have a video output that lets you display pictures directly from the camera to your TV, there has been no easy way to organize them into albums, rotate photos, add text and the like. The PhotoPort TV 100 is a stand alone device that lets you do all this and more, with no computer needed. This small unit connects to the video input of your TV and has card slots to plug in Compact Flash, Smart Media or IBM Microdrive memory cards. Take your pictures, pop the card from the digital camera directly into the PhotoPort TV 100, and use the included wireless keyboard or remote control to control the picture display on your TV. You can organize the pictures into albums for editing and automatic slide show display by selecting from the thumbnail pictures. Editing includes rotating, cropping and resizing, adding captions (selections of colors and fonts are included) and even placing several photos on one page. A choice of frames, backgrounds and mats add fun and interest to the pictures. For example, the caption can be framed in a speech or thought bubble. Title pages are easy to add and edit as well. On-screen help and an extensive printed user manual are available if you need them. The original pictures on your memory card are not affected by any of this editing, and the album information is stored on the same memory card. You can create several albums, and the same pictures can be included in one or more albums. Share the albums by saving them to a different memory card, with all the images, captions, frames, and so forth included, or simply use your VCR to record the slide show. An included USB cable connects to your computer, permitting you to save your album and images on your hard drive. An added bonus is that the device will act as a card reader/writer when connected to your computer. |
