Digital cameras have left some folks behind.
The devices, whose sales have surpassed those of film cameras, have made the photo-sharing experience more like a broadcast than an intimate moment.
Digital shutterbugs have almost no limit on the number of pictures they take because storage is reusable. And they can create perfect copies of their pictures with the click of a button.
That means they can mass-distribute tons of pictures to a wide audience. No longer is photo-sharing reserved for people who happen to come by the house and flip through an album or for relatives who get copies of prints in the mail. Everybody gets your photos all the time.
Everybody, that is, except people without computers.
True, photo-sharing sites such as Kodak’s Ofoto allow you to order prints of your digital pictures and send them anywhere.
But it’s not the same as being able to send all your photos to everyone, in part because it costs money and thus limits the number of people to whom you’re willing to distribute your photos.
FlipAlbum Recorder costs $250
E-Book Systems Inc.’s FlipAlbum Recorder solves the problem by cutting out that middleman. The $250 device attaches to a television set, allowing you to view photos stored on a CD or the small memory cards that digital cameras use for storage.
The FlipAlbum can cut down on the costs of sharing photos with the computerless population. Buy Grandma the device, show her how to use it and send her cheap data CDs with dozens of photos.
The FlipAlbum plugs into a wall outlet and connects to the TV with standard RCA cables for audio and video. It also has an S-Video port, but you have to buy the cable separately.
On the TV screen, the device displays a clean menu of options. Insert a CD that contains photos, use the remote control to select a photo album from the CD, and you’re ready to scroll through the photos.
The same goes for photos on storage media. The FlipAlbum accepts CompactFlash cards, so if your camera uses another type of storage, such as SD, you’ll have to buy an adapter.
The FlipAlbum presents photos as if they’re in a scrapbook, displaying two photos at a time on the screen.
As you click the right or left buttons, animated pages turn to the next two photos. Clicking on another button zooms in on a photo so that it takes up most of the TV screen.
Music while you browse
You can also choose music to play while you browse photos and select from several scrapbook styles.
The device comes with a CD of scrapbook themes and music, and you can also upload an MP3 file of your own.
Unfortunately, you’re limited to an MP3 that is less than 3 megabytes in size, so a lengthy song such as “Stairway to Heaven” is probably out of the question. If you’re viewing photos off a storage card, you can burn the photos to CD, either as a FlipAlbum scrapbook with its own theme and music or as raw data that can be read in a computer.
Computers already handle most of these features, of course. That’s why this device is probably best to help you share photos with people who don’t have a computer or aren’t particularly savvy about technology. But $250 does seem like a hefty price for a device with such limited features.
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