Westinghouse 14" Digital Photo Frame [Archive]

Chris Gohlke

09-05-2007, 03:00 PM

<img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/cgg-westinghouse-07072007.jpg" /> Product Category: Digital Picture Frame Manufacturer: <a href="http://www.westinghousedigital.com/details.aspx?itemnum=113">Westinghouse</a> Where to Buy: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-3418745-5804138?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=westinghouse+digital+picture+frame&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go">Amazon.com</a> [Affiliate] Price: $288.88 USD System Requirements: Supports CF I,II / MD / MS / MS Pro / MS Duo / MS Pro Duo / SD / MMC / XD / USB Host / Mini-USB, Uses included AC/DC power supply Specifications: Hardware only: 14.1" screen at 1280x800, 128 MB internal Memory Pros:<li>Stylish; <li>Great image quality from straight on; <li>MosaicView provides unique slide show.Cons:<li>Non-standard screen dimensions; <li>Poor image quality unless looking straight on; <li>Difficult to copy a large batch of photos without hooking up to a computer.Summary: The DPR-1411 is the top of the line digital photo frame from <a href="http://www.westinghousedigital.com/details.aspx?itemnum=113">Westinghouse</a>. Some of its features show that it is a really well thought out product, while others just leave you scratching your head wondering what they were thinking. Read on for the full review!<!> <PAGEBREAK> Looks Great, Works...OK Before we jump into the good and bad, here are the basics. The DPR-1411 is a 14.1" digital picture frame. It supports JPEG, AVI Motion-JPEG, MPEG 1, MPEG 4 formats. It has 128 MB of internal memory and also supports all the regular memory card formats. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/cgg-westinthebox-07122007.jpg" /> Figure 1: What you get in the box. Let’s start off with the physical frame itself. This is a good sized frame with overall measurements of 16.2" x 11.5 " x 1.5". The frame has a classy black finish and comes with a white matte insert. As a nice touch, there are thumbscrews on the back that let you easily take it apart and substitute out any matte you like. The frame has a detachable kickstand depending if you want to use this frame on a table or on the wall. The screen is the key to any digital picture frame and unfortunately, here is where this model starts to lose some points. The screen has a resolution of 1280 x 800 and from straight on, pictures look great, even at close range. The screen is 14.1" diagonally, however, unfortunately it is oddly proportioned relative to photos, so as a result your pictures are either cropped improperly or they have space around the edges. I’m guessing that they use repurposed screens like those that would be manufactured for a widescreen laptop. Unfortunately, the screen does not look nearly as good from angles as it does straight on. Also, like all digital picture frames, this one is backlit. I’d really like to see a clock/timer incorporated into the frame. That way I don’t need to manually turn it on and off just to avoid having it illuminate my living room at night. <PAGEBREAK> Working With the Frame <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/cgg-westcards-07212007.jpg" /> Figure 2: Inputs galore. This frame accepts CF I,II / MD / MS / MS Pro / MS Duo / MS Pro Duo / SD / MMC / XD memory cards as well as acting as a USB host device to plug in a USB key or connect directly to a camera. Unfortunately, all of these connections suffer from the built-in software’s inability to deal with more than one photo at a time. The frame comes with about a dozen images preloaded, so first you need to delete them one at a time and then copy your images from your media of choice ONE AT A TIME. The way to avoid this issue is to plug the frame directly into your computer, then the internal memory becomes accessible as a flash drive giving you full access to copy/delete. However, this process is not exactly speedy as it took about 6 minutes to copy 61 MB of photos. I’d really like to see the addition of a batch copy/delete all function. If I’ve gone through the trouble of mounting this on the wall, I really don’t want to have to take it down and carry it to my computer to switch out the files. I’d rather load up a memory card or USB key and just walk it over and perform a batch copy. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/cgg-westbuttons-07212007.jpg" /> Figure 3: Simple controls. The controls are simple and easy to use, even if I did have to keep looking at the screen to the side of the unit to see which button to push. The only problem I encountered was from the somewhat non-responsive power button. You have to push and hold it for a few seconds and then let go. Then after a few more seconds, you'll get a Westinghouse splash screen. When I was originally testing the unit, I thought it was defective because I was apparently not patient enough when turning it on and was pushing the power button again (turning it back off) instead of waiting for the splash screen. One of the coolest features of this frame is called MosaicView. Basically, this feature kicks in when you're doing a slide show and want to display more than one picture at a time. If you have pictures in portrait and landscape orientations, it will go set your slide show to combine the two so you might have a portrait picture on one side and two landscape pictures on the other. This allows for a far more interesting presentation of your pictures, as you can see below. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/cgg-westmosaic-07122007.jpg" /> Figure 4: MosaicView in action. Of note, two of the 54 test images that I loaded were not viewable by the frame for an unknown reason. You can see what happened when the frame tried to display the pictures below. The only thing these two images had in common that none of the other pictures had was their resolution. The two images were 2288 x 1712 and I had other images loaded that were both higher and lower resolution that had no issues. Westinghouse was not able to duplicate the error on their end with the same pictures, but I received two units from Westinghouse, and both exhibited this same behavior. I declined their offer to send a third unit for testing. <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/cgg-westinghouse-08312007.jpg" /> Figure 5: Image Display Problem. Finally, this unit also supports video, however, there is no speaker for sound output. At first I thought of this as a problem, but really, would you want sound coming from a picture frame? Instead, I think the intended use of this would be to have animated photos. For example instead of just a static group shoot, a looping video of everyone waving at the camera would be a neat effect, a lot like the photographs in the Harry Potter universe. Wrapping it All Up... I’ve played with some other digital picture frames in the past, and compared to the others, this ranks pretty well. However, at a list price of nearly $400, I expected a little more attention to detail. So, if you're convinced you want a digital picture frame, this is still one of the nicer ones out there. You can pick up this one or some of its smaller siblings <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/digitalmediathoughts-20/search/105-4387858-3571614?node=0&keywords=westinghouse+frame&x=0&y=0&preview=">starting at low as $90 on Amazon.com</a> [Affiliate]. Chris Gohlke is a Contributing Editor for Digital Media Thoughts. He loves Sci-Fi and loves to get his hands on real-life tech gadgets. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, USA with his wife and three cats.