Show Photos on a TV

Want to show your photos to a crowd? Use your TV.

Dave Johnson

Feature: Showing Your Digital Pics on Television

How do you show off your digital pictures? There's e-mail attachments, Photo CDs, postings on the Web... all those are good. But based what I get in the Digital Focus mailbag, it seems that many of you really want to display your creations on your TV screens. There are obvious advantages to this: The living room is the social center of your house, for instance. Instead of packing guests around your computer desk, why not sit them down on the couch? And unless you got your computer from the bridge of an Imperial Star Destroyer, your TV is probably the biggest screen around, making it ideal for showing folks a digital slide show.

Making the Connection

The good news is that connecting most digital cameras to a television is not rocket science. In fact, the vast majority of digital cameras--everything from $200 budget models to $2000 digital SLRs--come with their own video-out cable. Just connect your camera to a composite video input on your TV or VCR, and you're in business. Indeed, many cameras even have a built-in slide show control, so you can tell the camera to display all the images on the memory card in sequence. Nothing could be easier. For details, just check your digital camera's user guide.

That said, there are other ways to show your pictures on a television. Connecting your camera is a bit clumsy, after all; maybe you'd like a more elegant solution. Plus, you might want to show your pictures at someone else's house without sending them your camera. There are a number of gadgets that get the job done.

Suppose your folks live many miles away, and you want to send them your pictures in a way that's easy to show on a TV. Give them Microsoft's TV Photo Viewer, a floppy drive that connects to the TV. Then send your pictures on a floppy disk and your folks can watch your images, perfectly formatted for TV (Microsoft includes a program for creating a slide show). Unfortunately, the TV Photo Viewer was officially discontinued, and it's a unique product. However, I continue to see it in computer stores for as little as $20. It's a steal at that price.

If you want a more versatile photo viewer for your own television, you might want to get a gadget like the Delkin eFilm Picturevision. This 6-in-1 device reads CompactFlash types I and II media and IBM Microdrives in one slot and SmartMedia, Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, and Secure Digital media in another. The unit sits conveniently atop your television. Insert your digital camera's memory card, and Picturevision runs a slide show of your images, complete with video transitions. It even comes with a remote control so you can operate it from the couch. At press time, I found it on the PCWorld.com Product Finder for about $60.

The DVD Alternative

If you have a DVD burner in your PC, you can make DVD slide shows. One of my favorite applications for just this purpose is Sonic's MyDVD. I found MyDVD for about $65 on our Product Finder. This program lets you create a sophisticated slide show of still images with a music soundtrack and copy the whole thing to disc for playback in almost any DVD player.

Finally, I've noticed that there are DVD players showing up in stores with digital image savvy. Sampo sells the DVE-631CF, a $150 DVD player with a CompactFlash card built right in. Insert the card, and it automatically displays the images on your PC.

Dave's Favorites: Make a Soundtrack With SonicFire Pro

Maybe you've noticed that your video productions seem a little flat. You have a digital video camcorder, so the video looks good. You've added titles and transitions, so it certainly looks polished. What's missing, no doubt, is sound: What you need is a soundtrack.

SmartSound's SonicFire Pro 3.1 is a soundtrack generator that solves all of the problems that low-budget video producers commonly encounter. You can't legally use copyrighted music, for instance, without obtaining rights. And the alternative--royalty-free music software--is often too arcane for anyone but a true musician to use. SonicFire Pro is a different kind of royalty-free soundtrack creator; it comes with musical themes that you can fit precisely to your video production without knowing one lick about how to make music.

I've been using SonicFire Pro for a while, and the newest version is magical. Just import your otherwise-completed video into SonicFire Pro; it accepts video in a number of formats, including ready-for-DVD video in the popular AVI format. Then you can preview your movie in much the same way as you did in your video editing program, setting markers to indicate when music should start, stop, and change mood.

SonicFire has a clever wizard that lets you pick music by style or mood, preview it, fine-tune it, and place it into your video. The musical segments are "smart"--you can resize them to fit almost any length of video on the fly, and they always sound like they were composed to run exactly that long. There's never a clumsy cut.

Want to add an MP3? No problem--SonicFire Pro imports files as well. When you're done, you can save the soundtrack as an audio file and export it into your video editor or, even better, save your completed movie right inside SonicFire Pro.

Priced at $299, SonicFire Pro isn't inexpensive, but it's a solid investment for anyone who makes corporate videos or is serious about home-brewed movies. The basic package comes with a small musical library, and SmartSound offers a large collection of CDs to give you more musical options.

Q&A: Are SD and MMC Cards Interchangeable?

Since MultiMediaCards and Secure Digital cards look alike, can I substitute an SD card in place of the MMC card that came in my digital video camera? No one seems to be able to answer that question, including customer service. You can buy SD cards at an attractive price but you seldom see MMC cards on sale at all.

--Harold R. Buehler, New York

You're right, Harold: SD and MMC cards do look a lot alike. But therein lies the problem--they're close, but not identical. They have the same pin connections and identical height and width measurements, but SD cards are 0.7mm thicker than MMC media.

So where does that leave you? Well, you can almost always put an MMC card into an SD slot, but the reverse isn't always true. If you camera's user guide or tech support can't answer your question, my advice is to try it. Borrow an SD card from a friend and give it a shot. Gently insert the card--don't force it! If it slides in and is recognized by the camera, you're in business. Unless you can find your question answered on the Web in a product review or FAQ, there really isn't a good way to tell without actually trying.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This week's Hot Pic: "Victoria Day," by Mike Whitty, St. Catherines, Ontario

Mike says that he took this photo with a Hewlett-Packard 320 while celebrating the Canadian holiday. "I was really happy with the way it captured the sparklers," he adds, "but it also reminds me a little bit of a face."

We want your feedback! Send your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself to comments@bydavejohnson.com. If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in the weekly Q&A, send it to question@bydavejohnson.com.

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