congrats Dave - sounds like something I will really enjoy using and targeted at someone like me - now when nothing is on TV and I have gone through my Tivo'd shows, I can easily switch to this instead of watching crap on tv... have never been much for surfing on my tv really, but make the photo viewing experience easier for that environment and I think you have a winner.
Neil Barnwell
· 1 year ago
Nice work, mate - as an amateur photographer that's something I'd love to have myself (though I'm gonna have to wait as I'm a windows user). How does it get to the TV though? Are you envisaging some sort of Media PC in the living room, presumably? This'd be great to see what my friends' new pictures are without even looking for them. What about content control? You wouldn't necessarily want your mate's bachelor party photos to start springing up on your 52" plasma while you have your in-laws round...
parablane
· 1 year ago
Sounds neat. I guess the features like Twitter feedback are what would distinguish this from a product like Google Photos Screensaver (http://pack.google.com/screensaver.html)? What kind of return flow can you give to Flickr (the "two-way" bit)?
1938media
· 1 year ago
Nice. Real Nice.
francine hardaway
· 1 year ago
I'm waiting for sundown!!!
dave
· 1 year ago
Francine, your Half Moon Bay neighbors, the Scobles, have it running on the TV in their living room.
Jonathan Greene
· 1 year ago
Sounds awesome! Looking forward to playing later tonight!
hardaway
· 1 year ago
Waiting anxiously for sundown...thanks, Dave.
divconspiracy
· 1 year ago
Hey! Brian Bailey's tweet sent me here to check it out, and I'll admit I'm intrigued. This looks cool, I'll be checking it out. Thanks!
Louis Gray
· 1 year ago
Looking forward to your announcement, Dave, and working with it ourselves. And if you keep it Mac-only, the community would appreciate it!
RacerRick
· 1 year ago
I assume this your "Intent" post?
A couple of questions/comments... you've gotta have a computer hooked up to the flatscreen, yes? What do you recommend? Mac Mini?
I've got a flickr feed of our kid's photos that goes out daily to all the grandparents via email. It would be great if this was the kind of product that could be setup at the grandparent's house so they could "tune in" to the latest photos quite easily.
Finally, have you considered a way to get this to run on those photo frames? They can connect to the internets and they've been a top seller two years in a row!
dave
· 1 year ago
Yes, this is very much the Intent post. I couldn't write yesterday that I like them without writing one myself. :-)
I'm into reaching into nooks and crannies, but first gotta get the basic release out and in the hands of the nerds. Then we can figure out how to connect to the frames. I imagine they receive pictures via email?
RacerRick
· 1 year ago
I don't think they can email... but not sure. I've got one here that I have to setup for my sister. I'll do a little reading and see what the deal is.
Putting photos on a photo frame remotely would be awesome. Family photos, news photos... nature photos... would love that at my desk at work.
RacerRick
· 1 year ago
A little research... phillips is the most popular and unfortunately Phillips just has a USB connection.
Looks like most are USB only.
dave
· 1 year ago
Chumby supports RSS, and so does the new product (meaning you can route a picture of the kids to your output RSS feed).
So it sounds like it connects to the TV with a Mac Mini. I know a lot of people say the AppleTV "sucks", but, really it doesn't, and it syncs up with iPhoto very easily. How is this going to be that much better? You can easily get into the software of the AppleTV to make it much more functional.
Can you make your new software run on my AppleTV? :)
Jason
dave
· 1 year ago
I bought an AppleTV and used it once, left it turned on and plugged in a for a few months, then realized I was never going to use it, so I unplugged it and put it on a shelf in the den. A few days ago a friend asked if he could have it and I said okay. So I don't even have one to test with. I'm sure you could make my pics flow through AppleTV without any trouble or extra expense since you need a Mac to synch up with it (ridiculous requirement).
To answer your question (yes I saw the smiley, so I know it's not a feature request) -- no I can't make it run on AppleTV. You need to ask Apple. I happen to respond to questions and they don't. If you can get them to explain why AppleTV doesn't run Mac software I'd be interested in hearing about that.
Jason Ehrlich
· 1 year ago
Hm. It may run on AppleTV already depending on what is needed. The AppleTV is just a slowed down Mac (it runs Mac OS X although some binaries are missing). There is a reasonably active community of people expanding it (www.awkwardtv.org) and you can do a lot with it, although not all Apple certified, and you need a screwdriver ;)
I have to say it is a pretty easy way to hook up your iTunes and iPhoto to the stereo system and TV. But Apple hasn't done as much with it as they could. Maybe they will do more with the HDTV aspect at Macworld.
Well, I certainly look forward to seeing what you've developed for all of us! I am sure it will be very interesting.
dd
· 1 year ago
Jason, actually you don't need a screwdriver anymore. Do a search on "AppleTV" and "patchstick". I think the awkwardTV wiki had a link to a very nice set of instructions, including how to downgrade if needed. Requires a USB stick and no fear of an expected kernal panic during the hack.
Dave, I too would be interested in an AppleTV port - but my instincts say anything like that is best put off until hear the MWSF keynote. With the latest rumors of Fox rentals in iTS, it feels like something is coming in regards to Apple's intentions with the AppleTV.
jehrlich
· 1 year ago
I would hope they do more with ATV!
Actually, I used the screwdriver to upgrade the hard drive.
Dave, indeed, I think the FlickrFan would be an excellent port to AppleTV - it may work more or less out of the box, depending on whether any parts of OS X it requires have been purged from the 1.1 release of AppleTV (1.0 had a lot more of OS X in it from reading the AwkwardTV website).
The AppleTV actually connects much better to home stereo and AV equipment then Mac Mini - it has a full complement of audio and video outs such as HDMI, component video, and digital optical audio out.
When I get back from vacation I'll try to see if FlickrFan can be made to run on it.
The alternate is to leave FlickrFan on the Mac and just sync the photo download folder into the remote mounted AppleTV (if you have it hacked appropriately this should be very easy).
trevor
· 1 year ago
Sounds interesting. The only system I have connected to a TV is an original xbox (modified), though. So I'll have to try it on my macbook for the time being.
Gene Poole
· 1 year ago
To get it to work on Windows it needs to place the photos in: C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Pictures and have the Control Panel -> Display -> Screensaver set to: "My Pictures Slideshow". Someone should be able to create a variant pretty quickly... Kosso or Les Orchard maybe.
somenice
· 1 year ago
Does it have a name yet? Looking forward to this, thanks.
stewtopia
· 1 year ago
Looking forward to it Dave... I've had my Mac Mini up on my Panasonic front projector for about a year now. Works beautifully for my own photos, but not for others. I look forward to trying this out,
Cheers, Randy
RacerRick
· 1 year ago
Another couple thoughts... my MacPro on my Panasonic 50" makes my eyes hurt. And I've used it maybe 10 times in 2 years. It's not fun.
Meanwhile, I've got 3 other devices connected in my TV cabinet: xbox, sonos & slingbox. Each of those get used way more often.
Dave you should also consider how to run your program on xbox - I have a feeling it was a nice christmas for xbox live.
Larry
· 1 year ago
Pretty cool work, Dave. I like FeedUs suggestion to consider the Xbox.
It's interesting to see where innovation is coming from these days. Chris Minnick looked into the porn sites to research the rumors that they are on the cutting edge of Web technologies. His results were largely (http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?sec...) disappointing. Seems that it's coming from people like you.
Weird "research" choice, right?
Eric
· 1 year ago
Looking forward to it! I would like to volunteer as a beta tester too if you are interested in getting high quality feedback and bug reports.
Florian SEROUSSI
· 1 year ago
Looking to try this new software. My mac mini is all ready for it!!
Bug report: Pix that I took as verticals, uploaded sideways, rotated in Flickr = sideways in FlickrFan. Does that make sense?
John Eckman
· 1 year ago
Same symptom for me. But what's also interesting is that if you open the folder of jpgs (/Users/username/Pictures/photoFan/screenSaverPics/feed) and open the jpgs, the right alignment is shown.
Caledonia
· 1 year ago
So I am presuming the Mac will need to be connected directly to the TV? Hows about also feeding the images automagically into a iPhoto/Aperture so that they can be pulled onto an un-hacked Apple TV? Which coincidentally I do have linked to my TV ;-)
Ralf
· 1 year ago
Thank you very much Dave. The pictures from AP look great on my black Intel MacBook that is connected to a Panasonic 42" Plasma. Immediate request: Is there a way that the Mac Photo ScreenSaver can display the contextual information (if I go to "Events" I can see that it is available) together with each photo?
Comment on system load: OPML is using 5% of the CPU, EyeTV 3%. Please keep an eye on the CPU impact, I hate the noise of the MB fans (and OPML is not the only thing running on the machine).
This application is adressing a concrete requirement. Thanks for figuring out this need and building a working solution.
Stephanie Agresta
· 1 year ago
Hey Dave. This is great. This is like an uber version of those cool digital picture frames. :)
kp
· 1 year ago
Isn't this just a screensaver for various types of screens - computer, HDTV, etc.?
J. Sperling Reich
· 1 year ago
I downloaded the software last night and installed it as directed. I entered my Flickr username in and it found my public feed. Here's the one catch:
No photos downloaded from Flickr into my folder. I have the OPML editor running as well as Safari. I can see the feed of my photos under feeds (as well as the feeds for all my Flickr contacts), I can even see that I have 20 photos in my public feed, but no photos get downloaded.
My Tivo has been displaying my pictures from my computer on my TV for a couple of years. What's the big deal?
Noah Mittman
· 1 year ago
Of course, if one-way is fine for you, there is the .Mac/RSS screensaver built-in with Leopard.
James
· 1 year ago
Wish there was a Windows or Linux version. Someday maybe when I own a Mac I can try this.
Paul
· 1 year ago
When will the Windows version be available?
Don
· 1 year ago
Can you extend this so that you could link up the photos with a podcast, with either predefined pictures displaying at pre-set times, or maybe random selections from a preset group or feed, or just random pictures? That way you could have an AP news podcast that could sync to AP pictures of the event, or add pictures to an instructional podcast, or just give you something to look at while listening to a podcast on your tv.
All Comments
However ... the reply is published as an answer to the Comment on your post by 'rickmahn'.
Regards,
Rick
Great!
A couple of questions/comments... you've gotta have a computer hooked up to the flatscreen, yes? What do you recommend? Mac Mini?
I've got a flickr feed of our kid's photos that goes out daily to all the grandparents via email. It would be great if this was the kind of product that could be setup at the grandparent's house so they could "tune in" to the latest photos quite easily.
Finally, have you considered a way to get this to run on those photo frames? They can connect to the internets and they've been a top seller two years in a row!
I'm into reaching into nooks and crannies, but first gotta get the basic release out and in the hands of the nerds. Then we can figure out how to connect to the frames. I imagine they receive pictures via email?
Putting photos on a photo frame remotely would be awesome. Family photos, news photos... nature photos... would love that at my desk at work.
Looks like most are USB only.
time to bring this bad boy back - http://www.bradsoft.com/img/thanksdave.jpg
Can you make your new software run on my AppleTV? :)
Jason
To answer your question (yes I saw the smiley, so I know it's not a feature request) -- no I can't make it run on AppleTV. You need to ask Apple. I happen to respond to questions and they don't. If you can get them to explain why AppleTV doesn't run Mac software I'd be interested in hearing about that.
I have to say it is a pretty easy way to hook up your iTunes and iPhoto to the stereo system and TV. But Apple hasn't done as much with it as they could. Maybe they will do more with the HDTV aspect at Macworld.
Well, I certainly look forward to seeing what you've developed for all of us! I am sure it will be very interesting.
Dave, I too would be interested in an AppleTV port - but my instincts say anything like that is best put off until hear the MWSF keynote. With the latest rumors of Fox rentals in iTS, it feels like something is coming in regards to Apple's intentions with the AppleTV.
Actually, I used the screwdriver to upgrade the hard drive.
Dave, indeed, I think the FlickrFan would be an excellent port to AppleTV - it may work more or less out of the box, depending on whether any parts of OS X it requires have been purged from the 1.1 release of AppleTV (1.0 had a lot more of OS X in it from reading the AwkwardTV website).
The AppleTV actually connects much better to home stereo and AV equipment then Mac Mini - it has a full complement of audio and video outs such as HDMI, component video, and digital optical audio out.
When I get back from vacation I'll try to see if FlickrFan can be made to run on it.
The alternate is to leave FlickrFan on the Mac and just sync the photo download folder into the remote mounted AppleTV (if you have it hacked appropriately this should be very easy).
C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Pictures
and have the Control Panel -> Display -> Screensaver set to:
"My Pictures Slideshow". Someone should be able to create a variant pretty quickly...
Kosso or Les Orchard maybe.
Cheers,
Randy
Meanwhile, I've got 3 other devices connected in my TV cabinet: xbox, sonos & slingbox. Each of those get used way more often.
Dave you should also consider how to run your program on xbox - I have a feeling it was a nice christmas for xbox live.
It's interesting to see where innovation is coming from these days. Chris Minnick looked into the porn sites to research the rumors that they are on the cutting edge of Web technologies.
His results were largely (http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?sec...) disappointing. Seems that it's coming from people like you.
Weird "research" choice, right?
http://flickrfan.org/
Dave
Comment on system load: OPML is using 5% of the CPU, EyeTV 3%. Please keep an eye on the CPU impact, I hate the noise of the MB fans (and OPML is not the only thing running on the machine).
This application is adressing a concrete requirement. Thanks for figuring out this need and building a working solution.
No photos downloaded from Flickr into my folder. I have the OPML editor running as well as Safari. I can see the feed of my photos under feeds (as well as the feeds for all my Flickr contacts), I can even see that I have 20 photos in my public feed, but no photos get downloaded.
What am I doing wrong?
http://twitter.com/sperling