SanDisk SDV-1A Digital Photo Viewer
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Our Price: $99.99 Availability: Usually ships in 4-5 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Other then that, the main advantage is portability. But since my pics are almost always going to post-processing, displaying the pics directly from the CF card does not do them justice.
Cool gizmo, too pricey for the limitations (see tech data).
- The memory card reader is relatively slow at reading the large files generated by the camera. The JPEG files from the Digital Rebel are typically between 4 and 6 MB and they can take 10-15 seconds to display. This isn't much a problem during a slide show, but when you want to jump ahead it makes it difficult because the device seems like it isn't responding. You'd think with Sandisk being the current king of fast flash, that the reader would be quicker.
- The card reader cannot (or will not) read files larger than 5.3MB. You get an error on the screen saying as much, if you try. My pictures aren't typically this big, but depending the picture they can be, which is even more irritating because some pictures from a given card will show up while others won't.
- Another warning for those that use high quality digital SLRs etc, is that this camera reads ONLY JPEG files. It does not display RAW files, nor can it extract the embedded JPEGs. Of course, I didn't expect it to do so, but this may not be clear to other potential buyers.
Obviously, I could shoot lower quality (but if I spend that much on a camera, why would I?) or I could convert the images to smaller files on the PC (but this eliminates the ease of use factor). I think if I had paid for this product rather than receiving it free, the above issues might give enough reason for me to return it.
Every person that has seen the photo viewer that I purchased, has ordered one for themselves, even the cable guy that fixed my cable box. It is harder to get it out of it's package, than it is to set up. The instructions are not too clear, but I was up and running in less time than it took to type this sentence.
When I travel, I take tons of digital photos. When I get back, using a SanDisk reader/writer, I pick the best 50 photos, and write them to one SmartMedia card. Then using photo viewer, I show my pics to our family.
It works just as advertised, and has not been added to that big box of stuff that sounded good, but either was junk, or that I could not figure it out.