Digital Spectrum U-30343 NuVue 7" Plus Digital Picture Frame

by Digital Spectrum

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches ; 7.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000JRLEO0
• Item model number: U-30343
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

The NV-700 plus accepts CF/SD/XD/MMC/MS cards for maximum compatibility with major digital cameras. The unit is light, portable and easy to use. A great companion to your digital camera and an excellent way of showing off your pictures to family and friends. An easy to use on screen menu is used to access the different control functions, giving you full control of the slide show and player functions.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad Design - Damages Aspect Ratio, December 31, 2006

By 

Mazen A. Salhi (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Digital Spectrum U-30343 NuVue 7" Plus Digital Picture Frame (Electronics)

I picked up this unit to give as a New Year's gift to some family friends, having not tried digital frames myself before. Considering the price, this unit is quite bad, I would say.

The most annoying thing about it must be that it has no respect for your photo's original aspect ratio. The algorithm it uses seems pretty simple ... and thoughtless: fill as many frame pixels with whatever image you have. So if that would cause squashing or stretching, so be it.

I actually tried to return it, but could not make it before the store closed for the holiday, so I fiddled with it, and got the way to "fix" your photos so they look OK on this frame:

1. The frame uses 16W:9H ratio, so the AR is 16/9 = 1.77778.
2. You need to determine your own AR. Be careful, it might not always be 4:3. I'm using a Canon 20D at Large and the ratio it has at this setting is 3W:2H (1.5)
3. Divide your AR by that of the frame (1.777). In my case, it's 1.5 divided by 1.7777 ==> 0.844.
4. Use any editing software to stretch (squash horizontally) your images by the factor you get (in my case by 84.4%). If your AR was 4:3 (ie 1.333), you would have had to squash your photo by (1.333 / 1.777) ==> 75% exactly, close the the result mentioned by one of the reviewers.
5. Oh, and while you're at it, you might want to make sure your images are not too large, otherwise the loading will become very slow.
6. Yes, it's a pain.

The documentation is virtually non existent. It looks like they noticed this issue as the thing was being shipped and decided to just keep quiet about it. there is no mention of Aspect Ratio anywhere on the box or included documentation.

Another bad thing about it is that the resolution is pretty low, and the music quality ... well, don't use music.

All in all, don't buy this unit if you haven't already done so.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy this, December 4, 2006

By 

Angela (Burbank, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Digital Spectrum U-30343 NuVue 7" Plus Digital Picture Frame (Electronics)

I purchased this and quickly returned it because the quality is very poor. The pictures are distorted and grainy. I recommend spending and extra 50 dollars and purchase the Smartparts SPDPF84.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Review, December 26, 2006

By 

Wendy - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Spectrum U-30343 NuVue 7" Plus Digital Picture Frame (Electronics)

I got this Digital Photo Player today for Christmas. I had the same disappointing reaction as many of the previous reviewers -- my pictures looked smashed/stretched/weird. However, after playing around with my photos I discovered an easy solution to the "smashed" look of my pictures (the company can write me a thank-you note later :o)).

Basically, the unit is stretching the pictures (width-wise). To get around this problem do the following:
1) Open the picture with "Paint." This is a pretty basic program that everyone should have.
2) Click "Image."
3) Select "Stretch/Skew" from the pull down menu.
4) Change the horizontal stretch to 73%.
5) Click "ok."
6) Save your file.

Now, when you load these onto the player they will look fine (though they look smashed on your computer). You just smashed your pictures first to compensate for the company's software stretch mistake.

The picture aspect ratio doesn't really matter unless you want to fill the whole frame. In that case, I used an inch ratio (using "picture it") of 3.75" x 6" and then stretched my box. If I didn't change the ratio, my pictures still looked fine -- in fact for some pictures I preferred the "square look."