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Microsoft TV Photo Viewer

Microsoft TV Photo Viewer

List Price: $79.99
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Wha-a-a-? Your digital camera does not have VIDEO OUT?
Review: C'mon folks. Almost every digital camera ever made has a VIDEO OUT. Read your manual and just connect your camera to the TV. The 1.44 floppy can't hold ONE picture from the new Sony DSC-F707 5 megapixel camera.

If you have a fairly modern camera and shoot high resolution pictures, you may be only getting 3-5 pictures...so you wanna keep swapping disks instead of enjoying your show....?

Think, please. And stop buying Microsoft "Consumer" products. These are ALWAYS tailored to the lowest common denominator, ...and Microsoft consistently DROPS these products after a year or so..."no support".

This is not a good investment.

UPDATE! Since I keep getting [crummy] reviews from consumers who obviously don't understand sage advice when they see it, let me be more elemental: This is a crummy little device that allows you to display digital pictures (extremely low-resolution, i.e. low-quality) on a TV set. You can display ALL the images you can cram onto ONE floppy disk. So if you have a 4 year-old digital camera, this is for you! Oherwise, don't waste your time.

If your digital camera is less than 3 years old, you can already output (in most cases) NTSC video to a TV. Hear me now, thank me later.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Slick, great for it's intended audience
Review: Got a digital camera? Got grandparents without a computer? Got a bigscreen TV? Like slideshows but hate dealing with the projector? This might be for you. It's pretty cheap now (...), which makes it a great gift for those relatives who don't have a computer--just mail them dirt-cheap floppy disks of photos and they can see them on their TV, with a handy remote control to boot! It's quite nifty, and while the resolution isn't 2- or 3-megapixel, GET OVER IT, it's a *tv*. TV's are 640x480 devices at best, so that's all the resolution you need. In fact, the pictures look AMAZINGLY good on tv (Sony wega 36")!!

It's not for everyone, but if you want to have the livingroom TV cycle vacation pictures during a party, and/or show pix to a lot of people at once, it's really nifty. I also liked that while of course you DO need a RCA video-in on your tv/vcr/whatever, you DON'T need a currently-free one... the device has an automatic video passthrough that works flawlessly, and is a huge convenience since I seem to have all of the MANY inputs on my a/v receiver full.

Cool product. Yeah, 1.44M floppies aren't huge, but they're dirt cheap, everyone can write to them, and you don't really need 650M of space for images destined for NTSC TV display. Nicely executed, good price, I like it!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Microsoft does it again...
Review: Great product, yeah if it was 1990. While I can't dispute the powerhouse that Microsoft is. I can say they have made some strange business moves. A few years back, I was sure that them buying the annoying bad WebTV was about the worst move they make. Well, leave it up to Bill & the bunch to prove me wrong. This so called photo viewer is a new low, even for Microsoft standards. I wonder what the meeting between R&D & Marketing went like

"Hay R&D people, we need something that seems slick to sell to the people, what do you have?" (Marketing)
"Ummm... a floppy disk that hooks to a TV so people can view pictures, but only a few and in ultra low resolution to boot"
"Wouldn't a CD be a better storage method? Doesn't Apple have some new technology along these lines that we could steal?"
"yes a cd would be better, but we already have this done. And Apple doesn't seem to have any product similar, sorry."
"that's alright, out-dated technology is fine, besides we won't be supporting this product in six months any ways.

You can for cheaper, buy a stand alone DVD player. Then when you get pictures developed pay an extra 2 bucks to get a kodak photo CD and VOLIA. If that doesn't tickle your fancy, buy a cdrw and a scanner and you can make your own photo CD's. Microsoft has hit rock bottom this this utter peice of garbage they're trying to push as useful and advanced. I feel for anyone who wastes their money on it

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Finally something to make it worth taking digital photos
Review: Great product. After spending a thousand dollars on an olympus digital camera and Epson printer, this finally makes it worth it to take digital photos. I was down on the floppy disk idea, but I made an album of 40 pictures and it looks great on TV.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: photoviewer
Review: Hey, This is a great product for sharing photos during family events, I have a big screen tv and everyone can now watch the show instead of passing on 4 inch pictures from one person to another and hoping nobody spills wine on one..Yes it uses a floppy, but not everyone has cd burners or zip drives, floppies come standard on just about all pc's....cd writers don't and zip drives are extra...so it makes sense to use floppies...The product makes a great finish for a digital photo user, especially since you can only view the digital photos on your computer screen or pass them on to others who have a computer, and my mom don't have a computer but she does have a tv...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: TV PHOTOVIEWER IS GREAT
Review: I am totally satisfied with the TV Photoviewer. It does everything as described, easy to hook up, fun and easy to set up my photo albums, and a joy for the family to view our photo's on TV so everyone can enjoy them.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Absolutely worthless.
Review: I cannot imagine what could be going through the minds of the first people who buy this. It is incredibly worthless. In essence, it is the world's most expensive floppy drive. If you really want to display photos on your television, save a lot of money and just get a decent graphics card that has TV-out capibilities. Then, not only can you show photos on your TV, you can show movies, powerpoint shows, video games, anything. Also, this drive uses floppy disks. FLOPPY DISKETTES, as in 1.44 MB. This is absurd. Floppy disks are almost dead. Promoting their use for any purpose is a step backwards.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Microsoft Photo Viewer and Iomega FotoShow
Review: I did not buy Microsoft Photo Viewer. I may or may not. Not sure. Have been reading reviews. I have been comparing it to a similar product, Iomega's FotoShow which used to be very, very pricey. FotoShow can also be hooked up to the TV for viewing images. While I like the simplicity of the Photo Viewer, it is basically a floppy drive using diskettes. I think you get more bang for the buck with the Iomega FotoShow which can read/copy Flash and Smartcards used in most digital cameras, direct image edit from the interface, larger storage capacity as it uses 250 mb zip disks, can zoom and pan, can also serve as a zip drive with usb connectivity. Now that is alot of versatility, as opposed to Microsoft's over-priced diskette drive. No wonder they provide the software as a free download. However, diskettes are cheaper, but you can't get much on them. I really don't want to have to store my images on a whole bunch of 3 1/2 inch diskettes. Still, for those needing things basic and easily used, i.e. older folks in the family who do not have computers and are a bit computer phobic, the Microsoft TV Image Viewer is a great product. As for me, my requirements are a bit more. I need a large central storage place so I can get the photos off the hard drive. I also want to take larger slide shows (not just 40 images) on the road for presentation. And I like being able to use the FotoShow as a separate zip drive. I think I just convinced myself to go with the Iomega FotoShow! Each product is a great idea and fit different needs. I think both products also take PowerPoint presentations. And both gadgets are completely portable for hook up to any TV.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I can't believe this didn't sell better.
Review: I first saw this photo viewer in Parade magazine and I was excited about finally being able to share my digital photos in a slide show format. Problem was, I never saw it for sale anywhere. And then while researching gifts for my wife, I found it at a deep-discount website for less than a quarter of its original price. I ordered one for her birthday, and as soon as we got it hooked to the television and started looking at the pictures, we were thrilled. Even the pictures from my old Kodak DC 25 looked great on the television screen. The software is easy to figure out, and although it takes a little while to make the albums, it's more than worth it. I would recommend this item to anyone with a digital camera.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I can't believe this didn't sell better.
Review: I first saw this photo viewer in Parade magazine and I was excited about finally being able to share my digital photos in a slide show format. Problem was, I never saw it for sale anywhere. And then while researching gifts for my wife, I found it at a deep-discount website for less than a quarter of its original price. I ordered one for her birthday, and as soon as we got it hooked to the television and started looking at the pictures, we were thrilled. Even the pictures from my old Kodak DC 25 looked great on the television screen. The software is easy to figure out, and although it takes a little while to make the albums, it's more than worth it. I would recommend this item to anyone with a digital camera.


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