This is a slick device that Cynthia has always wanted to buy. We finally took the plunge and bought one. One minor glitch is that this model does not support the Sony memory stick format. It would have been MUCH easier if I could have used my spare memory card for my Sony camera.

Here is a summary of how to get photos from your PC to a slideshow on the Photo Frame:

1. Use Windows Explorer to copy the JPG files from your PC to the root directory on the Photo Frame
2. Use the Philips Photo Manager software to create multiple named photo albums on the Photo Frame
3. Use the software on the Photo Frame to move the photos from the default photo album to the desired photo album
4. Use the software on the Photo Frame to set up the Photo Slideshow options

After several hours of frustration, I was finally able to transfer pictures from my PC to the device. Here is how I did it.

First of all, the software that comes on the included CD-ROM is pretty flaky. You do need to install it in order to easily rename your photo albums (step 2 above). The software also allows you to copy files from the PC to photo albums on the Photo Frame device. After disconnecting the USB cable, the Photo Frame rarely was able to recognize the photos.

You need to go to the Philips web site, and download the newer version of the user manual from this web page. The newer manual has 70 pages, instead of the 20 page version on the CD-ROM.

The manual has a hint about the best way to copy files from the PC to the Photo Frame at the bottom of page 12. The previous text on page 12 says to use their Philips Photo Manager software program to copy the files from the PC to the Photo Frame. But that did NOT work for me.

Here is the text at the bottom of page 12 of the manual:
"Disconnect the USB cable. For Windows 2000 (and XP) systems, remember to safely remove hardware before disconnection. After a few seconds, all photos in the root directory will be automatically added to Photo Frame and the root directory will be emptied."

The way I got the photos to the Photo Frame was to connect the USB cable, and observe the various additional drive letters that appear in Windows Explorer. I copied the JPG files from the PC to the root directory on the Photo Frame.

Next, use the "Safely remove hardware" icon in the System tray. After Windows tells you it is "safe", unplug the Photo Frame. At this point, magic happens. You will see a notification as each picture file is copied. The firmware on the Photo Frame resizes the images to its default 720x540 resolution, and copies them to the default photo album. Then it deletes the original files from the root directory.

If you don't have many photo files, or the original JPG files are fairly small, this will go smoothly. I always take very high resolution pictures, so I got an "out of disk space" error message at this point. Apparently the Photo Frame can only hold about 12 MB of data!

The easy way way to get around this problem is to use a memory card to store the images, instead of copying them to the Photo Frame. As mentioned above, my camera uses Sony Memory Stick Duo Pro, which the Photo Frame does not support. I had to manually edit each image file (I used Paint Shop Pro), and resize it to the 720x540 resolution myself. This avoided the "out of disk space" error.

The procedure for moving the photos from the default album to another one is pretty easy. This uses the software that is built into the Photo Frame. It takes a wile to get used to the navigation buttons, but it seems to work reliably.

Last modified: November 28, 2011