Digital Picture Frame Mega Drive Mod

Over Christmas I won one of those digital picture frame things in a bingo game. It's quite nice with it's smart phone like widgets and the ability to do photo slide show even with music or play MP3, MP4, AVI, MPEG 1, MPEG2 and VOB video from SD cards or USB sticks. the thing is, I will NEVER use the thing.

So I was wondering about cramming a Mega Drive 3 in to the case or if possible, a Mega Drive 2 (since I own 2 of them) and using it as a portable Mega Drive with built in screen. The main problem I see is getting the image on to the screen. This digital picture frame does have a video out option but no video in. What are the chances of doing an easy mod for video in? I'll take a few pictures when I get home tonight.

Yakumo

 

IMO sell the pciture frame and get one of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Po...QC12/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295515058&sr=8-1



Will save you some hassle

 

Yeah, but those Mega Drive on a Chip systems have shit audio and some graphic problems. I'm a big fan of the Yamaha FM Synth sound. The Mega Drive when use correctly made some amazing audio. 90% of it was Japanese mind you since most western developed games (Especially from the US) used that shit known as Gems for a sound engine.

Yakumo

 

If it doesn't have video in, forget it. The screen is probably hooked up with LVDS which maybe is customized, so you have to figure out the connection first. And then it's not known what kind of refresh rate the screen has, because you have to convert the Megadrive's analog signal to a digital signal that can be handled by the screen.

 

ah, I see. Sounds far too advanced for me then. Shame really because the screen on this digital picture frame is pretty nice.

 

See if you can find out what panel it uses, and go from there. Cramming all that in there, powering it and modding the case won't be easy, though!

 

Sometimes the refresh rates of those photo frames are terrible. Just a word to that. That would defeat the entire purpose.

Good resolution or not if it cannot handle "blast processing" you would be wasting your time.

 

This frame plays video just fine so I'm guessing the refresh rate won't be an issue. I'll take it apart tonight and see what screen is inside. Yoh never know, there may actually be a video in on the board. Seems strange to have a videk out but no video in.

Yakumo

 

If you're really lucky it might have a PSone innards. When Sony stopped making those screens they got rid of stocks, so the Zenith screen is basically a rebadged original PSone screen, and also one of the PS2 screens was the same too but with extra bits to let the board take higher voltage and step it down. I think a couple of photo frames also used PSone screens, although you'd be lucky indeed if that is what you have.

As already said, if no composite input, and the board won't take it, that's the end of your dream unless you're an electronics whizz.

As you mention about the audio from MegaDrives, we had a similar discussion on my forum recently - looks like you can get a good audio from a MegaDrive 2 if the audio is modded (not easy, lots of electronics to build) a bit tinny and not good base and audio rounding otherwise, however the earlier MegaDrive 1 models apparently gave the best audio quality. Not tried it out myself, but that seems the general view, MegaDrive 1.

 

Check this out, this guy did something similar to what you were thinking.
http://rossum.posterous.com/uzeboxdigital-photo-frame-love-child

Different console, same idea.

 

nice link. That's just what I had in mind although I'd want to use real MD Cartridges. I'm going to strip it down tonight and see what's what.

 

Well, it looks like my mod idea is going no-where. The unit is sealed tight. It's not possible to open it up without damaging the actual casing and I don't want to be doing that. A real shame as well. Today I had a little play with it. Turns out it can handle images up to 300dpi at crazy resolutions up to 3000 x 3000 pixels. Video also seemed to work really well. I tried a few 720 x 480 resolution clips which were fine and even 720p ran on it. 1080p though was a no go but I didn't even expect it to run 720p.

I think I'll connect it to my 5.1 amp and use it as a music server. I have no stereo in my room, just the amp so it will be useful for something I guess.

Here it is in action. You can even see my ugly mug in the reflection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS8zMOJycj8

Yakumo

 

"This video is private"

 

Ah, ok. I've fixed that now. Anyone can watch.