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| Product: PhotoPort TV 100 |
Company: Visioneer |
| Web: www.visioneer.com |
Phone: 888-229-4172
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| Platform: The Boob Tube |
SRP: US$100
Street Price: same |
Cred Rating: | Special Award: |
We've been fans of Visioneer's products since we first reviewed their sheet-fed scanner, the PaperPort Strobe, way back in 1997 (ah, dems were the good ol' dayz). Over the years, Visioneer has consistently released products that are well designed, user-friendly, useful and reasonably priced. The scanner company has recently ventured into a new arena: TV-based digital image viewing. Their first product is the PhotoPort TV 100
The first thing you think when you take the TV 100 out of the box is: "Oh no, not ANOTHER remote control AND a wireless keyboard!" You get these two contributors to family room "remote bloat," along with the TV 100 card reader unit (and all necessary cables, manual, Quick Start Guide, batteries, etc.).
Set up is a joy. In seconds, you're into the product and using all of its features without even needing to peak at the manual. If you need any help, the Quick Start card answers most questions. Visioneer prides itself on creating solid consumer products with easy-to-understand interfaces, and the TV 100 is no exception. Since this is a product obviously targeted at anybody with a digital camera (who may not be a computer whiz), the design and features are perfectly suited to the demographic. BTW: That's one reason why they went the extra mile (and expense) of the wireless keyboard: they wanted ANYBODY to be able to figure out how to use this device. All of the image editing functions have dedicated top-row keys.
So what exactly does the TV 100 do? The card reader has two drive slots, one for SmartMedia Cards and one for CompactFlash (the two most popular media types for digital camera storage). Once you've inserted the card (filled with photos), using the keyboard, you can organize your photos into albums, crop and resize, create collages, put captions on them, and do other basic photo editing tricks. Albums can then be viewed, turned into slide shows, recorded to your VCR (for sending a copy to grandma) or DVD-ROM deck, or transferred to a computer via the media card.
It's maybe about this time that some of you are thinking: "Big deal! For a hundred bucks!" Good point. It's true that this gizmo is not going to appeal to everyone. For instance, it wouldn't be for me. I don't take many pictures, or go on many fabulous trips, or have grandchildren to coo over. If you are someone who does take lots of travel or vacation photos that you subject your ...I mean... share with your friends, this might be a cool way to do it. I know people (we won't name names) with WAY too much time on their hands who create home movies on their PCs worthy of a Sundance submission (ya know, if they weren't about such scintillating subject matter as junior's first potty or the little Princess's synchronized swim team performance). If these home media makers are looking for a way to do something similar slick with all of their digital still images, the TV 100 would be a worthwhile purchase.
All teasing aside, we've actually enjoyed having the TV 100 around. Our son Blake took to it immediately. He took all of the images that came on the SmartMedia card Visioneer provided with our evaluation unit (not provided with the consumer unit) and had fun creating silly and disturbingly inappropriate captions (I don't know WHERE he gets that!). He also created an awesome slide show for my wife's birthday party. The party had a Tiki/Luau theme. He went online, found a bunch of cool lounge art by the artist Shag, downloaded it to the SmartMedia card, and created a slideshow on our TV that ran during the party as background art. The birthday card, the invitation, and other party favors featured the Shag/tiki theme, so the slideshow was a great "tie-in." One thing you could do at a party is take pictures and load them into the TV 100 so that people could add captions and speech balloons during the event. This might be too silly for most adults (tho not MY friends), but kids would probably love it.
With the cute little wireless keyboard and all the rest of the gear and features, the TV 100 is not outrageously priced at $100, it's just a price point that likely limits it to hardcore family photo freaks. If that's you, or if you're a gadget weenie who just HAS to have the latest widget to show off to your friends, the TV 100 is definitely worth checking out.
Buy Me at MicroWarehouse
- Gareth Branwyn [7/22/02]
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