I regularly have people come into my gallery who have large LCD screen TVs in their living rooms and want to be able to buy a collection of my photos to display on their screens. I certainly don't want to give them a straight digital file which can end up being used for other purposes. Is there a program which might meet my needs of protection and also high quality display for these large TVs?
A second question relates to the new digital frames for displaying images. I would be interested in offering these in my gallery with a collection of images if I could again have some sort of protection for the images. Any thoughts?
Posted by Dan Borzynski on October 16, 2007 at 5:34 PM
I think you want to be lookng at slide show generation programs. There are a fair number of them out there, of varying degrees of quality. The more expensive ones offer reasonable image protection options.
I can't offer any specific recommendations since I have not looked that closely at them, but I am sure there are others out there who have. At least this should give you some to search for at the B&H website for a starting point.
Posted by David Bostedo on October 16, 2007 at 6:36 PM
I've looked at buying some of those frames for gifts, and I've never seen any mention of security on them. However, a lot of them will play AVI or other multimedia files, which could possibly have some security to them I would think. I'm not sure how important that is for smaller digital picture frames, however, since the resolution on those isn't very high. The Kodak ones are only 800x480, which is about what most sites like this one allow people to post. So it's not more dangerous, theft wise, than putting things on here or in Photo Portfolios.
As far as TV's go, the sizes there are starting to get big enough to worry I guess - maybe the equivalent of a 2 MP photo. I don't know how you'd protect the images. One question - would these people expect to plug something like a USB key or memory card into their TV? Or would the TV be connected to a computer? (OK, I guess that was 2 ) Both ways would have their problems, but there's a greater chance of finding a software solution people would put on their computer - much like the mp3 DRM stuff that exists today. However, if someone can display the file on their computer, there is nothing preventing them from copying it to an unprotected file. There's ALWAYS a way around computer security like that.
Posted by Dan Borzynski on October 17, 2007 at 12:28 PM
I just spent some time over at the B&H website, actually looking for something else, and made a quick search for screen saver/slide show software. There seems to be a lot fewer choices now than there was 5 years ago. So much for my advice...
This is coming at the topic "backwards" Erik, but it's something worth checking. I've fielded complaints from a few of my wife's wedding clients about her use of Quicktime movies for accompanied slide shows she builds and burns to DVD. It seems that they aren't having any luck extracting the individual images from the files. Well, duh! She will not give out (or sell) larger image files suitable for printing, because in fact she makes money from selling prints. The clients were simply trying to pull an end run on her so they oculd do their own cheap printing.
Whether that reflects the clients' lack of computer sophistication or in fact there is any protection in using Quicktime movies for slide shows, the effect has been the same for us (so far!).
Posted by Dave Gill on October 17, 2007 at 1:52 PM
I've been using QuickTime slide shows for proofs (with "Photo Proof" written on each slide) and have not had a problem that I'm aware of. I'm currently putting together a couple of DVDs with QuickTime portfolios of photos to give to stores to (hopefully) induce them to carry my photos. If it isn't reasonably secure, I'll have to change what I'm doing!
Posted by David Bostedo on October 17, 2007 at 5:03 PM
Well if Quicktime is displaying the photos full screen, you can certainly get software to do screen caps and then have an image at the screen resolution (or the images native resolution - whichever is smaller). And for printing only for personal use, I don't think that would even be illegal, would it?
Hank - I'm assuming these are actually lower-res slideshows than what you'd want to make good prints? I don't think that would work well on a large Plasma display.
Seems like the best protection is just to keep the resolution low.
Posted by Steve Bunn on October 18, 2007 at 4:06 PM
Erik, take a look at Photo Dex's ProShow Producer at the following link:
http://www.photodex.com/products/producer/
I have this program, and I've made slide shows that look more like movies and look great on HD televisions. If you have an HD-DVD burner, it will even output to that, plus a whole host of files on the computer. I also got the more expensive version because it does have more advanced authoring capabilities that help restrict access and prevent unauthorized copying. I haven't used this feature yet, but I can attest the program is top notch.
Discussion
7 repliesA second question relates to the new digital frames for displaying images. I would be interested in offering these in my gallery with a collection of images if I could again have some sort of protection for the images. Any thoughts?
I can't offer any specific recommendations since I have not looked that closely at them, but I am sure there are others out there who have. At least this should give you some to search for at the B&H website for a starting point.
As far as TV's go, the sizes there are starting to get big enough to worry I guess - maybe the equivalent of a 2 MP photo. I don't know how you'd protect the images. One question - would these people expect to plug something like a USB key or memory card into their TV? Or would the TV be connected to a computer? (OK, I guess that was 2
Whether that reflects the clients' lack of computer sophistication or in fact there is any protection in using Quicktime movies for slide shows, the effect has been the same for us (so far!).
Hank - I'm assuming these are actually lower-res slideshows than what you'd want to make good prints? I don't think that would work well on a large Plasma display.
Seems like the best protection is just to keep the resolution low.
http://www.photodex.com/products/producer/
I have this program, and I've made slide shows that look more like movies and look great on HD televisions. If you have an HD-DVD burner, it will even output to that, plus a whole host of files on the computer. I also got the more expensive version because it does have more advanced authoring capabilities that help restrict access and prevent unauthorized copying. I haven't used this feature yet, but I can attest the program is top notch.