Microsoft TV Photo Viewer

Here are my justifications for this product based on what other people have to say:

1. Doesn't you're camera have TV out? Why yes it does, but what if I already off loaded my pictures and renamed the files? My camera will not recognize files that have been renamed, so I can no longer display them on a TV. This device makes it easy to put together a quick photo album for my TV. For immediate viewing a camera is fine, but for future viewing the little albums this product makes are great.

2. A Floppy Disk is TOO small. Why not a CD? I agree and disagree with wanting to use a higher format media, but ever try to e-mail 700mb of data over the web? 1.4mb is much more managable. Plus, do you think mom and dad (or another viewer) is really going to want to look at an album filled with 1000's of photos? 40 photos is the perfect amount for sending and for making a album. An album of 1000's of pictures with text would take quite a while to put together.

This product is not an archive product, this is a viewing product. Archive all you want to CD-R or CD-RW. But for e-mailing and viewing small bits of data this is perfect.

Example, just got back from a trip. I only took 109 pictures total (each about 1MB in size). If I created an album on a CD-ROM or ZIP device I'd be wasting 150-550mb of space. Instead I just choose the 40 pictures I liked best from trip and made a little album and e-mailed them off to friends. I made 2 more albums (wow, 3 whole floppies) and when my parents stopped by I displayed all my vacation photos (with text) quickly and easily from my couch.

To sum up here are my pros and cons:

PROs: Easy to use. Pictures look as good as if viewed from my camera. For a viewer, even Grandma could figure this out. Remote control is a nice touch. If found for 30 dollars or less this is a great buy. 40 pictures is the perfect size to work with. You can view albums both on a PC or using the glorified floppy drive and a TV. Software is simple to use as well for creating album and floppy disks.

CONs: Not an archive product. If you want to store more than 40 photos, do it on you hard drive or burn them to a disk. Proprietary viewer must be used to view/create albums (although it's very small and easy to work with). Wish compression rate was a little higher, but with TV viewing being 640x480 anyway the pictures do look very good. Last con: more and more desktops and laptops are being sold without floppies.

Would have given it 5 stars, but due to the rediculous 160 dollar original price tag I give it 4 and ask: what was Microsoft thinking trying to charge so much for this product? It's a great product that is perfect and doing what it is supposed to do and for digital photo beginers, but 160? Grandma isn't going to like that. For 20-30 a pop, everyone in my family could have one these devices.

Another opinion for displaying photos on a TV is to make a VCD slide show of photos. Roxio and other CD burning packages can do this and give you the flexibility to add music and narrition, full motion video in addition to the stills. Plus most DVD players support VCDs. So if you already own and DVD player and a CD Burner, it's probable not worth it unless you can find this cheap . I do like the little albums you can make with it and it does what is advertised. Hence, the 4 stars.

What would make this product cool is if it could double as a usb floppy drive for a laptop. Then you couse use it with laptop that does not have a floppy.... just a thought.