Digital Media, FrameChannel, Photos

Community based FrameChannel replacement

45 Comments

I’m measuring interest in the creation of a community based FrameChannel replacement – ping me if this tickles your neurons.

Update: You can use any of the following to ‘ping’ me:

IM: streamingmeemee (on most all IM networks)

Twitter: @streamingmeemee

or you can simply leave a comment below.

45 thoughts on “Community based FrameChannel replacement”

  1. I would love to have a replacement! I used framechannel everyday. Please share any other sites that can replace framechannel!! I would pay for a service if necessary!

  2. My wife is ticked-off that framechannel is kaput! Our son gave her this for Christmas and updated photos regularly. We’re on left and right coasts so it was awesome. Does Motorola have any say in creation of another content site for the pix and wifi connection to same? Can we use this with a flickr or picassa feed? Inquiring minds (but not too tech savvy) want to know. Thanks, all!
    WD

  5. I’m in, but I wonder if my D-LInk DSM-210 is hard coded to a FrameChannel.com URL. I wonder if D-Link, Motorola, Kodak, etc. will be willing to push out firmware updates on products that are more than a year or 2 old, just to enable us to point to any server capable of Frame Channel’s protocol.

  6. Yes!! I would love to see some kind of replacement for the great FrameChannel service.

  7. @Ryan: Most (likely all) frames that use the FrameChannel service are hard-wired to use rss.framechannel.com. It is rather unlikely that manuf. will be willing to invest the resources to release new firmware to support a change to that URL. For a drop-in replacement service to be viable FrameChannel must agree to release (or simply delegate) that URL to the new party.

    I’ve posed that very question to the folks at FrameChannel — I have my fingers crossed.

  8. @WD: I’m in a similar situation. My parents are in the Midwest and I on the ‘right coast’. I’ve been scanning old family photos and uploading them to their frame — they are thrilled with each new release.

    I am not familiar with the software in the Motorola frames. The Kodak frames that I have (W820) do have a direct option for Flickr. The drawback, for me, of using this feature is that I must publish my photos in a public Flickr stream for the frame to pick them up.

    Which Motorola frame do you own?

  9. Would love this to… I have multiple frames – 2 W1020 Kodak, and 1 W820. I use Picasa. But, I loved the weather, and the trivia as well that frame channel provided. Would have been willing to pay to keep service. Just stinks!

  10. I am in, and I will have no trouble getting rss.framechannel.com routed to my content, just make the zone on your DNS server.

  11. I have a D-LInk DSM-210 and my parents have one too. I’d VERY much like to find a replacement for the Picasa feed we’ve been using from FrameChannel

  12. Hate to see this service discontinued. It would be Great if you could get something going. Count me in if you do.

  16. I’m interested, too. A nominal annual fee for such a service would be fine with me, too. I’d really love to have all of FrameChannel back. I like the weather reports, etc. Probably not in your current project unless you convince them to open source the code.

  17. I’ve been using the frame as a meeting and event announcement sign in the meeting room of a non-profit aviation group I’m in. Having a few weather pages, and eye candy like the NOAA and NASA pictures of the day was nice too. I could update the announcements from home without a 26 mile round trip to change the plastic sign lettering we used to have.
    I also started looking around to see how much interest there is for a replacement service. You’ve gone further in this than me. I would think that FrameChannel couldn’t start charging a small amount since then their SignChannel service wouldn’t be differentiated at $20/month.

  18. Looking further, I see that Thinking Media owned FrameChannel and SignChannel. In April, 2010, SignChannel was sold to Scala. I’d be willing to bet that people didn’t like ads on their home frames, but they probably couldn’t sell a subscription service due to a non-compete term in the SignChannel sale.

  20. @Kodak User: I do hope to be able to add weather reports/alerts to the new service. I’m taking with a prominent online weather website about providing the necessary info. Stay tuned…

  22. Please advise if you need alpha testers particularly with the Roku device.

    Thanks.

  23. @Andy: A capture of the RSS feed your Roku receives from the FrameChannel service would be very useful. Also, does the Roku player allow you to subscribe to an arbitrary RSS feed or is it ‘hard wired’ to only the FrameChannel service?

  26. I’d be interested as well, it’s sad to see that they’re just shutting down the free service yet keeping the corporate $20/month service up still.. I would have happily paid something to keep my service going.. too bad they didn’t even offer that option.

  28. @Keith: Welcome. SignChannel is owned by Scala; they bought it from Thinking Screen Media (owners of FrameChannel) over a year ago.

    As someone else here pointed out it may be that they be blocked (commonly referred to as a non-compete) from offering a paid service as a condition of the sale of SignChannel to Scala.

  29. We bought 5 w1020 kodak frames at Xmas and used the email address capability to send pics to the frames of our relatives. Not sure that this will be possible. Our kodak frames seem to have the ability yo subscribe to a 3rd party rss feed so I would be more than happy to test whatever you have come up with.

    Jeff

  30. I am very upset to loos such a service. Especially bought such a device because it was not versatile and now less than two years later, it becomes just a simple display.
    Highly interested to work on something similar.
    Danny

  31. I too would be extremely interested in a framechannel replace, I’ve bought a few toshiba frames last year specifically for the framechannel support.

  33. This guy has done some interesting work on this topic:
    http://my-fuzzy-logic.de/blog/index.php?/archives/32-Hacking-Motorola-LS1000W-Photoframe.html

    I’d be interested in an app that ran on my local network that did the aggregation of rss feeds from a list of my choosing. The magic of course is that framechannel didn’t just send the complete feed, it produced a customize size/feed for our specific devices. I’m a software developer and could probably assist in some manner.

  34. I’d love to see a replacement service! In the short term we’re re-uploading our photos to Picasa, but we already miss the news, weather and other added content. Comparing it to the Sony Dash (Chumby) we also own, it seems like FrameChannel was acting like a Chumby, aggregating RSS content and delivering it as an image to the digital frames. I’m guessing that means the technical part will be a lot less difficult than obtaining Thinking Media’s permission, because the work is already out there and mostly open source. I’m willing to alpha test on my Toshiba frame which is naturally hard wired for rss.framechannel.com.

  36. I am definitely interested. I used frame channel to update my parents frame in Colorado while I am in Indiana. I am available for testing if needed.

  37. I am also interested in all you have been talking in your last messages. Please, let me know if you have any kind of frame channed replacement. Regards,

  40. On the list. Great to see something is being done. I loved the service provided and like others, would like to see it’s rebirth.

  43. Yes please! I have several Motorola Framechannel devices which I’ve now linked to my Flicr account, but they don’t update in real time… I’d love to get involved in a proper replacement and would of been happy to pay Framechannel for the service!

  44. @Chris, If you haven’t done so already, head over to framealbum.com and register. I don’t have any Moto frames in my ‘lab’ so I can’t tell you if they will work or not. What model number Moto frame do you have? I may be able to find a manual online and determine if it is compatible.

  45. I’m interessted for a local replacement.
    That means I modify the DNS to a server in my local (home) network.
    Then I can render images dynamic which are pushed to the digital picture frame.

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