Kodak photo frame software

[mackbig]

Just got my wife a kodak w1020 photo frame.  Its pretty cool.  The easyshare software is ok, but I noticed the following.

The software loads as kodakdigitaldisplaysoftware.exe but is also loads this service.  dllstartupservice.exe
After closing the software the dllstartupservice.exe stays running.  It uses 40-50% of cpu constantly.  I have to kill the process in task manager.

I "chatted" with support, and they were not too helpful. I may try again.. but.

I will be able to remember to kill it after each use, but I cant say the same for my wife.  Any tools that I can install to look for and kill this process at periodic intervals?

Thanks
Andrew

[Downlinerz2]

Andrew,
  I cannot answer your question but I want to thank you for posting.  It is somiething I will remember if I acquire the same software or something similar.  I don't think that is something most people would consider when purchasing this type software.

[Bushman]

Orphaned services are a pretty common thing.  Indicative of poor programming practice.  There are several freeware process/service killers out there, but I'm not familiar with any that use a timer.   One could run a cron job  using a regular proc killer I guess.

[mackbig]

I tested a bit more.  Looks to be poorly programmed.  The frame itself is great.  I will just tell my wife to throw the pictures she wants in the frame onto a folder on the desktop then I will upload/sync.

Actually most of the content can be uploaded and it will feed automatically to the frame over the internet connection.  Even shows the weather on there, and can download feeds from Flickr.

Andrew

[Garth Bock]

I have the smaller frame and have no problems with the software. CPU useage is normal and since it is wireless I point it at the jpg folder of graphs and I have my own color console.

[tomwxman]

Is there a way to output the main VWS display to a jpg, so that my wireless frame can display it?

[Garth Bock]

Have VWS save the .jpg's to a folder on the computer where the Frame software is. Go into the Frame software and point it to that folder. On the frame you will have to go off of Frame Channel to display your own weather. Been doing this since summer and it is great. I also put some weather related pics in the same folder and let the frame do a slide show. Really nice.

[tomwxman]

Have VWS save the .jpg's to a folder on the computer where the Frame software is. Go into the Frame software and point it to that folder. On the frame you will have to go off of Frame Channel to display your own weather. Been doing this since summer and it is great. I also put some weather related pics in the same folder and let the frame do a slide show. Really nice.

I figured this out, but...I don't want to go off framechannel.com and apparently you can't mix them.

The other thing I don't like is that I only get the basic broadcast image in the jpg; the other pieces of the frame are separate jpgs.

[Garth Bock]

True you have to drop out of Frame Channel to display and can't mix the both. I have checked other wireless frames and this is the only one that seems to do the best. Did you want to have more or a mix of .jpg's per screen ? VWS puts out separate .jpgs for each graph and gauge so I am not sure what you are looking to do. One think I haven't done is use the RSS feed where I think you can mix and match items. I have my frame rotating through the broadcast, temp, and humidity graphs jpgs.

[SLOweather]

One think I haven't done is use the RSS feed where I think you can mix and match items. I have my frame rotating through the broadcast, temp, and humidity graphs jpgs.

Yeah, I'm researching how to do this. I think I can dummy up an RSS feed looking document with embedded graphics URLs that just point to images that are updated but with the same names.

[WeatherGoose]

I tested a bit more.  Looks to be poorly programmed.  The frame itself is great.  I will just tell my wife to throw the pictures she wants in the frame onto a folder on the desktop then I will upload/sync.

Actually most of the content can be uploaded and it will feed automatically to the frame over the internet connection.  Even shows the weather on there, and can download feeds from Flickr.

Andrew

I bought one of the 820s from WOOT.com when they had a one day sale for $59.99!  I couldn't pass up that deal and thought I could use it to display weather graphics from my software in a room where we don't have a computer or any weather station display.  Unfortunately, their Mac OSX support was woefully lacking and they do not provide any module for OSX that can connect the frame to a machine on our local network to send updates to it.  So, even though this thing is WI-FI enabled and connected to our network without any problem, the primary reason I bought it for was a bust!  It amazes me that they sell a WI-FI device, and then don't bother providing the software nessesary to allow the frame to communicate with any of our computers!  I can access the web and pull down images from our Flikr account and make changes to the frame settings via a web browser, but when it comes to the most useable feature you would want, they "forgot" to provide a Mac version.  

I agree that it is a GREAT looking display and I just have ours running with images from an SD card I stuck in the back of it.

The reason I posted in here is that I found the OSX software to be HORRIBLE!  It doesn't behave properly, and when I try to add images from our thousands of jpeg files on multiple computers, all of the files are grayed out and are not selectable.  I was on the phone with their tech support several times until I finally gave up on the whole idea.

If I could return the thing I would have, but since I got this thing so cheap, it was a FINAL SALE situation.  Still... I can't really complain for what I paid for it, but Kodak's claim of OSX support is riding on a razor's edge between a total lie, and the worst OSX implementation I have seen in decades!

I am not at all surprised that the PC module you are referring to is hogging your system resources.  Inept programming usually does.

[tomwxman]

VWS puts out separate .jpgs for each graph and gauge so I am not sure what you are looking to do.

Yeah I have a nice display that mixes the main w/the graphs/guages so that's what I was hoping VWS would generate.

@SLOweather it seems to me that framechannel allows entry of a custom URL, which MAYBE can be a local eg. \\server\docs or something, but as you know the frame requires the pics be in some sort of RSS format. By all means let us know if you figure this out.

@WeatherGoose as for Mac support, I don't even use the Kodak software myself (just a browser to the built-in Kodak frame web server) but I suppose if you indeed have "thousands" of personal pics you want to serve then it would be a hassle to upload them to your free account at framechannel.com?

[WeatherGoose]

VWS puts out separate .jpgs for each graph and gauge so I am not sure what you are looking to do.

Yeah I have a nice display that mixes the main w/the graphs/guages so that's what I was hoping VWS would generate.

@SLOweather it seems to me that framechannel allows entry of a custom URL, which MAYBE can be a local eg. \\server\docs or something, but as you know the frame requires the pics be in some sort of RSS format. By all means let us know if you figure this out.

@WeatherGoose as for Mac support, I don't even use the Kodak software myself (just a browser to the built-in Kodak frame web server) but I suppose if you indeed have "thousands" of personal pics you want to serve then it would be a hassle to upload them to your free account at framechannel.com?

All that stuff works but... My plan had been to point the frame at the folder on my dedicated weather station computer where my LWC software generates all the gauges and stuff it sends up to my web site, but since we have no way of connecting the frame to any of our machine's directly, there is no way to STREAM those images to the frame.  If Kodak had provided the same "Watchdog" program they do for Windows, it would have worked great since my software updates these images every 2 minutes, so the images on the frame would be the most current vesion of the weather data displayed on the gauge graphics as well as the latest webcam still image that I have saved into the same directory.

I wasn't able to find a way to auto-upload and "overwrite" existing images to any of the web based photo sites so that I would have the same results.

[tomwxman]

Regarding the "channels" at framechannel.com, it appears that one can get "friend's photos" to appear by mailing them to one's account e.g. myaccount@framesend.com

I wonder if there's some way to automate the emailing of our VWS jpgs to this address...

[SLOweather]

OK, I f@rted around a little this afternoon, and cobbled together a little demonstration RSS XML script that links to 3 of the VWS jpgs on my web site. It runs in an RSS reader, and I have it running on my frame.

You can see it at http://www.sloweather.com/frame.rss. Feel free to try it out on your Kodak frame.

As I said, there are only 3 graphs there now, it's just a proof-of-concept.

I borrowed working code from a Flickr RSS feed and edited it. Anyone that wants my attempt can enter the URL above in a browser and then view source. It works, but it's not finished. Caveat emptor...

[Garth Bock]

One thing that I didnt think about was the OSX software. Usually all I hear from my friends is how superior the Mac software is for devices. Guess Kodak bombed on that one. Being a PC guy I tend to overlook the OSX stuff. Right now my frame is displaying graphs and gauges from a local directory on the weather computer and working fine.

[SLOweather]

Woo hoo! I added the VWS Broadcast.jpg and Cable1 and Cable2 slides to the RSS demo script. The frame is set for 3 seconds between images, no transition, and fit entire image.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to update the images as often as they are updated on the site. Still trying to cipher that out.

[tomwxman]

Woo hoo! I added the VWS Broadcast.jpg and Cable1 and Cable2 slides to the RSS demo script. The frame is set for 3 seconds between images, no transition, and fit entire image.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to update the images as often as they are updated on the site. Still trying to cipher that out.

Yeah it works! Thanks for sharing! I have yet to dissect what you've done and try it myself, but your jpgs are displaying on our frame no problem.

I think it's on the framechannel.com site where you can adjust the timing on how often the frame goes there to update. Mine's set on 20 minutes. I would guess/assume that when the frame is updated all the RSS channels are checked & updated too, but if you find out different, please tell.

[SLOweather]

I think it's on the framechannel.com site where you can adjust the timing on how often the frame goes there to update. Mine's set on 20 minutes. I would guess/assume that when the frame is updated all the RSS channels are checked & updated too, but if you find out different, please tell.

Mine found the newly added images as I edited the script, but hasn't grabbed updated images in almost an hour. In chat w/ Kodak now.

[SLOweather]

No joy on Kodak chat. (Not really surprised...)

Hey, tomwxman, are your images updating at all?

Curiously, on my frame right now, the graphs are up to date, but the slides have not updated. However, if I look at the feed in FF, the images are all current.

[mackbig]

You have to login and "approve" the emails rec'd before they will pop up on frame.   I guess that is so you dont come home to @#$@#$% on your frame...

Andrew

Regarding the "channels" at framechannel.com, it appears that one can get "friend's photos" to appear by mailing them to one's account e.g. myaccount@framesend.com

I wonder if there's some way to automate the emailing of our VWS jpgs to this address...

[lddaly]

Are these the same frames that are being discussed here: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7882

[SLOweather]

Are these the same frames that are being discussed here: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7882

Yeah, but the content of the next link is somewhat misleading. Framechannel is one way to get content to your frame, but I'm not sure that "The frames use a site called FrameChannel to read an RSS feed consisting of anything you would like which is pulled down and then displayed." is entirely accurate.

However, the frames can also be set to stream pics from ANY picture RSS feed. Flickr is one. Rolling your own is another, as I did with my demo RSS feed.

While, technically, my feed is "public", in that anyone with the URL can see it, it's highly unlikely anyone would find it accidentally, or even by searching for it.

[tomwxman]

Hey, tomwxman, are your images updating at all?

Curiously, on my frame right now, the graphs are up to date, but the slides have not updated. However, if I look at the feed in FF, the images are all current.

Sorry I removed it after seeing that it worked--do you need me to look again?

I'm confused myself about how EXACTLY the Kodak communicates with framechannel.com. I'd have guessed/assumed that, per the framechannel.com ADVANCED button, if you set the updates to 20mins as I've done that the frame goes to framechannel.com every 20 minutes to retrieve all the RSS there. But that's not very efficient if it re-downloads all one's private photos and friends photos every time. If someone know how to sniff this out by all means share.

[tomwxman]

Are these the same frames that are being discussed here: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7882

...While, technically, my feed is "public", in that anyone with the URL can see it, it's highly unlikely anyone would find it accidentally, or even by searching for it.

Interesting to learn there's a security problem--at least, I think there still is--I notice that framechannel has already removed the URL from the Advanced button of their website.