Windows7 & Vista: BigScreen Photos V2 - local photos

[dlock]

Niall,

firstly thanks for a great product (BigScreen Photos V2 - whoops got title wrong in thread !!). Having shown this to a number of collegues/friends they are now thinking of moving to Media Center (or upgrading to the Vista version).

The one question that comes up time & time again is will BSP work with local (files on network/disk) repositories of photos in addition to Flickr?

I have thousands of local photo's geotagged and labelled that I'd love to navigate and sisplay through this interface.

Rgds, Darren.

[Niall]

Originally Posted by dlock

Niall,

firstly thanks for a great product (BigScreen Photos V2 - whoops got title wrong in thread !!). Having shown this to a number of collegues/friends they are now thinking of moving to Media Center (or upgrading to the Vista version).

The one question that comes up time & time again is will BSP work with local (files on network/disk) repositories of photos in addition to Flickr?

I have thousands of local photo's geotagged and labelled that I'd love to navigate and sisplay through this interface.

Rgds, Darren.

Hi Darren,

Thanks for the feedback.

With regards to supporting local files - I've been toying around with this feature (well had some nice prototypes of it working via Windows Search - which is blindingly fast) - but put that on hold for the time being due to the problems with extracting the Geo Metadata. (which is really the main/core reason why the local picture functionality already present in the 'My Pictures' section of Media Center would be duplicated).

Unfortunately there's no single (or even couple) of agreed/standard techniques for the Geo Tagging (and the most popular ones from cameras/phones are not Windows friendly) - which is why I believe sites like flickr provide a full 'manual' 2 foot interface for map placement (something which would be incredibly difficult/unusable on a 10 foot user interface - not to mention the significant licensing costs to allow something like yahoo/live/google maps).

I'm hoping the geo-tagging standards will settle down in the future (and at least become natively supported by the Windows Metadata system) - which will make something like this a lot more 'doable' (and not break the bank to implement - as there really needs to be some more substantial sales of this product to justify the investment).

However - until then - the best way is to upload the photos to flickr and use their online GeoTagging system (if their site can't directly extract it from your photos)- and then the geobrowsing experience in Big Screen Photos v2 will be made available for this content (and note that your photos would be cached locally once viewed - so you wouldn't have to repeatedly pay for the bandwidth if thats an issue).

There's currently some good 3rd party tools to do the uploading to flickr and some of them can do everything automatically (ie. watch folders for new files and auto upload to your account) - and where possible the flickr system can then kick in and automatically extract the metadata. (if you have it all preloaded into your MetaData - and it's in a format they support)

In the meantime - if you can advise on what geotagging system/method you're using - I can definitely note it down as a one standard to look at in the future.

rgds

Niall

[epgStream]

Doh! I was so going to buy BSP tonight until I read this post!

Make sure you let us know when you support local photo browsing, I've got 3 family Media Center machines ready to go!

[dlock]

Niall,

sorry for the delay in getting back but I was having mixed results with the Geotagging. I have now got this working well. I am using Microsoft Pro Photo Tools which can be download for free from here: http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/tools.aspx. This allows me to fix/change Metadata and do the GeoTagging from my GPS automatically before upload to Flickr (I use Microsoft Live Photo Gallery to do this). I haven't looked to see which tags contain the geo data but Flickr recognises the data and places correctly on the map straight away.

[mrbarnes]

I 'm another fan of the look of BigScreen Photos V2 too. I don't want to upload my photos to flikr but have hundreds stored locally. I just downloaded microsoft pro-photo tools v1 and find it's great (and simple) for geo tagging. The lat long gets nicely added to the file (as seen in the file properties window). I prefer to tag and edit files in the 2 foot view so this app is a great way to tag. Just want BigScreen Photos to read the local files and whack them on the big screen. Sign me up for a copy if you ever get local file reading happening with pro-photo tags!!: drool:

[Niall]

Hi,

Some news on Big Screen Photos 2 - there's an update on it's way (hopefully 4-8 week timeframe) - which adds some highly requested features :

Here's whats in the new version so far :

Local Files/Photos Support :
- New Main Menu group added for 'Local Photos'
- User Driven Scanning/Indexing functionality which catalogs all your local (and network) jpg images and maintains a database of your local files. (allowing for very fast grouping, searching and display of local content). The scanning process also extracts metadata and thumbnails from your files (by reading in just the headers from files) - for fast browsing of network content.
- Local Photos can be viewed in various ways (as per flickr content) - using Slideshows, GeoBrowser, Digital Photo Frames and File/Folder Browser. (with enhanced photo details drill down screens).
- Full support for extraction + indexing of EXIF, XMP, IPTC and Manufacturer Specific Metadata. (full list is viewable in photo details page).
- Full Support for local GPS Tagged Photos (and viewable on GeoBrowser as per flickr images) - which have been tagged by either GPS enabled cameras/mobile phones (iPhone/Nokia/etc) or via local software (ie. Microsoft Pro Photo tools).
- 'Auto GPS Correction' functionality (configured via settings screen) which detects 'pre Apple iPhone V2.1' Geotagging Bug (where N/S and E/W hemispheres are not correctly stored). Newer v2.1+ o/s photos are also recognized (and left as is).
- Grouping/Browsing by extracted Metadata - such as Date Ranges, Tags, Device (new), Title etc. Find GPS Tagged content via direct 'Local Geotagged Photos' page accessible via main menu.
- Auto Orientation correction on photos (where EXIF Orientation information is provided).

Other Miscelaneous Enhancements :
- (as Requested) Auto Hide Photo Details slide in panel on slideshow. (user can hide/unhide this by pressing up/down - and last state is remembered).
- More to come ... (TBA)

I'll post some more news on availability as it comes to hand. For existing full registered bigscreen users - I'll also try to make an early access version available a little sooner.

NB: If your trial period for the existing version of Big Screen Photos v2 has previously expired - you will be granted a bonus 14 days (upon activation of new version).

cheers

Niall

[dgaust]

Niall,

That sounds excellent. As a user of BigScreen Weather V2 I've been trying to justify to my wife that we need BigScreen Photos as well. Unfortunately, the whole uploading requirement thing was the killer for her.

But when the new version hits, you can definitely count on my purchase.

[joepsion20]

any update on this (very important, to me at least, feature) yet?

Thanks,
Joe

[JonDeutsch]

Originally Posted by joepsion20

any update on this (very important, to me at least, feature) yet?

Thanks,
Joe

Yes, I have been waiting for the "hide details" feature since early last year!

Jon

[Niall]

Hi -
Sorry the Photos v2 update is not yet ready for release. I'm not going to commit to a firm date (as there is a lot of other things going on here right now) - but hopefully soon.. I'll put some details up here as soon as there is more news..
thanks
Niall

[dgaust]

I bought anyway in anticipation

[user29]

+1 For Local Photos - Any update on the timeline?!!?