Portable DVD player vs PlayStation Portable vs PictureFrame w/video

Note: this entry has moved.

I want DivX playback. I want a decent screen size. I want easy photo slideshows. I want a single device.

Turns out there's no easy answer for that combination. PSP entered the scene thanks to Scott, and now the choice is even harder.

On the one hand, traditonal portable DVD players, there’s the excelent Phillips PET1000, which is DivX certified and has a very cool design and “huge” 10’’ screen. It’s pretty much the only one with DivX playback. But photo slideshow requires you to burn a CD :(. No way to just take the 2GB ultra-fast CompactFlash out of my Canon Rebel and show the family.

Then comes PSP, which is also impressive, is even cooler and also has the games bonus, but it has only a 4.3’’ widescreen display. I could put movies and music in a couple 1GB memorysticks, but I have to do a conversion from my CF :(.

Finally, there’s a digital frame which is basically an LCD with a multi-format card reader that can also display video. Sounds like what I need, but its screen resolution is far from optimal and it’s only 8’’ (although bigger than the PSP for sure).

And it all started with the idea of having a big picture (i.e. the size of the really cool 24’’ wide Dell monitor) hanging on a wall on our living room, doing a slideshow of pictures coming from a CF or SD or Wi-Fi. Then, not finding a big enough “picture frame” I started dreaming of the single device.

In the end, I think I’d need to get a big LCD display, an embedded linux processor, a compact Wi-Fi chip or something like that, a multi-card reader and somehow put it all together and make it look good (or not be visible at all by hiding the duct tape behind the display ;)). I wonder how come nobody came up with such a device yet… (or I missed and I’d certainly like to know about it!!!)