Picture Frame
joec
Posts: 55
Anyone using the picture frame software with the 8400 panels? I just wanted to see if it worked as advertised without any problems.
THanks
THanks
0
Comments
Yes, I am using PictureFrame with 12 MVP-8400s in an installation without any problems. I am using the DEFAULT album setup and not panel or device specific albums both of which are supported by PictureFrame. I tried panel specific albums some time back but could not get them to work correctly and I never got back to debugging it. The default album setup has been working very well for me on 8400s and TPI/4s and we are getting ready to do a hotel full of 7500s with some PictureFrame images as well.
Reese
yes, just implemented, client thrilled with it. running on Server2003. some interesting cutoffs with resolutions, have not troubleshot with demo yet. possibly one resolution meets criteria, and the other dimension is not scaled?
I am pretty sure that you are familiar with this, but just in case.... Has the client seen the difference between the 7500 and the 8400 in graphical presentation?
Jeff
I will be setting up 4- 8400 panels with this software this week.
Thanks
Jeff,
We demonstrated the 7500 side by side with the 8400 and the client chose the 7500 simply on the basis of cost. They also chose CV7s for a number of fixed locations and these are quite nice but once you have used the 8400, it is *real* difficult to go back to the 7500. We just could not convince the client it was worth the extra $$$.
Reese
The one thing that I still find difficult to deal with on occasion is the relativity of our industry. Product value/worth is highly dependant on personal experience. To avoid making people in this industry made I'll use a car analogy. If everyday you get up and drive a 15 year old car with a 4 cylinder engine and a slipping trans to work and somebody shows you a brand new sports car, you would think that sports car is the greatest thing since sliced bread. However, if everyday you got to drive a top fuel dragster to work, and somebody showed you the sports car, you'd be less impressed and think how you'd feel if you had to drive the 15 year old car. So, the point of this whole analogy is that while the decision makers were blinded by the bottom line pricing, in reality, the people that use the touchpanels will probably think that everything is AMAZING! and it is(we just know that it could be even more amazing).
That ends my morning blab session.
Jeff
For example, if you could get a tablet PC with a nice active display for, say, $1500, and that tablet PC does everything a regular PC does (and a whole lot more than an MVP-8400), then is the cost of an MVP-8400 "worth it"?
The analogy is a good one because I can buy a tablet PC (complete with docking station, wireless AND wired adaptor, etc) for less than $1500. That tablet PC likely has a FAR faster processor than that of the MVP-8400, has a display that's just as good as the MVP-8400, has much more memory than the MVP-8400 (and no "compact flash" - it uses a disk drive, so panel sizes are virtually unlimited).
Now, the analogy between the tablet PC and the MVP-8400 falls apart in that the tablet PC (or at least the one I've been looking at) is much larger than the MVP-8400. But I'll betcha you could get a pocket PC with a nice active display in less than that price point. I know that Viewsonic was making Linux-based panels in the "about $1K range" that looked similar in form-factor to the MVP-8400 ...
There's little question in my mind that the MVP-8400 isn't a good value for the money. The reason I have one: There's no alternative today (other than older generation touchpanels). So, as a consumer, I buy because I'm trapped, not because I'm thrilled with the product. While this works in the short term, this is not the way to build a loyal customer base, IMHO.
I cannot say that I am 100% satisfied with the 8400 either. My previous rant grew from a comparison of the 8400 and the 7500 to more of a general statement about all things in the AV world that applies to greater or lesser extents depending on the products being compared. As for the 8400 vs tablet PC, the only factor missing from your comparison (IMHO) is the reliability factor. I'm not saying that the 8400 is flawless (far from it at times) and I'm not saying that the Tablet PC fails to work on a minute to minute basis. I do feel that the reliability and more importantly the accountability aspect has to be figured into the value. What good would a $1000 panel be if it crashed even just once a week? and how valuable would it be if while trying to troubleshoot the problem, you ran into the all too common finger pointing game instead of cooperative help in trying to find the problem?
I know there is a nice middle ground out there somewhere and maybe the recent merger will get us all closer to that happy medium. (*crosses fingers*)
Jeff
P.S.
I'm not having the best of days, so I might have a touch of devil's advocacy syndrome
I think you missed the point I was trying to make.
My point is this: The MVP-8400, from a price value perspective, is quite simply WAY too expensive. If the customer looks at this like "What do I get for my money spent", the MVP-8400 comes up quite short. List price with the docking station comes in at what, $6000 - $7000 (somewhere in there off the top of my head)?
Now, you can buy a much more powerful piece of hardware (a tablet PC) with an active display that is, inarguably, a whole lot more powerful than the MVP-8400 for well under 25% of that price. Or, put another way, you can buy at least 4 tablet PCs for the list price of an MVP-8400. Does this strike you as a good value for the money?
It does NOT strike me as a good value for the money. But, as I said, I buy because I'm trapped, not because I'm thrilled with the product.
[I am pretty thrilled with the NXC-ME260 combined with either an NXI or a cardframe, though. That stuff is absolutely bullet proof (almost literally!)]
-- Jeff
P.S. Nothing personal, but I kinda "poo-poo" at your reliability argument. If you could install anything and everything (including fairly unstable software) on an MVP-8400, and if the MVP-8400 O/S and firmware could live on a variety of hardware platforms, some less stable and reliable than others, then I'm convinced you wouldn't be happy with the MVP-8400 reliability.
If you buy good hardware, and if you're careful with what you install, then Windows (at least the NT line - or XP and beyond) can be quite reliable. I don't think I've had a BSOD with Windows in the past four years or more. But then, I've never played with Win95/98/ME (those were what I would term "toy" operating systems).
Now, the fact that I still have to reboot Windows all the time for patches - well, that's another issue, and one that M/S clearly must work on more.
My UNIX system (running on old Windows hardware, amusingly enough) has been up 100% of the time for the past two years. Well, except during that 17 hour power failure ...
The other factor I thought of was dealer base. AMX has to make the product line profitable for dealers if they expect dealers to support a highly skilled set of employees to sell,implement and support their products. Viewsonic deals with large chain stores that hire minimum wage employees that shrug their shoulders when a customer has a question about the product. Part of the problem is that we as a society have started to judge the value of something mainly on how much it costs and how many things it does, not how well it does those things. The value of a company or dealer that stands behind their products is not of any concern to people... until their product breaks and then they think that the whole world should stop and fix their problem immediately and for free. This is of course all my opinion and I have very few facts to back it up at the moment (especially the target market stuff), but I think that I have said more than enough to provide ample fuel for a flame
Jeff