Pandigital busts out four video-playing digital photo frames

Although the built-in MP3 player on Pandigital's newest foursome of digital frames is commendable, it's certainly not a new addition, and while they lack the integrated WiFi that certain alternatives have, boasting the ability to play back full-motion MPEG-1/2/4, and AVI video along with the usual still slideshows is definitely noteworthy. The upscale digiframes come in 5.6- ($129.99), 7.0- ($149.99), 8.0- ($199.99), and 9.2-inch ($249.99) flavors, while the whole gang comes with interchangeable wood / acrylic panels to fit the surrounding decor. Loading up those YouTube-worthy masterpieces shouldn't be an issue considering the 64MB of internal memory, "multiple" USB 2.0 ports, and a 6-in-1 media card reader that plays nice with SD, xD, MS, MS Pro, CF, and MMC formats. The units also support photo transfers directly from digital cameras, and can accept all sorts of media files from USB thumb drives or nearby computers. Pandigital plans to have these in stores "for the holiday season," and considering the reasonable prices and robust feature set, we'd say those stockings have found a stuffer.

[Via LetsGoDigital]

[TFSpaniel @ Feb 13th 2008 12:07AM]

I have prepared a video in PhotoStory3 and wish to transfer those files to my Pandigital. Is it possible to do that?

Too I have prepared a project in Windows Movie Maker. Can I transfer this movie to my Pandigital?

I am not the savviest computer operator so if that is possible please walk me through it. Thanks!

[dizzie @ Apr 8th 2008 9:59AM]

John,
Thanks for the props. I appreciate it - glad it worked for you!
TFSpaniel, I'd try using the software called "Super" that raza refers to in the post above yours for Windows users. Alternatively, you could try media-convert.com to convert the files to an mp4 with the specifications in my above post. Cheers!

[docism @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:29PM]

I got a Pandigital 12" photoframe from Costco for my mom for Xmas. I popped in an old bluetooth dongle and it works brilliantly. I just right click on any image on my desktop, laptop or even my wireless phone and send. I'm struggling with the video too but with the advice here I wont be for long. Actually I just sent a MOV file, unedited, from my point n' shoot Lumix and it played... lots of jitter though, looks like I need to bust out my new MacBook Pro.

Thanks Peter and Stewart and everyone else for the contributions.

[summer boy @ Oct 12th 2006 1:53AM]

I wonder whether such a small display is usefull in home. It is too small to show beautiful pictures and movs. $200 is still too expensive.

[Farris @ Oct 12th 2006 2:01AM]

I think the point is that a company was able to put the capability out there. It will only be a matter of time before this is commonplace.

Not that I'll ever get one...

[tehuberone @ Oct 12th 2006 3:34AM]

Personally I would not pay $129.99 to stuff a stocking. My stocking stuffing limit is at $30.00

[john @ Oct 12th 2006 5:22AM]

Video is sweet, but flickr rss is truly the killer app. I like the idea of having a finished product rather than a do it yourself project. I can't imagine why eStarling stopped selling. I'll hold out for that wifi enabled version (non-ceiva), maybe next christmas...

[john @ Oct 12th 2006 5:22AM]

This post made me start searching again - turns out estarling disappeared off the scene because they had a supplier problem with the lcd panel. They say they'll be relaunching the product for this xmass! Very excited:

http://estarling.com/

[Gil @ Oct 12th 2006 5:53AM]

I can't believe these things are actually getting cheap enough to consider buying.
I always laughed and thought "not going to happen" when I saw digital frames in movies but here comes the future proving me wrong.

[Whynot @ Oct 12th 2006 6:11AM]

Video playing picture frames... Am I the only one thinking about Harry Potter's moving pictures? :P

[Ken Zemach @ Oct 12th 2006 8:24AM]

Geez, I remember a sale on 5.6" digital frames for, get this, $99 back in 2001. I bought them as christmas presents, and have two for myself. Even at that small size, it's great. LOVE it, and it doesn't even do video.

[JeffNlA @ Oct 12th 2006 10:26AM]

Ken Zemach - I have two of those 2001 $99 frames too! Its the only electronic ever to go UP in price. They get more then 99 on ebay now!

[mcmmach @ Nov 1st 2006 10:58AM]

I bought one of these digital frames and have not been able to play any avi files. I have tried many different codecs and nothing works. Can someone post what codec and paramaters thay have used with sucess ? Thanks, Dean

[Amy Baldwin @ Apr 17th 2007 8:39PM]

Dean,

Did you ever get videos to work on your Pandigital? We're having the same problem. We have Macs and are wondering if that is the problem...i.e. Quicktime.

[Peter Fox @ May 19th 2007 10:00AM]

I too am having problems playing the .AVI files from my camera, HOWEVER, I have been at least partially successful at displaying .mpg files (Mac). For best results, you need to download them into internal memory (it played and then froze on the first frame on the second loop when I used a memory stick). After copying the file into internal memory, I could replay the file without any problems. It resizes the video to fit the screen.

[Peter Fox @ May 21st 2007 9:29PM]

Here is a continuation of my previous thread. I have repeated my successful attempts to play mpeg-1 files using my Pandigital photoframe. In fact, I was able to play content from a VCD I had made a few years ago by copying the .DAT file from the MPEGAV folder onto a memory stick and renaming it as an .MPG file (the photoframe does not recognize .DAT files). These files have a frame rate of 29.97 fps, and are formatted at 320 x 240 pixels. I may have even partially figured out the issue with video freezing the photoframe with the USB flashdrive. For some reason, after playing the first movie, the photoframe wants to play the next video file, and if there is one available it will play it. All remote functions are available WHILE THE MOVIE IS PLAYING. Once the last movie plays, it loops to the first video file. If there is only one video file it seems to get confused. I have not had good luck with mpeg-4 files (.AVI files are actually mpeg-4 format....hmmm). I will try and reproduce this success using higher resolution mpeg-2 files and post those results.
For those that are wondering what a VCD and MPEG mean, consult www.videohelp.com .

[chris @ May 7th 2007 9:18AM]

I too am having the Video playback issue ....won't play mpeg out of a Sony camera or avi from logitech software ....can anyone help ? already on second frame as I returned the first and still ahve the same issue

[Amy Baldwin @ May 21st 2007 2:57PM]

Chris,

We e-mailed Pandigital and they sent us the specs that were supposed to work for videos...but we still couldn't get any to work. I spent a few days exporting various movies with the specs they gave, but to no avail.
They also didn't seem to care when I replied and said that I would return the product because it didn't meet their promises. They seem to be very low on customer service, or have a product that doesn't work and they don't know what to do. Who knows.
The funny thing is...I make movies and export them all the time. I know what I am doing. I am not a clueless customer, and I still couldn't get it to work. Good luck.

[Peter Fox @ May 21st 2007 11:11PM]

My attempts at mpeg-2 files were a bust. In searching the web, not all the sites claim mpeg-2 as a file spec. I did discover on another site, however, that the Pandigital will play .MOV files, even though this is not a specified format. I have confirmed this, but the quality of the playback can be choppy (this was also noted on the site I got this information from). Playback quality seemed to be bad one time and then fairly good when it is played later. One potential advantage to this format is that it is a native Quicktime format. Thus people could actually open AVI files, paste multiple files into one video, add or delete audio, and export as a quicktime MOVie with Quicktime Pro ($30 PC/Mac). I will test this theory and post results. I did notice that both .MOV and AVI files run at 15 fps as compared to the 29.97 fps for mpeg-1. FYI, I am running a Mac, and since I seem to be having at least some success, this does not appear to be a Mac specific issue (Amy B).

[Peter Fox @ May 22nd 2007 11:18PM]

Alright, I have now successfully played .MPG (mpeg-1), .MOV, and .MP4 (mpeg-4) video formats. I was having difficulty saving files correctly using Quicktime Pro, but I have had success with iMoveHD (Mac). In fact, I am begining to believe the problem may be in some stray settings from the camera, which iMovieHD does not include, as just about all of the above file formats worked well from iMovie (including resolutions higher than 320 x 240). Some comments on each:
.MPG - not really common, but I used two different sources and they both worked. See other comments above. Files ripped from Toast VCD disk images and EyeTV play fine (or as well as to be expected from this format).
.MOV - files from my Olympus C-2100 played without any alteration. They can occasionally be choppy from the camera. Files from iMovieHD in this format looked really good. Various resolutions can be encoded. "Still Frames" within a imovie do not have flickering pixels.
.MP4 - Export "Movie to MPEG-4" using "Default Settings" produced a workable video. Various resolutions can be encoded, but not all options worked. Low resolution video can look pretty crappy, with flickering pixels in still images, and jagged text.
.AVI - Export "Movie to .AVI" using "Default Settings" did not produce a workable video. Files from my Pentax Optio S4i did not work either. I guess I was wrong about mpeg-4 and AVI being related, although there are plenty of converters out there on the web. I have not had success using Quicktime Pro to convert these files to movies that play on the Pandigital Photo Frame, but Toast converted them into playable .MPG files, and iMovie converted them into playable .MOV and .MP4 files. iMovie uses Quicktime so this is probably just a matter of figuring out which of the millions of settings on Quicktime Pro to adjust to get a good conversion.

At this point I am going to just sit back and enjoy the great pictures from my extensive photo library (most of which never got printed). I used batch processing within Photoshop Elements to convert files to 600x800 pixels to maximize the space from the internal memory. I do appreciate that standard landscape pictures from my digital cameras scale well on this frame (that is not true for all photo frames), and the remarkably good picture quality. I'm glad that I was able to get video to play, but truthfully video is a real memory hog and I'd just as soon watch videos on TV (I should note that I saw no 'ghosting' from the videos I played). It would be nice to have "Harry Potter-like photos" but clipping and arranging video into loops is time intensive and I have way more photos than video clips. I would probably be interested in doing that with a few video clips IF I could play them randomly with the still photos. My Mac does not seem to recognize the photoframe, but with the USB drive slot and memory card slots, this is a minor annoyance. Since the frame remembers which card it was on last, I plugged the power supply into a timer to prevent possible burn. Please feel free to pass this information on.

[Peter Fox @ Jun 2nd 2007 2:38PM]

I noticed on the net that some people are having problems connecting the frame to a computer. It doesn't appear to work directly with my Mac, although I was able to get XP to recognize to recognize it through virtual PC (although I could only have the frame and the mouse connected via the USB port). Any Mac only connectivity hints would be helpful. I also gave one to my girlfriend, and we had an issue with Norton Systemworks and the frame. We could not get XP to recognize her frame until we disabled the security feature in Systemworks. Theoretically it should now recognize the frame even when security is turned back on.

[Stuart Keen @ Jun 12th 2007 9:59AM]

I really enjoyed your enlightening discussion about video for the PanDigital Photo Frame. I just bought the 8" version Sunday and have been trying to get video to work. Frustrating. I too have a Mac (iMac G5) and eyeTV2. I only got partial success. I exported a clip from eyeTV as mpeg-4. Then I used the program "MPEG Streamclip" to convert it to AVI. It played just fine, but NO AUDIO, although I was able to determine that audio was embedded. Nothing else I did, no other format worked.

I am interested in your success and wonder if you could provide some further detail. I took the eyeTV exported mpeg-4 clip and placed it into iMovieHD. Then I saved it under QuickTIme tab as 1) MOV, 2) MP4 and 3) MP2. I also exported the clip from eyeTV "FOR TOAST" (MP4) and then exported it from Toast 8 as MP4. NONE OF THESE PLAYED in PanDigital. Either I got a black screen or just a second of the clip would play and then freeze.

Apparently I am doing something different from what you did. Could you provide more detail on how you got video WITH SOUND to function in PanDigital, please.

[Peter Fox @ Jun 12th 2007 7:33PM]

Stuart, we have VERY similar configurations and software. You are SO close, but you are doing things a bit differently.
On EyeTV, set the DEVICE SETTINGS for ENCODING to VIDEO CD (I'm using the original EyeTV software, but it should be similar with EyeTV2). Record your movie and edit it if necessary. EXPORT the file as a MPEG ELEMENTARY STREAMS and this file should run without any further modifications. I'm not sure what you mean by "MPEG Streamclip", but if you are refering to another program, that is not necessary and could cause problems. I did not try .AVI files from EyeTV as you must encode in .AVI format, which means that the video must be re-encoded to produce a DVD. The .MP4 files just freeze on the first frame. As I mentioned above, mpeg-2 files (.MP2) do not work.
To encode your iMovies into .mpg format with Toast 8, select VIDEO, then VIDEO CD and drag your movie(s) into the workspace (or export them from EyeTV). This will also work with files directly from your video camera. Each movie encodes separately. Unless you want a hardcopy, select SAVE AS DISK IMAGE. Once it has encoded and you are back in the working window select COPY and IMAGE FILE from the toolbar. Click the SELECT button, open the file you just saved, and MOUNT the file you just saved. You should see a CD image appear on your desktop, just like you had a disk in your DVD drive. Click on it to open it and open the MPEGAV folder. There should be a file called AVSEQ01.DAT (and other .DAT files if you encoded several). Drag that to whatever device you are going to use to play it on the picture frame. Now rename that file to change the extension to .MPG from .DAT (you can change the name of the first part of the file to whatever you want as long as it has a .MPG extension). At this point you can test it to see if it works, as Quicktime will now recognize it as an mpeg-1 file. Now eject the card/thumbdrive, put it in the frame, select the card/drive, and go to files. Scroll to your movie file. If it will play, a preview image will appear (saves the trouble of rebooting). Select the movie file and it should play. If you burn it to VCD, just move the .DAT files and rename as per the instructions above.
Working with iMovie directly, prepare your movie, and select EXPORT from the FILE menu. Select EXPERT SETTINGS, SHARE, and select MOVIE TO QUICKTIME MOVIE and settings to DEFAULT SETTINGS. You should now compile a playable movie. You can play around with custom settings to tweek the video quality, but as I mentioned, not all of the combinations of custom settings work. Similarly, you can select MOVIE TO MPEG-4 and DEFAULT SETTINGS to produce a .MP4 file.
You beat me on .AVI files, but given so many other options I kind of gave up on them.

If this doesn't get you audio, try checking the volume control wheel on the back of the unit. :P

[Stuart Keen @ Jun 13th 2007 3:57PM]

Thanks for the details on video for PanDigital. Working with a short eyeTV clip, I did exactly as you suggested, but just could not get the video file to work in PanDigital. So I played around with eyeTV. Turns out if I export from eyeTV as a MPEG-4 file WITH NO SOUND selected in the Options menu (eyeTV2), then the video would play perfectly. But as soon as I tried to include sound, the video would freeze after the first second. I tried different configurations in the Audio menu, but nothing worked. So I went back to playing with AVI format. Using a different application ("MPEG StreamClip") I converted the eyeTV MPEG-4 file into AVI with audio "uncompressed". The video clip plays in PanDIgital, though the quality of sound was sometimes a bit distorted. Any other choice than "uncompressed audio" would not work. But even though I can get sound now, this is not the solution. The AVI file was almost 12 times larger (MPEG without sound was 7.3Mb (sound content would have been 3 Mb more), AVI with sound was 44.1Mb). So now what? In response to my query PanDIgital sent me a sample (25Mb) video file. It worked perfectly in the photoframe so I know there is nothing wrong with the system. I looked at the clip's information in QuickTime and came up with the following: Format: MPEG1, Muxed, 320 x 240, FPS 25, Data Rate: 1348.27 kbits/sec. They also provided the following system format requirements:

SPECIFICATIONS OF MPEG4 VIDEO
============================
AVI and MPEG4
Video:
Format: mpeg4
Size: 352x240
Frame rate: 25.00fps
=====
Audio:
Format: mp3
Bit rate: 55kbps (kilo bytes per second)
Sample rate: 44100Hz
Channels: Mono
============================
============================
============================
SPECIFICATIONS OF MPEG1 VIDEO
============================
Video:
Format: mpeg1video
Size: 352x240
Frame rate: 25.00fps
=====
Audio:
Format: mp2
Bit rate: 224kbps
Sample rate: 44100Hz
Channels: Mono

Audio seems to be my problem. I notice the requirements for the audio is either mp2 or mp3. These are not options available with eyeTV export. I am not familiar with this jargon, but eyeTV only exports in MPEG audio format in all the various video file formats available. SO how do I convert to mp2 or mp3 when exporting from eyeTV? I'm still working on this problem, but any suggestions you can give will be appreciated.

Facts that I have found with PanDigital and will pass on: the PanDigital appears to be compatible with only MS-DOS. I initially could not fill my 2Gb SD card, severely limited, so erased/formatted with Disk Utility, choosing Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Card not recognized by PanDigital. So formatted plain Mac OS extended. Still not recognized. Re-formated with MS-DOS File, and low and behold, the card will now accept (and play) many more files and seems to have no problems with premature limitations (previously I could only load 80Mb of files on the 2 GB card).

Also, for the order of files, I found numbering in sequence did not work. What did work was to make an iPhoto album with the photos placed in the proper sequence, then drag (load) these to the SD card. Or, if you load files one by one, in the desired order, they will remain in that sequence. But numbering does not work.

[Peter Fox @ Jun 13th 2007 6:06PM]

So did you try the .MPG files from Toast 8 or .MOV files from iMovieHD? The specifications that Pandigital gave you looks exactly like the ones from EyeTV encoded in Video CD format for me, and I know I heard my EyeTV and VCD .MPG clips clearly. Elgato still lists the older EyeTV 1.86 if you want to use exactly the same software. I noticed that my memory card sorts chronologically as well. It also creates a dummy file if the file is in a folder (some kind of alias I guess) that lists as an "unsupported format".

[Stuart Keen @ Jun 13th 2007 10:29PM]

FANTASTICO! Peter, I followed your suggestion about using Toast 8 and it worked beautifully - though I don't understand what I am doing. Great video and great audio in PanDigital. Your system worked on original .MPG, .MP4 and .MOV files. Files remained original size. The only change I made was exporting in "MPEG-4" in eyeTV2. I didn't try the iMovieHD method since I now have a working method (but kept your instructions for possible future reference). Thanks for your clear instructions and sharing your knowledge. Stu

[Peter Fox @ Jun 14th 2007 6:53AM]

Stuart, I'm glad you finally have success. Basically, you are using Toast 8 as a Pandigital compatable mpeg-1 encoder, and since it is designed to accept a wide variety of video sources it's pretty powerful (including .DV). For some reason, a direct export of .MPG files with Toast is not an option, hence the stripping of files from a VCD. PC users should be able to do the same thing with burner software designed to create VCDs. There are freeware mpeg-1 encoders out there as well, but they are usually restricted to DV input.
Enjoy,
Peter

[Stuart Keen @ Jun 14th 2007 10:14AM]

Peter, sorry to bother you, but since you so expertly solved the video compatibility problem, I was wondering if you have a solution for putting the video clips in sequence. Nothing I do seems to work. What worked for the photos does not work for the videos. I made five short clips and wanted them in sequence. Here is what I tried and the results:

1) dragged the five clips, one by one, in sequence onto the SD Card. Result sequence was : 4, 1, 3, 5, 2
2) Then deleted them from card, numbered each 1., 2. etc and loaded one by one in sequence: Result 1. 3. 4. 5. 2.
3) Then tried numbering with no period or space between number and name, drag one by one: Result 1, 3, 4, 5, 2
4) Then made a separate iPhoto album, arranged in sequence without numbers, and dragged the five to the SD: 4, 1, 5, 2, 3

I have run out of ideas. Have you discovered how they can be put in sequence? The only possible solution I can come up with is:
1) make a composite video of all clips in sequence in Final Cut Pro (or perhaps in iMovieHD - no experience with that app) and 2) ALSO load the card with the individual clips so you can select individual videos if you don't want the entire sequence played. But of course this is duplicating each clip and wasting valuable storage space.

I purchased earlier a different digital photo frame (no manufacture listed anywhere???). I don't like it because of the inferior and wide screen (not 4:3), but the internal software is so superior to PanDigital - you can mix photos and videos, accepts original videos without modification, and you can pause the playing at anytime. One thing it does is allow you to pause and then zooming in on that particular photo, then resume the show. On the PanDigital it seems that in order to zoom you must exit the slide show, then go into the Photo menu page which may be many pages in depth, tediously find the one photo you want to inspect, select and then zoom, then resume the show. Is this correct or is there a way to PAUSE the slide show and zoom in on a particular photo and then resume the show again? The manual is so skimpy and poorly written (after working in Beijing for 3 years I should be use to their lingo, but this manual really is a looser!). Stu

[Peter Fox @ Jun 16th 2007 10:35PM]

Stu,
What are the sizes of each clip?
Peter

[Stuart Keen @ Jun 17th 2007 5:11PM]

Peter, the video clips were small trial samples between 2Mb and 47Mb (1.7, 8.2, 10, 28, 47.3Mb)

Stu

[dizzie @ Jun 21st 2007 3:13PM]

Hi, Guys! Thanks for your research and insight into the Pandigital frame. I just got one myself. I found a nice way to convert video to a good format using the trialware program ffmpegx, in case you'd like to know. You may find it a bit simpler than your approach.
First, drag and drop your video file (whatever type) into the left hand input side on the summary page. On the right, select AVI Divx mencoder for the output(I think this is the default). Divx AVI is technically an MP4 and I thought it looked great playing on the frame. Then, on the video page, choose 320x240. While you can do up to 30 fps, I chose NTSC Film - almost 24 fps. Click the "best" button on the lefthand side to calculate a bitrate. Then, on the audio tab, choose your settings. I chose 96 kbps, 48,000hz, mono. I also chose "high quality" on the options tab. If the input is an interlaced VIDEO_TS folder from a DVD, click "deinterlace" in options. Then click encode and let 'er rip! I hope that this will be of use to you. Cheers!

[Peter Fox @ Jul 12th 2007 5:13PM]

Dizzie,
Thanks for you comments. Your details about sound encoding are most helpful, as I believe Stuart identified the issue with the audio track being the issue that determines playability. It sounds like ffmpegX has come a long way from it's freeware days when I was playing with it. The interface can be a bit technical for most people though. If you can rip from DVD, you may want to try and play around with the video size for quality. I had some success with this using higher resolution in .MOV files.
Peter

[dizzie @ Jul 17th 2007 4:36PM]

Interesting, Peter! I've only been able to get the player to play movies with a max vertical resolution of 240. Perhaps I'll try using the .mov container format and some larger resolutions. You're right in that ffmpegx can get somewhat technical. Perhaps Handbrake would be a nice free alternative. On a side note, Pandigital is dead wrong on their spec sheet when they say the resolution is 480x234! I find the resolution to be 640 x 362. I first scaled all my pics to 480x234, but then noticed that they looked a lot worse than the sample pics. I had a hunch that the width was 640, and I find that 640x362 looks better than any larger resolution, probably because the frame doesn't have to scale it down. I totally agree with a posting I saw that suggested someone put linux on one of these things - in somewhat of the same manner as iPod linux or rockbox! What a perfect platform - it's like a small single board computer with a nice display, complete with usb and memory card ports. I'll bet that with keyboard driver you could use it for light websurfing. And wouldn't it be great to get mPlayer or VLC on this? Cheers!

[Paul @ Aug 24th 2007 1:12PM]

Hello Dizzie,

Thanks for your post. I downloaded the program you recommended, but it didn't seem to do anything. Every file I dragged onto the window said "unrecognized". I tried the conversion anyway, and about a second later it would ring a bell and indicate that it was complete, but there was no new file.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated, as this is now a week late b day gift for my 83 yr old dad.

Thanks,
Paul

[Sergei @ Aug 13th 2007 4:00PM]

Hi. Sorry for asking this Q, there's might be someone gave an answer. But I couldn't find one.
Is it possible to us USB flash drive as extension of 64mb this frame use or not.
Thanx in advance.

[dizzie @ Aug 30th 2007 8:21AM]

see below

[Paul @ Aug 24th 2007 1:07PM]

I have the 8" version of this frame.
I have tried everything to get it to play video files, with NO success.
I downloaded the ffmpegx software that dizzle recommended, but that didn't seem to work at all. I could not get it to produce a converted file at all. It would just ring a bell, and then "voila" nothing!

I called Pandigital three times. The first two times, I could not understand anything the rep was saying. But I was able to get her to send me the same generic set of instructions that Stuart Keen posted. I followed them exactly, but nothing!
Finally I started playing around with the settings, and using different clips. I was able to get the video to start, then it froze after about 2 seconds, as described by others.

I am extremely frustrated, as this birthday gift is now a week late, and I have spent 7 hours messing with it trying to make it work.

Any further words of magic before I give up and just make a slideshow with music?

Thanks,

Paul

p.s. My recommendation... don't buy this unit for the video capability, unless you love to tinker and are very technical.
It is simple and works well for photos, but there are less expensive models that do the same if you don't want videos.

[dizzie @ Aug 30th 2007 8:20AM]

Paul,

I could tell you how to get ffmpegx to work, but I have had problems with the audio and video going out of sync on longer movies of over 15 minutes. Here's a simpler tool that works better for the frame! Download iSquint at http://www.isquint.org/. It's a neat little free tool. First, drag your files in. By the way, what type of video file are you using? It's very strange that a powerhouse like ffmpegx couldn't recognize it. Use a resolution of 320 horizontal by 240 vertical for "TV style" square 4:3 aspect ratio. If it's a 16:9 widescreen movie, use 432x240. Then plug in a bit rate of about 450. Do NOT check off h.264 encoding. Use a framerate of 20-30 fps. Many times, I use 24 - the framerate of cinema film. For audio bitrate, I usually choose 128kbps, 44.1 hz, mono, but I've used lower kbps like 96 and it was fine. I would also say to either transfer the movies to the internal memory of the frame or use an SD card (preferably hi-speed). Using a thumb drive (to answer serge's question) makes the movies go very slowly, although it works fine for pics. I hope this helps and wish you luck! Let us know!

[John @ Nov 11th 2007 10:23AM]

Just wanted to thank Dizzy for the 'iSquint' suggestion. I tried everything else with my 'Mov' videos- including many of the suggestions on this site- with no success until iSquint. I followed Dizzy's suggestion to the letter and now the videos all play fine on my 8" Pandigital frame. There is a slight audio lag- but nothing to worry about. Thanks again!

[raza @ Dec 31st 2007 5:26AM]

I finally got a Pandigital 7" photoframe working with AVI (using a win-based machine for renders).

Origin video was 640x360 (this seems to enable the least amount of aspect ratio errors, its basically 16:9)

I used Super for the transcoding.

Output Container: AVI
Video Codec: MJPEG
Audio Codec: WAV PCM 16 Little Endian

Coder: FFMPEG

Toggles:
Hi Quality ON
Top Quality ON
48K Audio OFF

Video Bitrate: 2496 (I left resolution unchanged at 640x360)
Framerate: 29.97

Audio Sampling Frequency: 44100
2 Channels
Bitrate: 1411

These settings provided the best quality video with uncorrupted audio.

Best,

Raza