Digital photo frames to get connected

John Walko at Video Imaging Design Line gives us some very interesting statistics about silicon providers for digital picture frames:

Courtesy of EE Times Europe

LONDON — The total silicon opportunity for digital photo frame suppliers will exceed $550 million by 2013, according to market research group InStat.

Microcontrollers are said to represent the largest opportunity in non-wireless enabled devices.

In a major study of the sector, InStat also found that the bill of materials for a wireless 8-inch digital photo frame will fall below $36 by 2013, with the LCD, the wireless module and the enclosure being the dominant cost items.

The researchers predict worldwide unit shipments for all types of digital photo frames will reach 50 million by 2013.

However because of the trend to purchase digital photo frames as gifts pre-loaded with pictures, most units shipped still lack advanced features such as wireless connectivity to the Internet. Nevertheless, wireless-enabled photo frames are a key growth driver as they will grow at twice the rate of overall digital photo frames in 2010.

“Prices for connected frames will continue to decline, and as manufacturers educate consumers about these devices; the mass market will become more comfortable using the Internet services connected frames support,” says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat analyst.

Ethier adds applications such as sharing and downloading pictures over the Internet, as well as streaming Internet radio and video from online sites like YouTube, will be the main drivers in the sector.

Some of the major digital photo frame vendors and their silicon providers are said to include HP, Kodak, Pandigital, Philips, Samsung, Sony, RMI Corporation, Marvell Technology Group, and Samsung Electronics.

** Separately, Conexant said Tuesday (June 30) it has started sampling a range of SoCs targeting the connected photo frame and interactive display appliances market.

The parts integrate integrate Internet connectivity and touch-screen technology. The CX92735 supports streaming media content, MP3 audio playback with slideshow functionality, and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity.

The device integrates an ARM9 processor with a vector floating point unit and a dedicated image processor, which simultaneously processes streamed content.

Wireless Carriers Interested in Digital Photo Frames

From Junko Yoshida of  Global Sources: EETIMES ASIA comes this very interesting article about wireless/digital picture frames as a “third screen.”  Read on:

The latest mobile phones won’t be the only attraction for cellular carriers at the Mobile World Congress. EE Times has learned that wireless operators are suddenly hot to trot over digital photo frames.

Wireless carriers see the digital photo frame as a “third screen,” beyond cellphones and PCs, into which they can plug 3G data cards.

In theory, a 3G card will help digital photo frames connect to the Internet, allowing consumers to download pictures directly from photo sharing sites. By leveraging the 3G-enabled digital photo frame, cellular carriers hope to finally crack the home market, where they haven’t had much luck so far.

Marvell Technology Group, for one, said it is booked solid with meetings with carriers next week in Barcelona, Spain, specifically to discuss connected digital photo frames.

Carriers’ requests for proposals and quotes have been circulating for awhile, said Kishore Manghnani, VP for application processors, consumer and computing business group at Marvell.

Beyond chips that go inside mobile handsets, Marvell is now pushing a new application processor based on its Sheeva CPU core running up to 1.2GHz. It was developed for the connected digital photo frame market.

While suppliers of connected digital photo frames are typically looking to Wi-Fi networks to enable connectivity, cellular operators are pursuing an opportunity of their own.

T-Mobile, for example, quietly launched in the United States late last year a 7-inch digital photo frame, called Cameo, with GPRS service on the T-Mobile network. The frame, priced at $100, costs $10 a month, allowing users to load images from MMS and e-mail, as well as from a memory card slot embedded in the device.

Vodafone in Germany and Orange in France are also looking into connecting cellular cards into digital photo frames, according to Harry Wang, senior analyst at Parks Associates. Verizon and AT&T are interested in an electronic device called a “home center” which can display digital photos, while connected to a fixed-line phone, he added.

Get connected
“The tricky part,” said Wang, “is that we don’t know whether consumers are interested in paying a $10 monthly charge” for the sole purpose of downloading photos.

Some operators are also contemplating adding a VoIP service to the digital photo frame. That’s right—talking pictures. Cue Al Jolson.

“It’s still a novel concept and no carriers understand enough of its business model,” said Wang. “Digital photo frames can be bundled with a variety of services via broadband connections.”

Richard Miller, chief strategy officer at RMI Corp., said, “The big problem carriers solve is connectivity.” Consumers would not need to type in the WEP password, as they would if a digital photo frame were connected to a Wi-Fi router at home.

“But the downside,” Miller added, “is high cost and low bandwidth. I think with more and more iPhones, iTouches and other Wi-Fi devices, consumers are gradually getting a lot better at connecting to Wi-Fi.”

RMI, which launched its own Home Media Player solution last year, has been already making inroads among the original design manufacturers of digital photo frames in Asia.

RMI’s advanced high performance multimedia Alchemy Au1250 Processor offers a turnkey solution for connected digital photo frames with a variety of capabilities including video streaming, wireless connectivity, on-demand content and connectivity to content online.

Noting that RMI, too, is working with a couple of carriers, RMI’s Miller said the advantage of moving into this market is that “carriers have good channel and billing relationships [with their customers] that they can leverage.”