Home > Consumer Reviews > Kodak EasyShare SV-811 8-inch Digital Picture Frame

***Updated 9/27/08 - I still really like this digital frame - I purchased 5 and all 5 are still kicking with daily use. I use the auto on-off program feature which is so nice. It still won't accept the mini flash drives and there are still ocassional hiccups with edited pictures. Honestly, I don't expect this to last much past another couple of years. Still, I like it and I'm waiting for Kodak to come out with a 15" frame. I've looked at almost all the others and just don't like the quality - not worth the price yet until Kodak enters this market.

I really like this ditigal frame and I actually bought 5 - 3 are going to be christmas gifts. 2 major warnings: 1) don't even think of loading the software that comes with the frame - you don't need it in any way. Just plug in a flash drive stick or SD card and it automatically works. Just plug into your computer with synch cord and let Windows recognize it and do all the work, and then add pics on to the jump drive from your computer. 2) Mini flash drives do NOT work on this frame! Only full-size flash drives. From what I read on message boards, it has to do with if you are using edited and cropped .jpeg files, which I do use. In any case, the only way around this so far that I've found is to use a full-size flash drive, NOT a mini drive. The problem is the full-size drive protrudes out from the edge of the frame and is visible. Not very cool. I haven't tried the SD card yet and that would be invisible but not nearly as easily synchable with any computer since you would have to have a card reader. With a flash drive, I can add or change pics from any computer. I don't have that capability with an SD card.

I know it's strange, but I still really like the quality of the picture and the size of this frame for the low price even tho you can't use a mini flash drive. This is just my 2 cents worth.

I had absolutely no trouble at all buying from Amazon and from Ace Digital Photo. Package arrived as described and it came very very fast for just the regular, standard shipping.

I picked up this picture frame as a gift for my wife, thinking that the name (Kodak) would get me a better quality frame than some of the unknown brands out there. Well, I was partially right... the display is gorgeous, the frame seems well-built, and the feature set is rich. My initial assessment was strong enough to give the frame 4 stars.

However, after using the frame for less than an hour, I believe that this device has one fatal flaw that ruins it. There is no way to have the frame pick pictures randomly to display in the slide show. There is no shuffle play! This means that every time you start it up, you see the exact same pictures in the exact same order as last time.

The "Getting Started" guide sums it up this way: "The pictures and videos - on the card or device you inserted - are displayed in the order they're stored on the card or device." IMHO, when you've got hundreds of pictures on an SD card, you'd like to see a variety, a sampling of what you've got, not the same ones in the same order every time. To me, this is such a basic feature that I didn't even think to look for it. That's my mistake, to be sure, but I hope that others can learn from my mistake.

BTW, I played around with different ways to change the order, including changing the last modified dates of the files, the names of the files, the creation dates of the files, and the last accessed dates of the files, but to no avail. I'd take the SD card, put it in my computer, tweak the files, then put the card back in the frame, only to see the exact same pictures in the exact same order as before I changed anything. Very frustrating, and very disappointing.

Until Kodak fixes this problem with a firmware upgrade, there is no way I could recommend that anyone buy this frame. I'm still searching for a good one.

As others mentioned, the documentation for the picture frame is horrible. Thus, I decided to hook the frame to my MacBook Pro using the supplied USB cable and transfer images. For some reason I could not eject the disk image after transferring the images from my computer to the frame and when I disconnected the USB cord it seemed to corrupt several of the images which in turn caused the frame to malfunction when it encountered the first corrupt image. Fortunately turning the power off and then on corrected the malfunction.

I then deleted all of the images from the frame's memory, and decided that I would try loading the EasyShare software onto my computer to see if that would facilitate the transfer. BIG MISTAKE!! DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE. Here's what happened... After loading the software and then launching it, it asks to import your images and it tells you that it will not change any of your images. IT LIED. The software ended up corrupting about 100 of my favorite images that I had enhanced using Aperture and I've spent the better part of the morning recoving the files from a backup and then reapplying the enhancements to each image.

After that debacle, I was about to pitch the frame, but I decided to try one more thing. I used the computer to transfer all of the images to a USB thumb drive and then plugged the thumb drive into the frame. This worked like a charm and resulted in gorgeous images being displayed on the frame. The frame allows you to copy images from your thumb drive to the frame which is what I ultimately did so I could use the thumb drive for other tasks.

Other than not using the included software, my other recommendation to purchasers of the frame would be to export the images that you want to put on the frame from your image processing application using a resolution of 800x480 pixels. This way you will maximize the number of images that the frame's memory will hold.

Just bought this for my dad and tried it out this evening for a few hours.

Pros:
Better color than some lesser expensive brands
Seems to read files from USB flash drives quickly and well. Navigating to subfolders was easy (using the remote), and the thumbnail preview needed only a few seconds per shot to show - indicating a decent CPU is in use.
Had no problem with movies (at least the formats I tried)
It read small and large JPGs fine (I worried about this, but did not need to)
Sound is OK - but its a cheap small speaker. Don't expect lots of fidelity...

Cons:
Don't even think about trying to navigate the menus with the buttons on the back. They do not work for some parts of the menu system (e.g. setting the time, etc.), and their assignment to actions is not well planned.
As commented by others, the remote is too small. Layout and ease of use is OK, and there is good tactile feedback (contrary to one review I read), but Kodak should provide a somewhat more robust remote at this price-point
On initial use, I inserted my SD card from my Canon camera and it only showed 6 photos out of the 15 on the card! Fiddling for about 20 minutes eventually allowed me to see the other pictures - but only once. I could not seem to get it to show more than the 6 when I took a break and came back to it. Now before you assume that I am a computer novice, please understand that I am not. I have worked on hundreds of computers since 1982 and with all OSes. There is just some kind of bug in the software. The USB-drive navigation was fine, but the frame would not reliably recognize/show pics in the Canon-formatted SD card for some odd reason...

My dad has a Kodak camera, so I think I'll keep the frame and give it to him. But when it comes time for me to buy another - I'll look at other models/brands and read reviews more carefully :-)

I have no complaints about the frame's ease of use or picture quality, but the inability to randomly portray the pictures is a MAJOR drawback to me, and is a big disappointment. Had I known I would NOT have purchased this. What good is being able to put 2GB worth of pictures in the frame if EVERY TIME you turn it on you are faced with the same pictures in the same order? If you want to see picture #700 you might just want to leave it on all night and catch it when you get up.
I also learned there is no need for the included Easy Share software. Just connect the frame via USB and transfer the photos.