14 DAY TRIAL // I'm not exactly sure why, but the vast majority of people who own a digital camera (normal users, not pros) take great pleasure in sharing their rather dull family/holiday/spring break...etc. photos with as many people as possible. And since a computer's displays is rather "limited" and doesn't allow the viewers to capture just about every detail of the aforementioned "masterpieces", most users turn to their TVs for a better (and wider display).
Of course, hooking up a digital camera to a TV is not exactly a very difficult task, but the people over at Hama have decided to make things even easier, and launched the Hama PhotoPlayer 1080i, a device that allows users to ease the respective process even more. However, that's just about everything this thing can do, because the PhotoPlayer doesn't do anything for the quality of displayed images. Practically, it acts just like a middleman between the digital camera and the TV, an intermediary whose presence is more or less necessary.
Thus, according to the company's statement, the device is very easily connected to a television set or projector and allows users to retrieve the data (namely, the digital photos) either via the built-in 35-in-1 memory card reader or the USB port, which can be connected either directly to a camera, an USB stick or even an USB HDD. Furthermore, the PhotoPlayer 1080i connects to a HDTV set via a component interface and supports the 720p or 1080i resolutions.
Even if it's designed to work especially with latest-gen TV sets, the PhotoPlayer can also be connected to a regular TV. This is possible due to the fact that the PhotoPlayer is equipped with a 3.5 mm jack socket for PAL, although I'm not quite sure just how useful this feature will prove to be, taking into account the fact that most users who own a digital camera also own a plasma or an LCD.
Furthermore, the PhotoPlayer also boasts slide show function, rotation mode, zoom mode, and background music, which can all be operated using the included remote (included). Moreover, pretty much as expected, the Player functions as an external USB 2.0 card reader when connected to the computer.
Hama's PhotoPlayer 1080i will retail for around 100 Euro, which, let's face it, is a pretty high price to pay for such an item, although I'm quite sure that there are quite a lot of amateurs that will fork out the said amount.
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