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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 06-07-08/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
SPF-85H, SPF-85P, SPF-87H, SPF-105P,
SPF-107H and SPF-700T models. Numer-
ous other inexpensive makes can also be
used, provided they come with an AX206
controller chipset and a resolution of 320
x 200 pixels.
These AX206 picture frames are
equipped with an integrated battery pack
which is of no use to us since the display
draws its power from the USB connection
anyway. It’s a wise move to remove the
battery pack since this eliminates a po-
tential source of problems. You only need
to unscrew and remove four screws on
the backside, lift the back cover and look
for the blue battery pack which is hard to
miss. Cut the two (red and black) wires
using a small sidecutter, keeping in mind
to make the cut as close as possible to
the circuit board without risking a short
circuit.
Now that all hardware requirements
are met you need to install the lcd4linux
plug-in on your AZBox ME. Our first two
attempts on one of the two official firm-
ware versions were not met with success
because the lcd4linux plug-in requires
some libraries that were missing in our
firmware. These are the lacking libraries
we obtained from the Internet:
• libpython2.6-1.0_2.6.7-ml8. 2_mipsel.ipk
• python-imaging_1.1.6-ml1_mipsel. ipk
• python-textutils_2.6.7-ml8. 2_mipsel.ipk
In addition, we had to install the follow-
ing extension packages:
• python-codecs
• python-datetime
• python-imaging
• python-textutils
Then we were finally able to install
the lcd4linux plug-in and complete all
the configuration steps. Unfortunately,
however, the LCD display of our digi-
tal picture frame remained dark. As it
turned out our Linux distribution was still
our Linux receiver we first have to modify
its default firmware. Instead of waiting
for a user to press a button in order to
activate the connection to the PC the pic-
ture frame has to react immediately to
all incoming files and must display them
without delay.
Fully modified firmware versions are
available for two specific types of digital
picture frames. If you search the web you
will easily find them. All you need to make
sure is the right firmware version is used
for the corresponding frame. You should
also make a point of flashing the new
firmware precisely as you are instructed.
Some digital picture frames from Sam-
sung are suitable for our experiment,
notably the SPF-72H, SPF-75H, SPF-83H,
work with the AZBox ME.
There are, however, some types of
digital picture frames that allow access-
ing their internal memory right from a
PC, which means the picture frame must
come with an USB slave connection. In
such a case the picture frame acts like
any other USB device that can be con-
trolled from a PC. If we now decide to
hook up such a suitable picture frame to
1. Digital picture frame with the AX206
chipset. These models are perfectly suited
for our workshop.
2. The receiver menu can also be displayed
on the digital picture frame.
3. Even the weather forecast can be
shown on the picture frame. All required
data is downloaded thanks to the Internet
connection of the AZBox.