Show Off Your Digital Photos on Your New HDTV
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Panasonic TH-50PZ700U 50-inch Class (49.9-inch diagonal) 1080p Plasma HDTV with antireflective coating, EZ Sync HDAVI control, and built-in GalleryPlayer-capable SD memory card slot. $2,999.95
Viewing slide shows of your photos on your TV has been an option since digital cameras hit the market in larger numbers earlier this decade. Usually, this was as easy as plugging in those red, white, and yellow audio/video cables.
But with the advent of high-definition TVs (HDTV), the process is changing a bit to reflect the increased image resolution. Panasonic makes it a staple of their flagship VIERA line of TVs to have a built-in SD memory card slot, so you only have to slide the card from your camera in the TV to flip through your photos in HD. Other TV makers, like Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Olevia and others, offer the possibility of doing the same thing; just not through an already built-in card slot.
Typically, you could do this by buying HD component cables (the ones that have red-green-blue plugs) with the right adapter to connect directly to a digital camera. Sony, in particular, offers one of these specifically for their Cyber-shot line of compact digital still cameras for about $30. Sony also offers the CSS-HD1, which is basically a dock for its Cyber-shot cameras with a remote control to navigate. It comes with a component cable and can be found for as low as $60 online.
And you wouldn't need a Sony BRAVIA TV to set this up. The component cables are specific, and a Sony Cyber-shot camera can easily be hooked up to any HDTV. The same goes for other camera and TV manufacturers. Setting up a Kodak camera (they do have an HDTV dock, too) with an Olevia or Samsung HDTV, for instance, would be child's play so long as you had component cables with the right adapters to connect to the camera.
It's best to bring the camera with you when going out to get the cables, just in case you don't find ones that will fit properly. And, if you want to truly add to the pleasure of viewing your favorite photos on your HDTV, you can purchase a digital camera that offers the 16:9 widescreen shooting format specifically designed for this purpose. Just ask your dealer to show you which models offer this format—and enjoy!