Create slide shows from your digital photos without a computer and show them on your TV!

While cruising the aisles of Tuesday Morning I came across this neat device, on sale for $29.99 (the MSRP is $99.99.) I snapped it up.

The Visioneer PhotoPort consists of a digital card reader that can accept SmartMedia, Compact Flash (up to 512K) or IBM Microcards. It plugs into your television set through the RCA (yellow) video jack. There is also an infrared keyboard, which you use to send commands to the card reader and television, and a remote control device which does the same, minus the ability to add text. The box also includes four AAA batteries to use with the keyboard and remote, a USB cable to connect the card reader directly to your computer if you choose to do so, and an excellent user’s manual and quickstart guide.

The system took about two minutes to set up – totally plug-and-play.

As soon as I turned on the card reader, a menu appeared on my TV screen. I could then view my photos, organize them into albums, add backgrounds, add captions, resize, crop and rotate the photos, and add additional photos to a page.

You can show the albums as slide shows, complete with jazzy transitions.

All of this is controlled through a special infrared keyboard or remote that interact with menus on the television screen.

The first time you use the device it walks you through onscreen tutorials on how to accomplish the next step. You can skip the tutorials if you don’t need them. There is a help key that provides onscreen contextual help.

The photo editing tools are rudimentary – you can’t color correct, reduce red-eye, or apply filters; rotation can only be accomplished in 90 degree increments. It’s not meant to be a fully functional photo editing suite, but it does enough to help you assemble a spretty good slide show on the fly.

The edits you make are saved in a separate directory, so your original photos are not changed.

The things it does, it does simply and well.

You can make your photos into shapes – a heart, a trapezoid, or fluffy cloudlike edges, for example. You can add captions, including speech bubbles. The backgrounds are nice: about 15 graphics backgrounds plus a decent collection of colors. There are several font selections.

If you want to do more sophisticated editing, you can use the card reader and the USB cable to import the photos back into your image editing program, diddle with them, then save them back onto the card. It works just like a removable drive.

One of the cooler features is the ability to save your slide shows onto a VHS tape. You set up your TV and VCR as usual, and plug the card reader in the tape deck’s video jack (some older VCRs don’t have them; in that case, you must purchase an optional RF modulator - they even give you the Radio Shack part number!) Then, just tape as usual.

This would be a neat way to share photos with friends and family members who don’t have access to a computer, or to send your daughters friends home from a slumber party with their own tape of the event.

One thing I hoped the device would do it is show PowerPoint slide shows when there is no access to a computer and projector. It worked!

In PowerPoint, I saved my slide show as .JPG files (it’s one of the save as . . . options) and then transferred those files to my CompactFlash card using the Visioneer card reader connected to my computer via the USB cable. The slides could then be made into a PhotoPort album and reassembled into a slide show. The animation was lost, but it would work in a pinch.

You can also share your slide shows by saving each slide as a JPG file, connecting the card reader to your computer and e-mailing the photos to others.

This would be a great device to take with you on vacation. Instead of having everyone huddle around the tiny LCD screen on the back of your digital camera, you could hook the PhotoPort up to the TV in your hotel and watch a slide show of your trip.

It’s easy enough for kids to use but I could see business people using it as well. Instead of having clients huddle around a laptop, all you need to take with you is the card reader and remote. The slide shows can be saved on the card.

The keyboard is small – about half the size of my full-size Dell keyboard - the card reader is about 4”x2.5” (plus the power transformer) and the remote is remote-size. If you don’t want to add any text to your slide shows, you could get by without the keyboard – all the core functions can be performed by the remote. It travels light.

This is an impressive piece of hardware, well worth the MSRP of $99 and a steal at $30. I don’t know why it hasn’t caught on better.

You can no longer buy this device through the Visioneer Web site but it’s available all over the Web for prices ranging from $27.99 + shipping up to full retail price. I found the best online price at OverStock.Com. Just type “visioneer” in the search box and this product will pop up.