claybavor

Yes, I have to crop the images to the aspect ratio of the display. I considered doing a simulated digital mat which could change given the aspect ratio of the work being shown, but it wasted so much of the display that it was not worth it.

I end up not having to crop much, because the aspect ratio I chose lines up pretty well with those of many good paintings and photographs.

Yes! What I really want for a future version of this is a 12-bit color depth, HDR, 8K OLED monitor, so you get true blacks, great resolution, and very accurate color reproduction across a very wide dynamic range. Maybe in a few years.

First of all, yes the frame really exists. :)

If I get around to pulling together build photos (which by the way aren't that exciting), I'll post them here. For now, just imagine a big hole in my wall (I had to reframe it), a photodiode sticking out of a hole on the right side of the picture frame, and an iMac.

The software is just a simple Objective-C / Cocoa app running on Mac OS X. I use a Kensington presenter clicker to advance the images to change them remotely. I drop new images into a Google Drive folder from another Mac, which the picture frame automatically picks up and puts into the image rotation. And if I want to make major changes, I just use a wireless keyboard and mouse to work on the frame like I would a normal iMac. It is very unsophisticated.

(Hi there, I'm Clay, the creator of the picture frame mentioned here.)

You're correct that the same panel is in the Dell display, but I'm pretty sure it's made by LG, not Samsung.

I purchased one of the Dell displays for testing purposes, and unfortunately, for reasons I don't fully understand, the color on the Dell display is quite a bit worse, with non-uniform color over the display from left to right, and also variable gamma at different brightness levels. The iMac also supports finer-grained control of brightness, which you need for luminance matching. All of this makes the iMac and its display a better choice for this application.