It's an unusual place for the latest in high-tech gadgetry.

But in the competitive funeral business, Toronto's Ward Funeral Home considers its purchase of 20 jumbo-sized digital picture frames a necessary expense to lure in customers.

"This is an evolution from the traditional memory board," said owner John Ward, a fourth-generation funeral parlour operator. "This just gives us another advantage for people to choose us."

Ward is currently testing a program that lets customers submit 20 photos of the person who has died. The photos are scanned into a computer and displayed on the 21-inch digital screen in a slideshow format. The presentation loops around and around during visitations, to the amazement of family members and friends -- who often don't realize that it is a large computer monitor embedded in a traditional frame.

It's the latest sign that digital picture frames are moving into the mainstream -- widening their appeal from a tech-savvy clientele to mom-and-pop business owners and moms and dads with hard drives jam-packed with digital photos.

Only a few years ago, the desktop versions of the devices -- which use flat-screen technology to display photos stored on a memory card or a mini hard drive -- cost in the neighbourhood of $1,000. Now, thanks to a combination of rising demand and falling manufacturing costs, you can get a desktop digital picture frame for less than $200. (There are also large versions of the devices available, similar to those used by Ward. Those frames, which can be hung over a mantle or on an office wall, can cost more than $1,000 -- but that's still dramatically cheaper than a few years ago).

"There's a huge growth potential here," said Chris Crotty, a consumer electronics analyst with California-based research firm iSuppli Corp.

"People are looking for more ways to make use of all the digital photos that they're taking and looking at ways to view and share the photos," he said, noting that he bought his mother a digital frame for Christmas.

"Think about how many people have normal picture frames in their house . . . when this market starts to take off, it could get very big."

Because it is such a niche product, there are no hard industry data, Mr. Crotty explained, but added that sales are certainly rising, thanks to declining costs for the guts of the devices.

For example, prices of liquid crystal display (LCD) screens have plunged on the back of rising sales of computer monitors and big-screen televisions that use the technology, as well as declines in manufacturing costs. What's more, memory cards -- used to store photographs -- have also dropped substantially in price as the market has become flooded with knockoffs of the once-pricey commodity.

Another driver: the astronomical rise in popularity of the digital camera. "They're [digital cameras] becoming omnipresent to the point where the old traditional film camera is disappearing, except for the purists," said Terry Canning, vice-president and general manager of Rogers Communications Inc.'s Internet operations.

Rogers is helping increase the adoption rate of the products by giving away a free digital frame to each new high-speed internet subscriber. The frames (a sleek grey device with a 3.5-inch screen) are valued at $150 each, according to Rogers' promotional material.

"They're using their digital cameras, they're using their computers but now they need a media to present it," said Mr. Canning, citing company research that showed 45 per cent of its subscribers have a digital camera -- up from 16 per cent in 2001.

Rogers isn't the only company giving away the frames to try to boost business. Earlier this year, adidas-Salomon AG sent hundreds of North American reporters a device in support of its new computerized shoe. The frame, manufactured by Ziga USA, not only displayed pictures on its 5.6-inch screen but also played music and video in the form of a preprogrammed adidas commercial.

And as prices continue to drop, expect to see a lot more of the devices used as promotional devices, Mr. Crotty opined.

Mark Van Buskirk, the founder of Boulder, Colo.-based PhotoVu LLC -- which manufactured the frames being used in Ward's funeral parlours -- said he's "amazed" the industry isn't bigger than it already is.

His high-end digital frames, featuring various colours of wood borders, are suitable for hanging on a wall. Each includes a USB port (to attach a mini-hard drive) and a wireless modem that allows the owner to connect to a home computer and stream countless number of pictures.

A frame with a 17-inch display sells for $849 (U.S.) while a 19-inch display retails for $1,200.

Those prices, however, would be a lot higher had the cost of LCD displays not fallen so far, so fast. Last year, he paid $630 for a 19-inch screen. Today, he shells out about $300 to 400 a piece.

"We're creating another shoebox . . . It's the final link in digital photography."

While he admits that there are skeptics who don't want to replace traditional photographs and art work, he says customers are always impressed by the quality of product and how images look on the screen.

"If it looks like a computer on the wall, we lose."