archos

[Tom]

Posting here because I tried in hardware without luck. I'll keep it simple.

Does anyone here have or know someone who has an Archos?

 

[old.user4556]

My friend at work has an Archos mp3 player with a little LCD screen on it for watching movies.

It's bulky, ugly, not intuitive to use and expensive.

My 2p

G

 

[Tom]

Its more the video player that I'm interested in, but thanks for the help.

 

[Clown]

Big G, check your privates! (messages)

 

[old.user4556]

I have done, i'll get back you asap - had a very heavy weekend and my brain isn't engaged yet.

 

[Padwah]

I've just bought the GMini 400 (htis one) I'll do a little review for it when I get back from work but a quick summary is it's excellent

 

[Padwah]

Haven't had time to write something original for you Tom so here's a cut and paste from a post of mine over on another forums.

Part One:

Only got time for a quick review as I'm supposed to be in work. It looks absolutely gorgeous, which considering some of Archos's earlier efforts is quite a feat! It's also surprisingly small, I knew the dimensions before I bought it but somehow thought it would be bigger.

Sound quality is very good it's been a while since I listened to my friends iPod or iRiver so I can't give an objective opinion on which is best but I doubt that any one would be dissapointed with the quality. The supplied headphones aren't the greatest but even with the Lost Prophets screaming out at top whack there was no audiable distortion.

The video quality is also excellent, I only had a couple of minutes to play with this bit. The video files seemingly have to be in both the correct codec but also of the correct dimensions and re-encoding video files can take a while! So I only managed to re-encode 10 minutes of one of my videos using the supplied software (virtual dub and archos's own launcher) but the picture quality was very impressive being both clear and bright but stil retaining contrast. That the picture can be output to a TV is great and I'm guessing will increase the stated 3hr battery life, hopefully!

Part Two:

Well after having a bit more of a play with it this evening I can honestly say that I'm even more impressed with the GMini than ever!

Whilst the TV output isn't going to please any true DVD-phile it is very good. The video files have to be in mpeg format, divx, xvid or otherwise, and have to be no larger than 640x400 in resolution otherwise they won't run.

But sticking it out to a TV the picture is excellent for what it is and a lot easier for me than burning a film to DVD when I want to take something round a mates house. Connecting it to a telly is simple, an adapter plugs in to the unit which itself connects to an s-video cable (I think it's an s-video cable, red white and yellow connectors) stick it in the back of the telly and press a button for two seconds and voila, instant cinema

Re-encoding films to fit on the Archos isn't as time consuming as I may have made out, a 700Mb film takes about 30 minutes to re-encode for use which is plenty bearable and it doesn't seem to lose any quality.

In general use it does miss out on a headphone mounted remote control and there is a delay when you skip between tracks as it has to kick the screen in to life before changing tracks, if the screen is already active however the change is instant.

The only thing that is annoying me with it is that it doesn't come with a carry case. If you're going to use it to watch films on the run you don't want to watch them through a mist of scratches. And whilst, touch wood, I haven't scratched the screen yet after a night in the pub with it in my pocket I can see it happening.

To be honest I can't really recommend this enough, sounds and picture quality is excellent and with ten hours battery life for music and three and a bit for films it will keep you going from day to day.

Though I must say if you are going to buy one you have to get it from http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/ I ordered the service I got from them was impecable and after I bought it I pointed out that blokestuff.com were selling it for £15 cheaper and they refunded more than the difference and dropped their price to £249 and that's with free next day delivery!

I hope that's of some help to you, if you've got any specific questions about the GMini let me know and I'll do my best to answer them

 

[Tom]

I'm going to go to John Lewis later today (pick up my new car today so its a good excuse to blast it down some roads), and have a look.

My friend's dad is very interested in using one of the AV400 series, rather than using tapes that cost £6 per 35min roll, for filming weddings and things. What I really need to see is the recording quality, so long as it beats SVHS it should be viable.

 

[Padwah]

ah I didn't realise you were after one of the recordable, mine only plays video files that you copy on to it and can't directly record and encode the files themselves. If the AV400 is anything like hte GMini though the resolution is limited to 640x400 @30fps in M-PEG 4 format (can play DivX and XVid formats) dunno how that compares to SVHS though?

 

[Tom]

600x400 is miles better than SVHS. He actually films on Beta SP, but its only wedding videos and stuff, so it doesn't need to be much better than VHS as thats what people will watch it on.

 

[Xavier]

limited to 640x400 @30fps in M-PEG 4 format

That's a limitation of playback only. You can encode higher resolutions and framerates but would see no benefit. Likewise if you wanted to mimic the quality settings you're going to be use at production there's nothing stopping you.

 

[Padwah]

You're probably right, not having one of th AV series I wouldn't know. the GMini rocks though, might actually have to right a proper review of it one day

 

[Tom]

http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20040706/index.html

Found a nice review there, which pretty much says that the quality is superb at max res.

/considers