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Chad wrote:
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cite="mid:50d35b690803171617n19ba5dd3l5350831a26f4cc75@mail.gmail.com"
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<pre wrap="">On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Brian Wood <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:beww@beww.org"><beww@beww.org></a> wrote:
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<pre wrap=""> On Mar 17, 2008, at 4:20 PM, Robin Hill wrote:
> On Mon Mar 17, 2008 at 03:51:55PM -0600, Brian Wood wrote:
>
>> TigerDirect is advertising an Archos 504 multi-media player for $129.
>>
>> The Advert claims it supports "all popular video formats, including:
>>
>> MEPG-41, WMV2, H2643, MPEG-24 and VOB4."
>>
>> I have never heard of any of those formats. I suspect they are
>> "popular" only with someone trying to sell this device, or perhaps
>> it's just a bad job of proofreading the video format names?
>>
>> Anyone have any information? It might make a nice companion to a Myth
>> system if it could actually play some video format that originated on
>> planet earth.
>>
> You could try looking at the Archos web site - plenty of details on
> the
> device there. Supports MPEG-4 ASP (or so they claim - they may mean
> DiVX only though) and WMV out of the box. You need to download (and
> probably pay for) codecs for H.264, MPEG-2 and VOB. Looks like a
> lot of
> the functionality requires the "optional DVR Station" (i.e. cough up
> some more cash).
>
> I'd avoid it.
>
I also see reference to the "optional docking adapter", in addition to
the DVR station. This thing might break me even if it was free :-)
But what has really caused me to decide against it is the "Microsoft
Screws Up for Sure" feature.
Thanks.
beww
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
As a proud Archos owner I would have to say this device is in a
completely different market that where it shines. I view it as a
competitor to the Video IPOD. I have a 40GB model and scored it for
almost an even $100. Here's my miniature review skewed for Myth:
It's a small unit that seems slightly heavier but has aluminum instead
of plastic housing, so feels stronger at the same time. It's mostly
screen without a bunch of plastic taking up precious video space, but
my version is not touch.
Pros:
* Very simple to use
* I read long ago it's "powered by linux" (but can't offhand find
something to back that up)
* Comes pre-loaded with plenty of "test" material
* Has good battery life with real-world use (not best case scenario garbage)
* Looks fairly sharp and sounds very good
* Price-for-given-features By this I mean the cost of this device is
well under anything comparable (especially the Video iPOD)
Cons:
* As has been noted, you do have to pay extra on some models to view
certain types of files (h.264 encoded video, AAC encoded audio in
video files, etc). There are 2 "packs" for mine, each are $20 bucks
that make it so I can encode video in a LOT of formats and watch it on
my archos. Otherwise I'm limited to (so far it seems) DivX/XViD
encoded files.
* Seems somewhat heavy
* Proprietary connectors for charging/data transfer
* No touch screen (on lower end models)
That's about it. Overall I really really really think that these
devices are a bigger bang for the buck than anything similar. Archos
has been in business for a long time, at least 8 years ago I remember
eyeballing one of their video players and really wanting it; but it
had a high price tag and was out of my budget.
Hope that helps!
-Chad
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I'm also a proud owner of the Archos 605 (4GB flash model). I bought it
used from ebay for $227 but the previous owner had bought all the
plugins and the DVR station so for me it was a great deal.<br>
<br>
Pros:<br>
- Huge touch screen with 16 million colors.<br>
- Play mpeg4 (divx/xvid) out of the box<br>
- Supports a lot of different formats<br>
- Has wifi (54mbps)<br>
- Has a web browser (Opera)<br>
- Can act as a usb host with the DVR<br>
- With the DVR the unit charges in less than 4 hrs<br>
- Lots of ways to transfer files (usb, flash card with my model only,
samba, upnp, website)<br>
- Can connect to a uPNP or samba server<br>
- Can act as a samba server<br>
- With the DVR and Mythtv, I can stream to my TV through samba all the
recordings I have.<br>
- Wife approved. My wife refuses having a computer as a frontend, but
loves being able to just pop-in my Archos on the DVR and viewing
recordings on the TV. Before I would burn my recordings on DVD and
watch everything through our dvd player.<br>
<br>
Cons:<br>
- Proprietary usb connectors (unless you use the DVR)<br>
- Takes forever to charge through the USB connector<br>
- Somewhat heavy (because of metal casing), I get tired of holding it
up after a while, but it does have a kick stand.<br>
- I haven't been able to get uPNP to properly work with mythtv (only my
music shows up).<br>
<br>
As a myth user, I like the fact that I can connect with my Archos to
mythweb, schedule recordings and then transfer them either by USB or
through the wifi interface. I've had mythtv for over 2 years and all my
recordings have been re-encoded to Xvid for archiving (4 or 5 movies
per DVDs). But before I got my Archos last month, if I wanted to watch
a recording on my iPod video (30 gb), I had to run 2 jobs. One that
saved my recordings to .avi (xvid) and another one that also re-encoded
certain recordings to .mp4. Now I've eliminated my last job.<br>
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