by Abbas Jaffar Ali on February 4, 2004
Introduction/Specifications
About five years ago, the MP3 format started getting quite popular. You could pretty much compress a 650MB audio CD into a tenth of its size while keeping the quality almost as good as the original. This brought about the craze of portable MP3 players which are still selling quite well. A little over a couple of years back, DivX started gaining popularity and did the same for video that MP3 did for audio. This time around you could compress a 4.7GB DVD into a 700MB file while keeping a very respectable quality. It was just a matter of time before someone makes a portable DivX player and that time is now. The company that makes such a device is called Archos and they’ve been selling their AV3xx Video Recorder with 20GB, 40GB and now 80GB hard drives. Today, we take a look at their AV380- the one with highest capacity 80GB drive.
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Storage Capacity: |
Model AV320: 20GB; AV340: 40GB; AV380: 80GB |
| Interface: | High Speed USB 2.0 (compatible USB 1.1); Optional FireWire cable |
| Image Playback: |
JPG and BMP(4, 8, 24 bit) images, any size |
| Audio Playback: | Stereo MP3 decoding 30-320 kb/s. CBR & VBR |
| Audio Recording: | Stereo MP3 encoding 30-160kb/s. VBR |
| Video Playback: | Up to 640x304 @ 30 frames/sec (NTSC) or up to 640x368 @ 25 frames/sec (PAL) Up to 640 x 480 resolution at lower frame rates- MPEG-4 Simple Profile compliant . AVI format (DivX™* 4.0 & 5.0 & XviD) MP3 stereo sound tracks, near DVD picture quality. |
| Screen: | 3.8 inch color LCD (QVGA) 320x240 pixels 262 thousand colors |
| Television: | Video output on AV out connector to PAL (EU) or NTSC (US) televisions |
| Battery Life: | Up to 10 hours on MP3, up to 3½ hours video on built-in screen |
| Expansion: | Mini-centronics 50 pin. For optional modules: Remote FM Radio, Firewire interface cable, DVR (Digital Video Recorder), AVCam 300 digital camera and camcorder, Memory card readers. |
| A/V Connections: | Audio line in & microphone in (also doubles as SPDIF in/out) AV out: for headphones, line out, and for audio/video out with AV cable |
| Power: |
Internal rechargable Lithium-Ion batteries. External charger/adapter |
| Dimensions: | 112 x 82 x 31 mm (4.4 x 3.2 x 1.2 inches); 350g (12.5 oz) |
| System Requirements: | PC:Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP Pentium II 266MHz with 64MB ram Mac: OS 9.2 or X (10.2.4), iMac, G3 or higher |
Packaging
Packaging/Design |
The AV380 is packaged in a decent box with a cut-out that lets you see the player. Inside the package, Archos bundles quite a few items besides the player itself. Starting off, you get cables for both input and output to the unit, an add-on (DVR100) for recording movies directly to the player, software that lets you convert your present files from your PC to the Archos’ playing standard, lots of converters, a remote control and a power adapter to charge your player.
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The player itself measures 112x82x31 mm- roughly the size of a walkman (does anyone remember them?) and is 350g in weight which is a bit heavier than we would’ve liked. The front of the unit features a large 3.8” LCD screen capable of a 320x240 resolution at 262 thousand colors. Although the screen is pretty good to look at, we’re surprised that Archos chose screen dimensions based on a standard TV aspect (4:3) instead of a wide-screen aspect (16:9) as most of the movies on DVDs use that standard. This makes DVD ripped movies appear a lot smaller on the AV380’s screen- at times you lost almost half of the height.
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Besides the screen, the front of the unit features a four-way joystick and five independent buttons- two of which are for yes/no while the other three are context sensitive. While all the other buttons are decent to operate, the joystick wasn’t as smooth as we would’ve liked. At times we have to move the stick a few times in a direction to get the unit to recognize. The joystick can also be pressed to select, however we recommend you leave this option off as the slightest touch activates the press action which can get frustrating while navigating.
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The top of the unit allows you to connect the cables for input and output along with placing a microphone for recording voice notes while the bottom has the USB and power adapter connections. Lastly, you have a 50 pin mini Centronics port on the left side of the unit which is used for adding optional modules. Archos has placed rubber pads around the four edges of the unit which not only helps in getting a good grip but might protect the unit if it falls (We couldn’t convince ourselves to throw the unit for testing the protection level of these pads.)
Photos / Audio
Turning the device on takes about ten seconds after which you’re taken to the main menu of the AV380. You simply use the joystick to navigate to the option you want and press the YES button. To come back or out of a particular option, you press the NO button. Archos has made the navigation on the AV380 extremely easy. Lets take a look at each of the options on this menu.
Photos / Camera
This directory stores and displays JPEG and BMP files on the unit’s screen or TV. There is no set resolution for images as the player scales the image to fit the screen. You can rotate and zoom into pictures as well as create a slideshow that changes pictures at a specified interval.
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One of the expansion options on the Archos Video Recorder is the AVCam300 which acts as a digital camera as well as a camcorder. We did not have this accessory with us and thus cannot show you the results but the specifications look impressive- a 3.3 MegaPixel (effective) CCD, a 3X Optical Zoom with a Ricoh Lens and MPEG4 recording at 320x240 resolution. You can check the complete specifications on Archos’ website.
Music / Audio Recorder
The AV380 acts as a full featured MP3 player comparable to, and in some ways, better than the Apple iPod. The Music directory stores all your MP3 files and while a particular file is player, the display shows the ID Tag and an Album Picture if available. You can adjust the sound parameters like bass, treble and loudness to your liking. Archos provides a reasonable set of neckphones and you also have the option of connecting the Archos to your hi-fi system.
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To transfer songs to the player you can simply copy them to the music directory. Archos also provides a copy of MusicMatch that lets you convert your CD into MP3 format. Alternatively you can use the line-in feature to directly record songs from a CD Player or another device. And finally, the built-in microphone allows you to dictate notes into the player or use it for recording other things like lectures on the go. Although there is no built-in FM, you can easily add it as an expansion module.
With a huge storage capacity, playlists become important and the AV380 supports .m3u format on the PC as well as iTunes on the Mac. Creating playlists is as easy and navigating to the music folder on the unit and adding songs through its file explorer like interface. You can save as many playlists as you like but each play list is restricted to 5000 songs which should be sufficient.
Video Playing/Recording
Video Playing/Recording
Most of the people will buy the AV380 for its video recording and playback and unfortunately, we feel that the unit is a bit restricted in this particular category. If you’re planning on recording/watching television then you’ll find the AV380 excellent. However, if you’re thinking about using the AV380 for your movies collection, then you probably won’t find it as well as you’d expect it to- at least we didn’t.
Starting off, you can only watch files on the player encoded with DivX or Xvid codec and upto sizes of 640x368 pixels. We would’ve liked to see QuickTime format also supported, but we’re fine with the DivX codec- it’s the resolution that’s the problem. Most of the DivX movies are encoded at a higher resolution because DivX is trying to create an almost DVD quality which you can’t do at low resolutions.
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Thus, you have to re-encode your previous DivX file to the lower resolution so you can watch them on the AV380. To ease things Archos provides VirtualDub as well as the MP4 Translator software on the CD which sets all the right options for your player and makes conversion as easy as simply specifying the source and destination files. Once the file is converted, watching it on the player is fine except for the aspect ratio killing the screen estate as we mentioned earlier. However, the output does not look that great on TV and you can easily notice the difference between your original DivX file and the re-encoded one.
The second option of transferring movies to the player is by using the DVR100 expansion module that came with our player. The module takes video input using an RCA or S-Video cable while audio is captured using the built-in line-in jack. You can simply connect the output device (TV, DVD Player etc.) to the DVR100 and start recording- no need to setup any bit rates or resolution. This option makes it real easy to capture files to your player although bear in mind that a two hour video will take two hours to capture.
Usability / Conclusion
General Usability
As we mentioned earlier, the user-interface on the Archos AV380 is extremely user-friendly and simple. In fact, we did not even need to look at the user-manual or quickstart guide! Archos uses the no-brainer approach in organizing files- the Hard disk has three directories- Audio, Video and Pictures making it easy to place the right media in the right folder. You can create sub-folders to further organize your files.
Battery life was a bit disappointing on the AV380 when it came to watching movies on the LCD. We managed to get between 2.5 to 3.5 hours from it depending on how frequently we used the buttons to pause/skip etc. This translates into being able to watch one movie on a full charge- certainly not the best for long flights. Connecting the unit to a TV or listening to music gives you a better battery life
One thing we would’ve liked to see on the player is a speaker. This would definitely help in using the AV380 as a music player at picnics and add a bit to it value. Speaking of value, be prepared to pay a heavy price for the AV380. The current market price for it is about AED 4000/- (roughly $US1100 ). You can buy the 40GB version for AED 2800/- (US$570/-) which definitely makes more sense for now.
Like any first generation device, the concept is awesome but the implementation needs work. We really like the idea of carrying a device with an 80GB hard drive and a decent screen size and Archos has managed to provide us with such a facility along with an extremely easy to use interface. We also like the idea of the Centronics interface that lets you expand the unit in quite a few ways.
However, there are quite a few problems that need to be addressed as mentioned in our review- the biggest of which is the low movie resolution. Although the display looks quite decent on the built-in LCD, its faults start showing once you connect it to a TV. The battery life also needs improvement as the current average of three hours only allows you to watch one complete movie on the LCD.
Both iRiver and Creative are coming up with portable video players, however, that won’t be until the second half of the year. This gives Archos plenty of time to fine-tune their AV380 into becoming what its supposed to be- one of the coolest gadget to own.
t-break Score |
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The Archos AV3xx series is available at Virgin MegaStores throughout the UAE
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