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Review of the Archos AV320 Cinemabox
An anonymous reader writes "MP3newswire.net just posted another of their lengthy reviews, this time on the Archos AV 320, a unit first mentioned on /. back in June. The company's second portable digital video/audio player, the new unit is a significant step up from the Archos Jukebox Multimedia with a much bigger and brighter screen and the ability to record DVDs and TV programs."
Looks nice, I was concerned about the battery life, but 3.5 hours for video is better than my laptop manages playing DivX.
For those who want my exact specs:
What's in the Box: AV320 Video Recorder, USB 2.0 cable, AC adapter, Li-Ion batteries (already installed), stereo headphones, AV cinch cable (SCART adapter in Europe). CD with MusicMatch, drivers and 6-language manual. Digital Video Recorder, audio & video cables, remote control and 6 langage installation sheet.
Capacity: 20 GB Hard Disk
Interface: USB 2.0, extra fast, compatible USB 1.1, PC & Mac . Optional FireWire cable.
Video playback: MPEG-4 SP with MP3 stereo sound, near-DVD quality. Resolutions 352x288@30f/s, or 640x272@25f/s, up to 640x368@20f/s. AVI file format, reads XviD and DivX"* 4.0 & 5.0.
Music playback: Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 kb/s CBR & VBR, WMA @ 160 kb/s
Music recording: Stereo MP3 encoding @ 30-160 kb/s VBR
Photo viewer: JPEG (except progressives) or BMP of any size
Display: 3,8'' color LCD (QVGA) 320xRGBx240 pixels or TV
AV Connections: Stereo analog Line In & digital SPDIF Line In/Out. Composite Video/ Earphone/ Line Out jack. Built-in microphone.
Playback Autonomy : Up to 10 hours on MP3 or 3 1/2 hours for video on built-in LCD
Scalability: Downloadable firmware updates from www.archos.com.
Power Source: Internal: Rechargeable Li-Ion Batteries. External: AC charger / adapter.
Dimensions & Weight: 112 x 82 x 31 mm (4.4" x 3.2" x 1.2"). 350g (12.5 oz)
Connection: Plugs into AV320 expansion port.
Capture rate: PAL : 320x240 @ 25 f/s, NTSC / 304 X 224 @30 f/s
Video Input: Analog Composite Video or S-video
Audio input: Analog stereo audio Mini-jack - RCA
Video compression: mpeg-4 SP with MP3 stereo sound in AVI format (can be read by XviD or DivX players)
Audio compression: Stereo MP3 96-192 kb/s CBR (Constant Bit Rate)
Dimensions & weight: 60 x 54 x 30mm (2.3''x2.1''x1.2''), 45g (1.5 oz)
Systems Requirements: PC: Pentium ii 266 MHz. Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, 64 MB RAM; MAC: 9.2 or 10.2.4 iMac, G3 or higher
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Try google, it always does the trick.
I have a nice little paperweight on my desk... it's supposedly an Archos MP3 player, but it sure doesn't act like one.
This thing broke shortly after I bought it, and despite repeated attempts to get through to their tech support (e-mail, phone), they just won't answer.
I'll never buy another Archos product again.
This is a miniature digital camcorder/camera with an oversized screen
(compared to relatively larger size digital camcorders with a smaller screen)
It is already possible to record from a TV, VCR or DVD on a MiniDV camcorder that uses MiniDV tapes, and I think the miniDV market is going towards digital recording on non-tape media, so if I had to choose between that gadget and a decent future digital camcorder, I'd wait and choose the latter.
Archos is already selling AV380's with a 80Gb disk for a price of around 1000 Euro's.
This will give you just enough to load all of the Star Trek episodes from all series (STTOS,STTNG, STDS9,STVOY & STENT).
Yes, you can... they're standard Mpeg 4 encoded AVI streams........ BUT....... they may or may not be ideal resolution and settings for watching on a computer screen and/or saving to VCD.
--D
"The Jukebox Multimedia camera module offered middling results with its 1.3 pixel resolution"
Read a bit more carefully... 1.3M pixels was for the original addon module for the old video player. The new one has a 3.3 megapixel camera with 3x optical 10x digital zoom capabilities. The review author wasn't able to test the performance of this module though.
I have the Jukebox Multimedia, and won't be buying another Archos product if I can help it.
I bought my unit as an MP3 player and photo storage device. It works reasonably well as an MP3 player and has decent battery life. As a photo storage device, it still doesn't read IBM/Hitachi Microdrives, even though their tech support swears it should. Their warranty period is very short (90 days) and so I'm out of luck on this one. I've also had problems with the unit keeping a charge and refusing to power up when not on A/C.
I loaned my unit to a friend recently and he had problems getting it to copy more than one file at a time from his CompactFlash cards.
My brother-in-law has the MP3 Recorder from Archos and his unit's D/C jack recently broke off inside. It was floating around and shorting things, causing it to power up and down randomly. We took it apart and soldered it back in place with some short wires (no easy task) and it seems okay now, but with the D/C jack sort of sticking out as an ugly wart.
All in all, the quality is just not there. I'd rather spend a little more and not have these problems.