Slashdot Mirror
5.5 oz. MPEG-4/Audio Portable From Archos
An anonymous reader writes "Several manufacturers produce hard drive-based MPEG-4 portables now, but to date they are all big and heavy devices weighing in at around 3/4 of a pound. Archos just announced the Gmini 400, a 20GB video/audio player that comes in at the iPod's dimensions and light 5.6 ounces. Presently shipping, I guess they are ready now for the iPod Video in case that player ever becomes more that a /. myth."
Gizmodo has pictures and bit better of a review:
e verything-but-a-price-019630.php
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/archos-gmini-400-
Just for the metric people here, the Gmini 400 comes in at the iPod's dimensions and light 0.158757329 kilograms
The iPod looks bulky compared to the flash-based players.
Yeah, but can you put your entire CD collection on one CF Microdrive?
Your right, it is the future, as soon as prices are low enough on high capacity flash players that they can compete with the ipod
A the moment they are far to expensive to be feasable, I bought my 20 gigabyte 4g ipod for $490 (CND), a 20 gigabyte flash chip would be unacceptably expensive
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
He shopped around for awhile and had some pretty specific needs as he was sick of constanly burning DVDs for travel and laptops in the size he wanted were too expensive or flimsy. He wanted a decent screen but something that could still fit in the leather WW2 camera bag, decent battery life, and a mic that can record in mp3. Most of his movies are shots he has done for film classes with the odd south park or simpsons off his pvr. He settled on an archos model the av380 and the only complaint I've heard about it is that it only has a USB 2.0 interface as he really wanted firewire.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
No, that's the past. Flash players came first, but capacity was (and still is) an issue. Remember?
Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
"5.5 oz" = 0.155922377 kilograms
"3/4 of a pound" = 0.340194278 kilograms
"5.6 ounces" = 0.158757329 kilograms.
woo for google calculator.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Archos_Gmini_400/4505-6499 _7-31000735.html?tag=cnetfd.sd
I've lusted after the Archos media varieties lately, especially the newer one that has a CompactFlash slot without requiring a dongle. The units allow image playback to LCD or TV, which is handy when you're visiting relatives who want to see your shots before you go home to do serious prints or processing.
[
Begin with http://www.legaltorrents.com/ for gigs of legal music. I'm sure Google can help you to fill your iPod.
I've been looking at all the portables coming out for a while and I'm passing on this one -- thought anyone who just wants a music player will probably like it. Here's the things this can do that the ipod cannot:
.
1) View photos
2) Copy photos/movies/music directly off of compact flash (or other formats with adapter) using built in compact flash adapter.
3) Play movies (Screen is only 2.2 inches, but its pretty) at *FULL* dvd resolution (impressive processing power for such a little guy).
4) Has a very nice gui for playing music on its color screen -- which of course you'll shut off to save battery life.
5) Plays Mophun games -- you know, the cheesey little cellphone games. It comes pre-loaded with 5 of 'em. .
In otherwords, it can do everything ipod can do, much more, and in the same size. It's a neat little gizmo. Not perfect though, I won't be getting one in fact -- Here's why:
1) 400 dollars for 20 gigs -- a bit more than a similar featured ipod. This is not a problem for me, but might scare some people away -- though archos is a bit less into the whole "price controlling" thing that apple does so you might actaully find it on sale for less.
2) 2.2 inch screen only takes up about half the total dimensions of this -- you could theoretically make a larger screen on this unit without increasing the size. My guess is they didn't for costs/battery life reasons. Nevertheless, if I can't read the subtitles on my anime, it's no good.
3) The real killer for me: No support for Advanced Simple Profile for divx -- this means that most of the files encoded "in the wild" will have to be re-encoded to play them. Archos is coming out with it's AV500 (pda with a harddrive) model soon which is supposed to have support for ASP.
Since I personally am looking for a video player primarily and music player secondarily, I will wait for the AV500. I don't want to re-encode all my anime. However if you guys were looking to buy an ipod, you should definately consider this little guy. For just a bit more money you get ALOT more features (video, photos, compact flash, pretty color screen, mophun games).
The iRiver H300 Series is also worth a look.0 0
20 Gigs: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.asp?p_name=H32
40 Gigs: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.asp?p_name=H34
It has a colour screen (so it certainly isn't the first mp3 player with a colour screen) and it also serves as a USB host, allowing people to transfer photos from digital cameras onto the iRiver on the fly. It can view still pictures, and has similar music playing capabilities as the original iriver H100 series (I believe). Still no AAC though. Buuut it does maintain a 16 hour battery life from what I read.
Maybe someone will come out with a firmware hack to allow playing movies on it? That would be awesome.
- shazow
I, personally, would love to have a video player, even if the interface on it is slightly more complex than "mash the huge button". This is a principle of encapsulation, in that this thing can do what an iPod does and much more if I'm willing to think a little more about it. Frankly, I think I'm capable. Whether the general populace is capable or not doesn't interest me; I don't hope to make a billion dollars on these things, I just want one, and maybe a reasonable service contract.
I would be surprised as well, but I don't think that's a statement about the market so much as a statement about Apple.-----------------------
You are what you think.
oh and does it do Xvid ?
Yes, RTFA.
They have over 300 feature movies from the public domain which can be downloaded legally, and their collection is growing. I downloaded them all in 320x240 mp4 format- about 45GB.They offer different formats, high resolution, mpeg2 files are also available. The mp4 files have sizes between 150-200MB and the mpeg 2 files about 2-3.5GB. The download rate is EXCELLENT, I managed to suck up to 3.5MB/second! (on a 100mbps connection, under Suse 9.0/9.1)
Most files contain old black and white drama, western, mistery and sf movies. Abour 25-30 movies are in color. They also have a few mathematics lectures, (about 10GB, in 320x240 mp4 format, I downloaded them all) over 400 Computer Chronicles episodes (I downloaded about 20),I have the whole collection (65GB) on a 80 pocket firewire/USB2 drive The funny part is that I purchased some of these movies on DVD before knowing about archive.org and the dvd versions always contain the FBI warning that it is illegal to copy them, despite the fact that they are in the public domain! The publishers are EXTREMELY GREEDY, and want to be the only ones which make money from the public domain. Anyway if you want to get some old movies, check the archive.org list first, dont rush buying DVDs.
Wait a sec... out of curiousity, what are you using to do this? I'm posting from a Treo 600 right now, and wasn't aware such software was available for this.
... wait for it ... native divx! You still need to convert divx so it's small enough, but you can easily store a half-hour cartoon in 20MB, or a non-cartoon movie in 200MB. Since you can get 1GB SD cards now, there's plenty of room left over for backup, mp3s, etc. You can make the movies with virtualdub or check out pqdvd.com, which lets you rip a dvd straight to divx.
Check out mmplayer, which does a great job of playing
As I said on the treo thread yesterday, I only wish they ditched the keypad and got a full-size screen. Especially when high-resolution comes out!
A simpler option is kinoma, but nowhere near as powerful.
will they need alternative firmware? see http:/www.donat.org/archos