Reviews
O
ur parents used to call televi-
sion the “boob tube” and the
“idiot box,” yet, paradoxically,
the whole family always ended up
in front of it anyway. And now that
a preponderance of reality television
treats us to real-life boobs and true
idiots 24/7, we’re more hooked than
ever. Enter the Archos AV400 Pocket
Video Recorder, a device that can
record television programming and
play it back on the go with an inte-
grated 320x240 color screen. Given
our nation’s growing dependence on
TV, it’s the kind of gadget that seems
essential—at least until we grow TV
tuners somewhere between the kid-
neys and pancreas.
The AV400’s predecessor, the
Archos’ AV300 series, was a por-
table video player with a propri-
etary connector that allowed you to
plug in optional accessories like a
rudimentary video recorder, a dig-
ital camera, and media card reader.
The AV400 series moves the video
recorder into the player itself, and
ditches the proprietary connector
for a convenient dock with S-video
and RCA (red, white, and yellow)
connectors. There are two methods
of programming the recorder:
You can use the device’s interface
to queue up tasks on the go, or
you can sign up for a free Yahoo
account and use its TV listings and
Calendar modules to create an
HTML file that can be imported
to the player. Both methods are a
pain, but are easier than program-
ming ye olde VCR.
When sitting in its included
dock, the AV400 charges itself
and records scheduled programs
using MPEG-4 compression. At
the highest quality setting of
2,500kbps, the image on the
player’s 3.5-inch screen is gorgeous,
but the relatively low resolution of
320x240 looks a little nappy when
you connect the player to a larger
screen, such as an external monitor
or television. Although the AV400
has a relatively modest 20GB harddrive, that’s still plenty of room for
a handful of movies (at an overkill
size of 700MB each) and television
programs, with plenty of room left
over for thousands of MP3s. The
AV400 supports MPEG-4 compliant
video playback, including DivX
and Xvid, but not WMV.
No software is included to
decrypt your commercial DVDs for
transfer to the AV400 (which isn’t
surprising because said software is
now illegal). But if you just happen
to have DVDs that are ripped to AVI
or MPEG files sitting on your hard
drive, you can use the bundled
freeware app VirtualDub to convert
them for playback on the AV400.
This isn’t a simple task, though,
and neophytes will be horrified at
having to locate the proper codecs
on the Internet and then configure
them on their own.
Archos committed a careless
oversight by not including a kick-
stand with the AV400. As is, we
had to hold the unit or prop it up
against something during playback
when it wasn’t in its dock. Battery
life, on the other hand, gave us a
big fat smiley surprise. Although
Archos claims four hours of battery
life on a single charge, we found
this figure to be extremely conser-
vative. We got 5:50 (hours:minutes)
of continuous playback from our
first charge! This absolutely stomps
anything offered by our PDAs andother portable video players.
The AV400 may seem expensive,
but keep in mind that you get more
than just video and MP3 playback for
the money. A built-in CompactFlash
slot adds a humungous amount of
value for both casual and profes-
sional photographers by allowing
you to transfer photographs from
CompactFlash cards (and other
formats with an optional adapter).
At $550 for the 20GB model, the
Archos AV400 actually costs less
than many photo viewers with
smaller-capacity hard drives and no
video playback.
Such are the depths of our televi-
sion addiction that we cannot afford
to miss even a few minutes of Wal-
Mart Shoplifters. Will Jennifer finally
get caught? Why is Bob stealing
lipstick? We need answers to these
questions ASAP, and Archos’ AV400
Pocket Video Recorder and player
makes that possible.
—LOGAN DECKERArchos AV400 Pocket
Video Recorder
Extreme viewing with TiVo to go!
It’s a VCR, MP3 player, photo viewer, and portable
video player that fits in your pocket.DRIVE-INDRIVE-BY
Converting video and scheduling recordings
require extensive legwork.
$550, http://www.archos.comMA XIMUMPCVERDICT 9
ur parents used to call televi-
sion the “boob tube” and the
“idiot box,” yet, paradoxically,
the whole family always ended up
in front of it anyway. And now that
a preponderance of reality television
treats us to real-life boobs and true
idiots 24/7, we’re more hooked than
ever. Enter the Archos AV400 Pocket
Video Recorder, a device that can
record television programming and
play it back on the go with an inte-
grated 320x240 color screen. GivenArchos AV400 Pocket
7ill portable media players based on Microsofts Portable Media
#enter /3 be able to match the slinkiness and versatility of the
A600 3tay tuned—well have the answer neXt month.78 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2004
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