Tech Review: Archos Av500 Digital Video Recorder
Published October 20, 2006
I lost my constant, faithful digital companion today.
DVR (or digital video recorder) maker Archos has taken back the Archos AV 500 portable digital video recorder that I've had on long term loan for review since May this year.
The Archos AV500 DVR allows you record from cable, video recorders, DVD players, and PCs onto a pretty massive 30GB hard disk. You can play it back on its own screen at any time, anywhere because it's about the size of a small paperback book.
The Archos DVR made me feel rather like Lamborghini owners must feel. Everyone comments on how great it looks and raves about the fantastic quality of the screen.
Archos Digital Video Recorder Design
The unit looks and feels solidly built with a brushed aluminium case and with two sets of control buttons. It fits nicely in the hand and yet provides a very good sized screen which displays extremely sharp images.
On first glance the navigation and control buttons seem complicated. In fact they're so intuitive that without even looking at the manual I quickly discovered how the controls worked.
The Archos arrived complete with a neat leather protection case which again looks very smart. The only two extremely minor issues I found with the case were that I couldn't fasten it if I had the earplugs in and the inbuilt loudspeaker was slightly muffled by the retaining elastic band.
Getting Stuff In And Out Again
At the back of the machine are ports for USB, USB 2.0, microphone, power connector, and multi-connect for headphones, TV docking pod, FM remote, and AV in/out connections.
The manual reports that you may not get a TV docking pod with your Archos. To my mind this is an essential piece of kit for allowing you to record from cable, DVD, VCR or TV.
There's even an infrared sensor you can use to control it remotely. I didn't actually try this as I've enough remotes scattered around and don't need to add to their number. Besides, recording from the TV was simply a quick press of a couple of buttons.
When the navigation buttons are pressed a context sensitive set of buttons are popped up on the screen so you can easily select whether you want to watch a video, view a photo, or listen to music with navigation keys.
It's reported that you can get up 130 hours of video, 15,000 songs or 300,000 photos. I certainly didn't completely fill the Archos, even though it was my constant companion.
How I Tested The Archos
- Tech Review: Archos Av500 Digital Video Recorder
- Published: October 20, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Personal Tech
- Writer: Jim Symcox
- Jim Symcox's BC Writer page
- Jim Symcox's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
Believe me doing a long-term review really helped me decide that it's a great machine.
The Archos actually did record my Dad's Army DVDs no problem. Although I suspect it may not have had copy protection.
Jim
I read the specs on the Archos and could find no way to export from it to any other media. Thus, you will fillup it's HDD and have no recourse except to delete items. This makes the device unacceptable to me. They probably did that in response to pressure from the entertainment industry which doesn't want people to dub their content, which they could do if the Archos could export.
Actually my anlogue VHS video of Grease was near to being knackered because my kids play it so much. So I recorded it onto the Archos and then simply plugged the Archos into my PC using the supplied USB lead and it came up as another hard disk. I then simply copied the file (quite large really!) to the PC.
No problem whatsoever. In fact you can copy files to the PC from it too.
Jim
Now that's interesting, but is it o nly SD or can it record HD as well? What kind of video file is it? MPG, AVI, IFO, ISO, etc.
Bliffle it records them as AVI although I suspect you can choose the format. It's been sent back now so I'm afraid I can't check.
Jim
If it's avi it's probably OK. AVI is just a microsoft wrap around another format, like MPEG.
But I still need HDTV recording.
HD-quality screens are not on the market yet for portable devices. So, you can record the HDTV, but you won't see the same quality during playback on the Archos.
Jim
Addressed to Mr. Symcox:
In your article about the archos av500 you say:
"You can even use it as a high capacity voice recorder for making notes and you can plug a microphone in for high quality recording."
How did you accomplish this? (I tried attaching a Sony ECM-MS907 mic to the AV500 via the travel adapter and the sound comes out extremely low)
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Sounds good. I don't need a portable DVR, so I have an LG 3410A, with 300gb, and it records HDTV OTA so it suits my needs well.
An important point with any DVR is ability to dump a program off the DVR to DVD so as to reduce clutter. Most don't do it, except for maybe a D-VHS output, which is clumsy.