Nieuw reactie in topic: [HDD] Het Archos Generation 4 en 5 ervaringen topic

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RoD schreef op zondag 20 augustus 2006 @ 20:44:
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Wat me opvalt van de review van Cnet is dat ze niet erg te spreken waren over de geluidskwaliteit.. Vreemd, bij Archos zit dat vaak toch wel goed.

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Throw in patchy out-of-the-box compatibility with some video formats and some detectable noise in audio quality, and you've got reason to pause.

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Sound quality is decent at higher volumes (bright highs, average low end, punchy mids). In side-by-side PVP listening tests, the Cowon A2 sounded better to my ears; Archos has a layer of electric noise especially noticeable at low volumes--and it doesn't have anything to do with the display.

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Video playback is where the 604 shines. According to the specs, it's compatible with MPEG-4 ASP up to 720x480 at 30fps, AVI file container with MP4 file format, WMV9, and protected WMV. Unlike the Cowon, it's not DivX certified, and it doesn't play MPEG-2. However, many of our DivX files played without a hitch. You can also download plug-ins that will let you play H.264 and MPEG-2 files--they will be available soon at about $10 each (there's mention of AAC and AC3 support too).

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RoD schreef op maandag 21 augustus 2006 @ 23:40:
Klopt. Dat heb ik meer gehoord. Persoonlijk vind ik het dan wel weer mooi. Het heeft imo wel iets futuristisch.

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The Archos 404 will be available starting on the first week of September.

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A flash video has been released officially which shows the features that we can expect in Archos devices coming soon:

http://www.archos.com/corporate/investors/_pop_video.html

And there is a PDF file here: http://www.archos.com/cor...CHOS_investor_kit_ENG.pdf

The source of the video and the PDF file is here:

http://www.archos.com/cor...ml?country=fr&lang=fr

Following are some screenshots that I take out of the flash video and which I comment:



In the beginning of the video, the Archos turns around on itself, briefly this is shown as to be the back the the device. Could this be a camera on the upper side of the back of the device?

Archos has shown with the Gmini402cc released a year ago that they can integrate very decent quality video camcorder camera into their devices.



The Docking station is labeled as "DVR station", underlying the DVR compatibillity between the role of the Docking station and Dish Networks DVRs in USA and Canal+ DVR machines in Europe. As well as other digital video broadcasting companies might have their DVRs copatible with Archos in the future.

[IMG]http://portablemedia.eu/images/Archos_roadmap2006_003.jpg/IMG]

The Electronic Program Guide is going to be compatible with Archos devices, which means you can get TV program information and TV guide textual information and timecodes for when and which TV shows appear on which TV channel. Once the EPG is compatible with Archos devices, it means you can select TV programs that you want to record, instead of entering manually the start and end time and channel number to record. As well as the naming of the recorded file is done automatically to the name from the EPG.



An effort since the PocketDish has maybe been done in terms of the DVR's remote control affecting what is going on with the Archos device. For example for recordings synchronisation and other features, of the DVR and of the Archos, all done with the same remote control. This is allready the case with the Dish Networks DVR remote control and the digital usb connection to the Archos device.



Here we see some details about functionalities of the possible buttons to be present on the next generation Archos devices. There is up, left, right, down, OK and Menu buttons. With the left side of each button seems to have another functionality. As the left side of the menu button seems to have a refresh icon.



This GPS navigation bit was probably made up with some flash graphics. I cannot recognize it as being an interface from an existing GPS nagivation software.



It shows a green and a white led at the upper right side of the device.





The interface is not very clear on the video, purposedly, but it does seem to be a bit similar to the interface of the Archos AV500 and AV700 devices.. With possibly 8 big icons at the main menu.



This looks like outlook! I expect the maker of this video just grabbed a screenshot from outlook on a windows pc and inserted it in to make it look like there is going to be an email application.



If this is anyway representative of the resolution of the screen, the Google logo being 158 pixels wide, it might be a 480x272 resolution screen that is going to be used. And not yet a 800x480 resolution screen. The browser software might be Opera like the one Archos used in Qtopia Linux on the PMA430 released a year and a half ago.



The interface for video on demand here is just a screenshot from http://canalplay.com in a normal browser. I expect VOD will look differently when it's on an Archos device, probably it will have a simple standard interface that looks similar as browsing files located on the Archos itself, it just needs to have all the authentication, payment managment, playsforsure download and subscription compatibillity and more..



There underneath the 3.5G logo there is a GSM logo. Which might mean that the Archos devices will be used also as normal phones on a GSM network. Or it might mean backwards compatibillity with 3G UMTS, 2.5G GPRS and quad-band 2G GSM networks.







It's going to be interesting to see if all those possibillities will be integrated in one device, or if there will be one type of device with DVB-T TNT only, one other with Wifi, one other for GPS and one other with 3.5G functionality eigther built-i