[Xavier1]

Folks,

Looking to purchase a portable multimedia device. The Archos 504 80gb seems to fit the bill nicely. Selling at €299 which appears to be a good deal.

Just wondering does anyone have any experience with the Archos range and what are the pros & cons ???


Thanks

[ufitsy]

There was one for sale on here 40 Gb though

[ufitsy]

Here you go


http://www.avforums.com/forums/showt...os#post5154023

[Xavier1]

Originally Posted by ufitsy

Here you go


http://www.avforums.com/forums/showt...os#post5154023

Not to worry, The 80 gb is working out around £204 gbp. Worth paying a bit extra for the space.

[ufitsy]

Originally Posted by Xavier1

Not to worry, The 80 gb is working out around £204 gbp. Worth paying a bit extra for the space.

I won't worry then!

[mossesque]

I have a 504, and would defo recomend, i would also recomend buying the DVR kit as well, as charging via USB can take a long time.

You can get hold of a 504 for £199 on Dixons.co.uk or any Currys.digital shop, or £170 from thier tax free shops if your flying anywhere soon.

[frankmsl]

I have a 504 with 160GB and I love the machine. It can even play the MP4 files my Panasonic DVD recoder records on memory cards, although you need a PC to transfer them.

For TV viewing you should record at at least 2000Kb/s, which means that 1 hour of video will cost about 1GB of space. If you only watch on the screen then 1000 Kb/s or choosing the lower resolution setting will double or even more than double this.

I copy my SKY+ stuff first to the Panasonic, then I edit all the ads out of it and after that transfer it to the Archos. I tried to do the same for my son on his Video IPOD, which turned out to be a nightmare and I never got it to work properly. it worjed sort of using conversion with Quicktime PRO

For video watching on the go, there iss nothing like an Archos. However I heard that teh new Archos 605 that is being released on July 15 is truly amazing with a real high resolution screen, touchscreen, web, WIFI etc in a small and light package. Ofcourse it will cost a bit more, but it seems to be starting at about £200 (€299) for the 30GB, which seems great value. That is before any discounts are applied by the online retailers.

[Xavier1]

Archos claim that the battery life can but up to 17 hrs for music and 5.5 for video. This I find hard to believe , can anyone please advise on what they experienced in using this player.

[frankmsl]

I have used the Archos extensively on planes. With the brightnes set to level 2 (max), I ahve been able to watch about 3.5 hrs of video. I assume with the lower brightness level it would be an extra hour. I don't believe that you can get 5.5 hrs with the standard battery (There is an extra capacity one out there). I am not sure about music, but I have been able to gotten around 12 hrs of movies out of it when connected to a TV (so without the LCD screen) and the battery was not completely empty.

I just bought 2 extra batteries from Expansys.ie, who seems to have the best price for them. I think I paid 23.16 Euro excluding VAT per battery. I asume the price on expansys.co.uk will then be around £16 ex VAT. I can go on a week trip with 3 batteries now and I never need to re-charge

[mitchelc]

Hi frankmsl - you seem to have some good experience with the 504 & I was wondering what you found was the best way to get recordings from a sky box or such on to it. I have just got a 504 & I have tried numerous ways including
- sky directly to 504 via svideo at 1500 & 2000 bit rates
- sky to dvd recorder via RGB & then
- use orig recorder file
- convert via lathe (successor to pocket divx encoder) but 640x480 @2000 seems to be the highest I can get from it
- convert via avsmedia tools

I find direct recording to the 504 fine for playback on the 504 but not so good to playback on a TV.
The original recorder file was better on TV from my portable dvd player than the 504. & coverted files played better on the 504 than the original with cinema plug-in.
Lathe coversion of the dvd recorder file was pretty good on both 504 & TV but is more effort. However it can resize/reshape which may be a help.

Across all of them I had problems getting the 504 to display the widescreen recordings as it saves it in 4:3 shape but then doesn't stretch it & full screen overscans top & bottom too much.

Finally I noticed that recording the ticker from the sports news channel was very juddery on everything except the dvd recording played back on a dvd player.

The 504 is a great tool & can store masses & easily even more via external usb hard drives - it would just be nice to know how to get the best out of it.

I'm just getting ready for a pile of transfers for the holidays & any thoughts or suggestions would be much apreciated.

Thanks
Mitchel

[Xavier1]

Originally Posted by frankmsl

I have used the Archos extensively on planes. With the brightnes set to level 2 (max), I ahve been able to watch about 3.5 hrs of video. I assume with the lower brightness level it would be an extra hour. I don't believe that you can get 5.5 hrs with the standard battery (There is an extra capacity one out there). I am not sure about music, but I have been able to gotten around 12 hrs of movies out of it when connected to a TV (so without the LCD screen) and the battery was not completely empty.

I just bought 2 extra batteries from Expansys.ie, who seems to have the best price for them. I think I paid 23.16 Euro excluding VAT per battery. I asume the price on expansys.co.uk will then be around £16 ex VAT. I can go on a week trip with 3 batteries now and I never need to re-charge

Are Espansys.ie reliable ( I've never heard of them ). Went onto site and had a look, Am I right in saying that this is a higher capacity battery. If so I may well be a good purchase. How easy is it to swap out the batteries, what tools are required.

[frankmsl]

Expansys.ie is a reliable supplier and I like that they allow you to enter your VAT number and ship you ex VAT rather than having to reclaim it afterwards.

I did find them somewhat slow in delivery

Changing a battery on the Archos 504 is as easy as can be. Just slide the big button on the side down and slide the battery about 1 cm and it comes off.

Then just slide the replacement on and it slides into place

[frankmsl]

Hi mitchelc, since I am a pretty lazy person I prefer the simplest route of just recoding the video signal directly. I would record programs directly from SKY+ where it not that I hate the large amount of ads that creates. Therefore I copy it first to the DVD recoder (usually at night) and then edit out all the commercials which is very easy on a Panasonic DVD recorder. Typically I record about 200 minutes from the SKY+ box and after editing about 120 minutes remains. I connect it to teh SCART output of teh DVD recoder which is RGB. I often rent appartments in eastr Europe and they typically have 21" or 27" televisions and as I can't understand the local TV it keeps me entertained. I need to record at 2000 kbs to get a really nice picture. 1500 kbs is acceptable, but 2000 kbs is noticeably much better.

My panasonic can also record straight to H.264 MP4 files, but I do not use it that often as I need a PC to transfer to the Archos.

Otherwise I sometimes us Quicktime to create AVI files from Internet downloads etc. and use thos on the Archos which works also quite well.