Selection:
I selected the Archos AV500 100GB based on a thorough study of customer and independent reviews and features. The AV500 is a small and portable (The Archos AV500 weighs 9 ounces and measures 3 by 4.9 by 0.7 inches) NTSC Digital Video Recorder/Player and is very well constructed, mostly of lightweight plastic, aluminum and magnesium metal alloys with a good 4 inch LCD display and you can expect about 8 hours of video playback on the standard user replaceable polymer Lithium Ion battery. There is a triple capacity polymer Lithium Ion battery, corded FM radio remote control, DC automobile power adapter, and a mobile AV adapter available for the AV500 as optional accessories. You can also use the AV500 as a portable media storage device like a large thumb drive. These are the primary features that drove my selection of the AV500. Here are some pictures.
 Face |
 Back |
 Height with standard battery |
 Battery release |
 Ports on top |
 Right side |
 Included carry case |
 Included accessories |
 Standard and triple capacity battery |
 Height with triple capacity battery |
 Optional FM remote control |
 FM remote top buttons |
 FM remote connected |
 AV connector |
 Optional DC automobile power adapter |
 Walmart carry case |
 AV cable |
 Docking Pod rear |
 Docking Pod bottom |
 Docking Pod front |
Models:
At the time of this writing there are 2 models available. One has a 30GB hard drive while the other has a 100GB hard drive. Although the 30GB AV500 is available in some stores locally, the 100GB model is only available from online stores. I suggest ordering from Archos direct. There is an online forum for the Archos portable media products.
Record specifications:
The AV500 records videos in MPEG-4 using the divX codec at 640x480 pixels 4:3 aspect ratio and audio in PCM (uncompressed Pulse Code Modulation) or ADPCM (compressed Adaptive Delta PCM) at 44.1kHz (CD quality). Video recording is performed via the NTSC video input port. Audio recording is performed via the built in microphone, the microphone built into the optional FM remote control, or stereo line level audio input.
Play specifications:
The AV500 has a 480x272 pixel 4" LCD screen and can play videos in resolutions up to 720x480 @ 30 f/s (NTSC), 720x576 @ 25 f/s (PAL) encoded in MPEG-4 SP with B-Frames2, AVI format, and WMV93 (including protected files) up to 352x288 @ 30 f/s, and 800 kbit/s with stereo sound. It has a small built in speaker and microphone. The AV500 is capable of playing Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 kb/s CBR & VBR, WMA (including protected WMA files), WAV (PCM & ADPCM), and PlaysForSure downloads if you have a subscription. PlaysForSure is a competitor to iTunes. The AV500 has NTSC video input and ouput via standard yellow RCA male plugs and stereo audio input and output via standard red and white RCA male plugs using the included AV cables and docking pod or the optional AV traveler kit
What's included:
The AV500 comes with two mini USB to normal USB cables to connect portable storage media devices to the AV500 and to connect the AV500 to a computer. It also comes with stereo headphones that have a built in potentiometer thumb wheel volume control (volume is also discretely adjustable via buttons on the AV500), leather protective case, AC power adapter, docking pod, two AV cables, full size remote control and an Infra-Red (IR) remote control emitter. Because the AV500 is a hard drive based DVR, all the software and manuals in multiple languages are included on the hard drive of the AV500. The AV500 includes a freeware video-conversion utility VirtualDub and the Archos front-end MPEG-4 Translator on the hard drive as well.
Media Input:
The primary method of getting media onto the AV500 is to connect the AV500 through the docking pod to your home theater equipment and record it. Keep in mind the file system used on the AV500 is File Allocation Table (FAT) based. This means that recording a movie might need two or more files as each file is limited to 2GB because of FAT. The docking pod connects to your home theater equipment via the AV cables for recording movies or audio. The IR emitter connects to the docking pod and it is used by the docking pod for synchronizing recordings. It does this by emitting IR commands to your home DVD/VCR player.
The secondary method for getting music and video onto the AV500 is using Windows Media Player (WMP) 10 in Windows XP with the AV500 set to Windows Media Device mode. If you have content on your computer you can use WMP 10 to synchronize to the AV500. When you use the synchronize feature of WMP 10, it automatically encodes the media in the right format that the AV500 needs.
An alternate method of getting media onto the AV500 is to place the AV500 into hard drive mode and use the included VirtualDub utility with Archos front-end.
Media Ouput:
The only method of getting media off the AV500 onto a computer is to put the AV500 into portable storage hard drive mode and manually copy the files over. WMP 10 doesn't synchronize from portable media devices.
More on the DivX later.
Alternatively you can record movies and audio on your home theater recording equipment.
Optional equipment:
I have not yet received the optional AV traveler kit, more on that later.
The optional corded/wired FM remote control allows you to listen to and record FM radio broadcasts. You connect the FM remote control into the AV500 and your headphones into the FM remote control. The FM remote control also has a stereo microphone built into it. You can download a utility from Archos for creating FM station presets or create them on the AV500 itself. The cable from the AV500 to the FM remote control also serves as the FM radio antenna.
My review:
Don't let the low pixel count disturb you, the AV500 has a bright beautiful screen. The built in microphone is sufficient for dictations but you have to be fairly close to the microphone. The built in speakers and included stereo earphones are sufficient for checking recordings but you'll want a better headset for listening pleasure. The microphone built into the FM remote control is far more sensitive and care must be taken not to brush against the body of the remote or cable. The body of the AV500 is solidly built and has a quality feel. The simple controls are easy to learn. Recording video from your home theater equipment is a snap. Connecting to your computer is as easy as USB. Installing the encoding software is straightforward. The manual is fairly well written and easy to understand and I highly recommend reading the manual from cover to cover before turning on your AV500. It's not that the AV500 is difficult to learn or use, it's just that it does so much and it is good to know where to find the needed information quickly. Remember the AV500 operator manual is available here, on the Archos website and on the AV500 hard drive.
Software updates for the AV500 are drag and drop from your PC to the AV500 data directory and installing it using the AV500 controls. You can back up your AV500 files by enabling hard drive mode and drag and drop to your computer.
Notes:
The AV500 has a TV button on top of it. Press and hold this button to output video to the AV cable connected directly to the AV500. The AV500 itself can only display video to one source at a time, either its own LCD screen or an external monitor.
Before recording with the AV500 consider investing in a GoDVD.
Be very careful not to disconnect the power from the AV500 before stopping any running processes like recording or transferring files. Make sure the AV500 is stopped before unplugging the USB first if connected and then the power cable.
When transferring copy protected media to the AV500 use the sync feature of WMP 10, don't just drag and drop in hard drive mode. The sync also syncs the copyright settings that are necessary to play the file.
The AV500 is clearly an international product as it is PAL capable and has several language selections.
There is a Dish network model of the AV500 available. It has been suggested in the forums that this version is the same hardware but has mpeg2 licensed software on it to work with DIsh network boxes.
The AV500 does not support ebooks or any other text based or office product file viewing like a PDA. There are other products built for these needs, Personal Data Assistants (PDA's). The AV500 also does not support games or any other OS or emulation. There is no password protection or file encryption either. This is a DVR not anything else.
Since the Hard Drive is FAT32 based no single file can be larger than 2GB. Also you can have no more than 1100 items (files and folders) in a single folder for playlists. Also replacing the Hard Drive with another laptop drive by yourself is not supported. The drives have special software loaded on them. Only solution for changing hard drive is through Archos at the moment.
If you would like to use a better microphone be sure to buy a microphone preamplifier as the audio inputs to the AV500 are line level 1V peak to peak vice the milivolt levels of an electret/condenser microphone.
If you are unhappy with the freeware VirtualDub, there are other utilities called JetAudio 6.2.6 Plus VX and one called pocket DivX that are AV500 friendly. There are some french utilities here, the video ready can be set to English and it will analyze your media files to tell you which ones are already compatible with the AV500 (just drag and drop no conversion necessary). There are tons of apps for special cases like ripping and converting such as Lathe, pocket DVD, etc but after using these you will still have to encode the files into a format the AV500 can play using the above mentioned AV500 friendly tools.
There are tons of accessories for the AV500 at this store: http://www.newmp3technology.com/index.php.
Archos used to sell a bullet video camera for the AV500 but they have discontinued that. Some believe it will come back later this year.
