DivX video-camera available in January 2002.. please help..

[Charbax2]

here is what I have been drooling over for the last 3-4 days since I first read about it only in a hardware mp3 discution board on mp3.com:

The Archos MultiMedia harddrive-based mp3 and DivX player/recorder. With camera, video-in modules, built-in video-out composite connections, 320x240 colour LCD screen, FireWire connection, 10GB and probably larger models available, that it records and plays back DivX at CIF resolution that is 352x288, it's very portable size and weigth, same size and weigth as their older singularly mp3 harddrive-based players, 10-houre battery-life (though I'm not sure if that's also if one only uses the video-recording and polaying feature) and probable 300$ price-tag for the basic unit, it would hopefully not too much more to get the camera, video-in and firewire modules..


THE INTERESTING LINKS:
The official link:
http://www.archos.com/us/products/product_550011.html

The link to the website who got much info from Archos about the player, and has a very interesting brochure scanning they made at the Las Vegas Comdex around 16th november this year:
http://www.hotmp3gear.com/multimediaplayer.htm
http://www.mpman.ca/ComputerInnovation/Comparison1.htm

A mp3 hardware and news reviewer website:
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/archosvideo.html

place some people discuss mp3 players at mp3.com discussion board: http://msg.mp3.com/hardware/listnews/?cp=hw_main


WHAT DO YOU THINK!??

- what divx codec is used!!? what resolution will it be able to playback (not any bigger than the 352x288?)?? How much battery time would there be when non-stop using it for video recording/playing with mp3 sound playing/recording.. What quality will it perform?!? That is quality of camera, tv-out, tv-in, how muchz bitrate-configurations can be user-defined...? IF you don't know please help me find the answers..!


I have tried posting about this in the DivX and project mayo forums for the last few days but nobody has yet to have cared to comment about it!! Here are a couple of links to yet uncommeted threads:

http://www.divx.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=22312&forum=5
http://www.divx.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=22291&forum=4&2
http://www.divx.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=22410&forum=5

[Kame`Leon]

Interesting. Isn't the regular video uncompressed? So, technically, this will have worse (maybe not noticeable) picture quality.

[Charbax2]

Well hopefully it will capture to perfect 1-pass DivX, just like when you capture video to 352x288 YUV resolution and format.. Hopefully it'll have some cool configurations to play with, like bitrate, brigthness, contrast and other stuff maybe like framrate or something..

I really hope the quality is good!! I have emailed archos a couple of times allready asking them if they could post more info and pictures or videos of their prototype players in action.. I'd guess they must be finished with the design allready and are working on the production if they are going to release it in time for the CES in Las Vegas 6-8th January 2002..

Sure it'd probably be better quality if it could capture in full resolution in realtime, but for that you need a 2ghz processor, I doubt it's possible to build portable ones for less than a few million dollars a piece today, so it wouldn't be very wise to promize full res, unless they know how to make the mpeg-4 chips!! Actually I'd think they probably do have an mpeg-4 chip in that player, as it's divx then maybe it even a DivX chip??

Even with my 700mhz duron processor I can nearly just cope with 352x288 resolution video-capture to DivX in real-time, so if it really works to capture in that resolution on such 300gram 300$ portable gadget, I'm impressed!!