Archos AV500

[Scarpad]

Ok I recieved my AV5100 tonight and I've charged and got to play with it a bit and Load some vids on to it.

Wow I'm impressed. I had ordered and then Cancelled a 5G Ipod and boy am I glad I did. First the thing is built like a tank. The one Button you enter with on the right is a tad wobbly but its not too bad. The screen is simply fantastic. I can tell you this thing had as nice a screen as a PSP. I threw a few vids at it. Everything .Avi I had put on i played beautifully. I tried to mix a few files made with Different Encoders. AutoGK made in Quality mode looked ok. Avi.net encoded vids looked smoother probably because they were encoded with 2-pass because AVi.net is a bit faster than AutoGK. Looking at the two of them Avi.net is what I'll be doing all my encodes in. An Episode of Deadwood I made at 550meg 2pass at 640x272 looked as good as any UMD disk I bought for the PSP. And it totally Destroys Memory Stick encodes even the ones I did in AVC on the PSP. These are so much clearer, smoother and no Ghosting !!!!!. A Movie I made in Nero Recode w/ QT Compatibility will not work and I suspect it is because Nero Uses AAC for the audio. That's too bad becasue Nero is fast and the vid is nice.

I have'nt done any Photo transfers yet but the samples looked great. The sample music also sounded fantastic and the interface is nice and simply laid out and the Artwork looked Sharp. Unfortunately since all my Library is in Itunes in AAC format they will not play in the Av5100, so My Ipod will still get a workout.

The Cables supplied with the unit and the case ain't the best but they'll get the Job done and I hope someone makes a nice protective case, they one they give you is Ok for storing the device, but you cannot really watch it in it. The TV Pod is small. Smaller than I thought it would be. I have'nt hooked that up yet, perhaps tommorrow.

For now I love the AV5100 and am glad I decided on it over the 5G, If anybody is on the fence don't be. And i have no reason to assume the Gmini 500 will be anything less than steller, ou just won't be able to record. But I'd go with it over the Ipod at the price point it will be at..


Dave

[Sharro]

Hi Scarpad,

I've been following Archos releases and they always make me curious...

Does it play subtitles (.srt or .sub)?
What's the max resolution of video ?
What codecs does it support and what features ?
On this same forum (Hardware Players) there are test files that were used to test the compatibility of standalone divx players, any chance you could try some and post results ?

Any info appreciated.

All the best,

Sharro

[shifty803]

I just got mine today. Looks purdy. Anyway, since Scarpad is apparently a slacker, I will see if I can test it for you. It may take me a bit to get the files for the tests though, since it is up in the air as to whether or not I am being sent on a business trip this coming Monday. Hopefully I will have something for people to see soon, since I am interested in what this thing can do myself.

I have a bunch of stuff I encoded in anticipation of recieving the av500 using XviD ASP with B-frames, no qpel, no GMC, no packed bitstream, and CBR audio. I figured it was a safe bet these files would work. I really want to see if it can handle video with VBR audio and not desync, as I have heard were problems on older models. I am not expecting qpel or GMC to work, but one can always hope.

[shifty803]

Okat, perhaps I won't be testing it.

Now and then, while watching movies or listening to mp3 with the display on, I am getting bright, flickering, horizontal bands on the screen. They are fairly repeatable as well... one example is the beginning of LotR: The Two Towers. When the words for 'New Line Cinema' appear below the company's symbol at the opening, the white words always appear with a flickering band behind them.

I have read on various sites that this may be due to poor installation of the screen, or something of that nature. Does anyone have an idea what kind of problem I am looking at here? I am going to return the player in any case. Mostly I am hoping that the problem isn't just that it has a crappy screen, and no replacement is going to fix it. Since I haven't seen droves of people complaining to Archos, I am hoping that isn't the case.