Read perspectives on how Digital Media is changing the world of marketing and communications

Product Review Part 3:
Archos Internet Media Tablet: Pros / Cons & Development

4.5 out of 5 Popstars

Summary: I give the Archos Internet Media Tablet 4.5 out of 5 Popstars for an innovative, unique and feature-rich approach to portable media players that approach the capabilities of a full-blown laptop.

Working for a company like Popstar, one of my biggest allies is innovation. The new, the experimental, these things help re-define limits and boundaries of existing technology and takes us as software developers further by leveraging new technologies. It’s not enough to understand how the technology works and what it was designed to do, often the goal is to discover what else it can do, as well as how to combine it with new technology (such as mobile technology) in unique and helpful ways.

As a software company architecting complete digital signage and interactive systems , it becomes common place to challenge our software and its design to bend and contort itself around new functionality and different workflows. It’s not enough to have a product that works, it needs to be flexible and scalable in ways that can grow with the customer. If I’ve learned one thing from good software it’s this – the better it is, the more the clients will want (and expect) it to do. No client requests changes from a software that’s rigid and lacking in innovation, because they’re not using it!

Archos’ Internet Media Tablets could benefit greatly from open-source development. An open development platform means 3rd party companies and individuals can begin developing not only applications, widgets & games, but low-level plug-ins and alternatives to the stock operating system itself. It would open up doors for Archos’ customers and position Archos as a leader in open-source technologies.

This kind of thinking can sometimes scare short-sighted executive types – this is where innovation comes into play. Innovating, researching, plotting, strategizing, companies who embrace these ways of thinking help bring new features to the market when customers need them most – and perhaps more importantly to the business, faster than the “other guys”. If a Popstar client needs around-the-clock notifications of their network, then building an automated monitoring system so it can notify them via mobile device becomes a very practical use for innovation (and we run circles around the “big boys” doing it, too – plug plug).

It’s commonplace for companies to re-produce products that already exist, packaging them up differently or offering incentives & discounts to buy theirs as opposed to someone else’s, but the companies I get behind are those innovative companies who conceive and deliver new features to the market. So far, Archos seems to be a company who’s not afraid of change.

The term portable media player (or PMP) encompasses more than media playback nowadays. Internet & wifi are now standard options. Compatibility with the latest and greatest software (like Flash) becomes a race to bring to market. Hardware compatibility is key as well – wireless & bluetooth keyboard and mice, GPS devices, even HSDPA 3G capabilities are in demand for these little PMPs that are sharing a lot of the same capabilities as netbooks, perhaps even laptops. The winners in this market are not going to be the companies who sit on their butt and stick to old tradition!

Flash Apps

The Internet Media Tablet has the capability of playing flash apps using Flash Lite. Flash lite at the time of this writing only supports Flash 9 authored in actionscript 2. You’ll likely see users out there frustrated that “some” websites don’t work, even if they’re using flash 9. This is because of the way those flash files were authored is slightly different than what Flash Lite supports. A flash file authored as flash 9 AS2 is compatible, while the same flash composition authored in Flash 9 AS3 is incompatible. This is an Adobe limitation and not one of Archos (although Archos is often blamed for it). Hopefully Adobe will get their act together and update flash lite to their latest player and actionscripting versions.

Having said that, there are a lot of flash apps and games out there that are compatible on the Archos. In addition, Archos’ embedded, open-source browser called Opera is capable of playing compatible flash content within the browser itself, allowing the user to see websites the iTouch and similar devices simply can’t load. Because the Opera browser is open-source and therefore a lot of widgets are made for it, the Archos can take advantage of this feature. The catch is, not all opera widgets work on the Archos – they make take some authoring work to convert them into a more Archos-friendly widget. In addition, opera widgets (and flash apps) won’t start up Archos’ wifi, so apps and plugs that use the wifi capabilities will be dependent on another process starting it for them. For example, I have a weather app I use that I’ve made a shortcut for on my Archos homepage. It’s simple but works great and cators the weather forecasts to my specific area. However, because it relies on the Internet and it can’t have the capability of starting up wifi itself, I have to “activate” the wifi by starting up my Internet browser and then hitting the widget. Again, opening up the Archos will speed development of flash apps / games as well as opera-based widgets by putting the fixes (for the Widgets as well as the Archos device itself) into the hands of its users and 3rd-party developers.

The MKV Format

A new & open-source container format (also called a wrapper) emerging in the market today is called Matroska (Matroska files have a file extension of .mkv). The term “container file” (or wrapper) is important to this discussion, as this isn’t referring to the type of codec used to compress your movie for example, it’s referring to the container file that envelops that movie. A container file is used to hold information about the way that compressed file is stored.

For example, say you have a DVD disc with 10 television episodes that you’d like your Archos to play. You have a buffet of codecs in which to choose from. At the time of this writing, one of my favorite codecs is H.264. So you download a program that allows you to encode to H.264. The next question is, what container format do you want to use? The options are varied and some container formats aren’t compatible with some codecs. Examples of some popular container formats would be AVI, ASF,MOV,RM,MP4,MPG, even MKV.

But wait, there’s a catch! Even though the Archos can play H.264 files (with the required H.264 plug-in anyway), it won’t necessarily play just any container format, such as MKV. The reason for this is container formats hold information about how to play the file, and similar to codecs, each device needs to know how to handle and understand the container format to play it. So in essence, any device you own, including hand-held portable media players on up to personal computers, have to know and understand both the codec that was used to compress your content as well as how to play the container format. If you’ve ever had issues playing an .avi file for example, while other .avi files play fine, you’ve run into a codec your system didn’t understand – you can play .avi files because your system understands how to play the .avi container file, but that .avi contains a file compressed with a codec you probably don’t have installed. Similarly, compressed files (such as H.264) that have played just fine previously as .avi files may not play well using a different container format (such as MKV) if your device doesn’t support that container format.

Well, the Archos IMT doesn’t play MKV files (at the time of this writing), but let’s suppose for a moment that it did. What added value does that give you? Why is playing MKV files any more desirable than … say avi, vob or mp4?

Remember our television scenario mentioned above? With the MKV format, you can place all ten television episodes into one MKV file and arrange them to play in any order you’d like. In addition, you can arrange to play only portions of each episode as well as control in which order segments of each episode you’d like it to play. Essentially what you have then is one container file with ten television episodes “wrapped” up inside of it – to you, they play as one long video file. You can even add MKV files within other MKV files for a more complicated and powerful playlist. MKV offers some other features such as custom meta-data tagging, file attachments (such as album cover art), mixture of file types, even the ability to design DVD-like interactive menus (although I don’t think this last option is quite there yet).  You can even add or modify the contents after the fact. Clearly, the potential for this technology has not been fully explored, especially as in how it can relate to the Archos, the fact that they’re an open-source format should (in theory) make it all the more easier for Archos to wrap it (sorry for the pun) into its feature set.

Some devices like the netgear digital entertainer elite are supporting mkv. In addition, players you can install on your computer support it, like:

• Media Player classic
• The Core Media Player
• VLC
• Zoom Player
• CorePlayer Pro and mobile
• Mplayer
• BSPlayer
• SMPlayer
• FantasyDVD Player
• TCPMP
• Windows Media Player (with playback pack)
• Nero Show Time (with K-Lite Codec Pack)
• ALShow Free Media Player
• Avidemux

Conclusion

Clearly there are multiple ways in which Archos may benefit from opening up its system, providing a comprehensive SDK, so other developers may unlock more of its potential. In my case, multiple Popstar products may be controlled from multiple Internet-capable devices or computers. With the Archos, I could walk around the office, convention center or hotel and control numerous signage screens with one mobile device.

Technology moves fast – if mobile device control was innovative last month, next month it will be a required feature. If I’m to invest in Archos’ technology, I need them to be as swift and innovative as I have to be!

Below I’ve compiled a list of pros and cons for this device. This list is somewhat catered to my own experiences and may omit other pros or cons.

Pros:

• smooth video, decent blacks = good screen for a 4.8″ portable media player
• flash-enabled opera browser. Flash video adjusts to the screen.
• Wifi (802.11 b/g)
• WebTV & Internet Radio plugs included
• DVR Station adds significant features for the price
• Surf web, check email, watch photos, videos and listen to music
• Built-in hard drive = higher storage capacity than flash memory
• Many supported audio formats: Stereo MP3, WMA, Protected WMA, WMA pro 5.1, WAV. AC3 stereo audio and 5.1 sound files (via SPDIF output of DVR Station). Flac and OGG Vorbis audio files supported.
• Many supported video formats: MPEG-4 (ASP@L5 AVI, up to DVD resolution), WMV (MP@ML, up to DVD resolution) included WMV protected files, M-JPEG (in QVGA resolution).With optional software plug-in:HD video playback support: MPEG-4 (ASP 720p) & WMV HD (MP 720p), MPEG-2 MP@ML up to 10 Mbps (up to DVD resolution) and AC3 stereo sound (5.1) H.264 up to DVD resolution with AAC )
• Supported image file types: JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
• Built-in kickstand
• Size fits in a coat or pants pockets (I wear cargo pants and it fits fine)
• Surf your local network, including copying files, watching streaming videos and listening to streaming music, etc. This is a feature I’m very surprised hasn’t made it into the touch yet, considering their storage size is dwarfed by the Archos.
• Opera widgets compatibility
• PDF (doesn’t implement all PDF features)and doc viewing
• Keyboard and mice supported
• Jumpdrives / Flash drives, cameras and external hard drives and other devices supported (through an add-on with USB connection).
• Organize files the way you want to organize them, not how the device requires you to.

Cons:

• Flash Lite – meaning not all flash 9 content can play, no flash 10 content will play – not Archos’ fault but still a con
• UI weak, especially in the touchscreen regions where the UI is expecting you to press.
• Zooming in and out isn’t as smooth and refined as itouch – no 2 finger zooming
• No built-in mic
• Nickel and dime you on the extras
• Proprietary usb cable – no need for a “special” one, other than to gouge the user for more add-on expenses.
• Buttons pointing at extras (adware) that can’t be removed
• H.264 isn’t completely supported – indexing and lip sync are sometimes an issue depending on the settings of the encode.
• No case included – should be for the price. I’ve found a lot of Nintendo DS cases work for the Archos. I purchased this one, both protective and has a pocket for earbuds and proprietary USB cable – http://store.videogamecentral.com/nintendo-ds-als-game-traveler.html

Thanks for reading!

John Dave Hutton
Senior Technician & 3D Artist

John Dave Hutton is the Senior Technician & 3D Artist for Popstar Networks. In this position he is responsible for training and documentation as well as 3D & general technical work. Dave enjoys working with people and has a technical background building systems, programming scripts and automation tools, video editing & motion graphics as well as 3D modeling and animation. Dave spent over ten years in the advertising and computer industries and loves all things graphics & technical. A Missouri native, Dave is a self-professed computer junkie and loves gadgets, new technology, biking and frisbee.