Product Review Part 2:
Archos Internet Media Tablet: Add-ons & Plug-ins

In part II of this review, I’ll go into a bit more detail on what the DVR Station does well and what it doesn’t as well as the H.264 plug-in.

DVR Station Add-on

I would generally recommend this for most Archos users out there, not only because of the DVR capabilities but also the USB connections and the play-out-to-tv capabilities it gives you.

The DVR Station add-on turns your Archos tablet into a Digital Video Recorder. In addition, some extra features are available that are also available on cheaper add-ons, so dropping $100 USD extra on a DVR station add-on may not be necessary, depending on what you need and want.

First and foremost the DVR station add-on records and plays back videos to and from your source (usually cable or satellite). It will record on the fly through manual recording and you can set it to shut off after a period of time. It will also record shows directly from your cable box (wifi required if you want it to interface with the cable box’s program guide). To do the latter, you’ll need a wifi connection and then run through a set up procedure, stating what sort of cable or satellite provider you have, what sort of model the receiver is, what service provider you have for your cable or satellite, etc.

I’ve had a chance of this writing to try out the manual recording and it works a treat. Lip sync is perfect and the audio and video are of slightly above-average quality (VHS or a bit better, via S-video anyway – component will likely give you better results). Certainly good enough to record shows for later viewing. I wouldn’t say the quality is perfect by any means but certainly good enough to record in standard definition. If you’re looking to capture a movie or other piece of content where full-quality is desired, you’ll be better off skipping the DVR add-on and encoding it from a disc for offline viewing.

The manual-record menus & controls are straight-forward and I had no problems recording my first few shows with little help from the accompanying manual.

The latter feature of recording directly from your cable box’s program guide is a different story. Archos calls this the Electronic TV Program Guide. This feature downloads days of content via wifi from your provider and lists the scheduled programs on your screen, much like the cable box guide does when you hit it with your normal remote. Then you can schedule the programs and recording, offering a more exact and refined approach to recording programs than the manual method. As of this writing the service that drives this feature is not available to me so I wasn’t able to confirm or deny its usability, other than to say it’s not available. According to the user forums it’s been a problem for a while, so if you’re counting on direct integration between your provider and this DVR station, I would check with tech support or sales, or on the user forums to see if your area’s providers are functioning. To my understanding (at the time of this writing), most of the United States is currently not functioning correctly. Archos has a video on their site that you can watch and see how it’s supposed to work. Since this problem seems to have remained largely unfixed, I’m guessing Archos is having to deal with some third parties who aren’t working with them the way they’d like. Total guess of course.

Of course with the DVR station you’re not just resigned to recording programs from cable and satellite, the audio & video connections are universal, meaning DVD players and old VHS players and just about any source with composite, component or S-video outputs can be recorded.

On the flipside to recording, the DVR Station also allows full-screen standard definition playback – it will playback literally anything your Archos screen is capable of viewing – movies, Internet, Archos menus, etc. For those of you with HD files aren’t out of luck, with the HD plug-in the DVR station will play out HD files to an HD screen via the HDMI connection. One gotcha with the HD plug-in at the time of this writing is that it only supports the wmv and xvid codecs in HD, so users who encode their 720p HD content in h.264 are out of luck. Bummer.

Putting aside recording and playback, the DVR offers features that are available in the other (read – cheaper) add-ons. One of my favorites is the USB connection. Originally used for peripheral attachments such as cameras and jumpdrives, this connection recognizes other USB devices. Users have reported success in attaching USB-enabled hard drives to the Archos as well (again do a bit of research before you make any purchasing decisions).

One of the newer and lesser known features of the Archos is that it will accept a standard keyboard and / or mouse input. This can be very significant if you’re Internet browsing and using a mouse vs. your touch screen as an input source. Those Internet links can get pretty tiny, even on a larger 5″ or 7″ screen. I tested a few different USB keyboard and mice and they all seemed to work without a hitch. Some users online have reported success in using bluetooth-enabled keyboard and mice as well, utilizing the common USB bluetooth dongle (I’d double-check online which are compatible before you go making a purchase though). Most notably missing from the mice (and keyboard if applicable) is the exclusion of the scroll wheel function. An understandable yet missed feature I wished it’d had. Nevertheless, keyboard and mouse support adds a new degree of freedom and usability to the device. I haven’t had a chance to try a USB hub yet but users online have reported varying degrees of success, allowing both keyboard and mouse support simultaneously (approaching laptop functionality). You’ll want both your hub and keyboard / mouse to be USB 2 compatible. I’ve read USB 1 mice will work but haven’t confirmed that yet myself.

Note: USB B is a Mini-USB connection, USB A is a standard-sized USB connection used for things such as keyboard & mouse support. Both connections cannot be used simultaneously.

In addition to the standard USB connection on the DVR station, a 4 pin mini USB connection exists for cameras and similar devices to download their content directly to the Archos’ hard drive. A common use for this would be to transfer pictures from your camera directly to your Archos.

Also available in other add-ons is the ability to more quickly charge your Archos. From a low battery you can expect it to take anywhere from seven to ten hours to fully charge your Archos via the USB cable plugged into a computer (no wall plug included with the 5″). With the DVR station it’s reported to take 3 hours or so to fully charge. I haven’t clocked it but the DVR station does seem to charge the device much more quickly so 3 hours is probably pretty close.

Note: Some users have reported faster charging plugging their USB cable into a self-powered HUB (without the computer being on).

Lastly, Archos lists a “Unique Remote Control” that comes bundled with the DVR station. It’s a small, functional remote that serves its purpose and is easy enough to get used to. If you don’t plan on moving your DVR Station around then maybe a wireless keyboard / mouse would be a better, long-term fit for remote controlling your Archos. The nice thing is that you’ll have that option to choose.

The remote was awkward to use at first. The pad controlling the mouse was only partially responsive (especially when moving the cursor down on the screen). I don’t have any problems at all using it now but still would like a mouse / keyboard set up in my living room for a more powerful and intuitive interface.

H.264 “Podcast” Plug-in

Along with the DVR Station add-on, the H.264 “podcast” plug-in makes it to the top of my “must have” add-ons for the Archos. The H.264 codec is widely used today both on the Internet as well as by other personal media players, most notably Apple’s iTouch and iPod category of products – so much so that many refer to H.264 as the iTouch / Pod format.

In my case I had a lot of content already encoded in this format, so the decision to purchase it was easy. H.264′s efficient use of size vs. quality makes it a natural candidate in the environment of digital signage, interactive touchscreens and kiosks. If you don’t have any files encoded in this format and don’t forsee the need to worry about it, you may not need this plug-in at all. Get it if you have the dough.

I had specific uses for this plug-in when I first purchased it. Since my wife has an iTouch already, I have access to lots of content already encoded for Apple devices. I have the ability to save the files onto my Archos tablet for later viewing or through the network in streaming them directly from a networked system.

The plug-in works but it does have problems. First it doesn’t necessarily recognize any indexing in the files. This means you can start a video, play it, even speed up the play by choosing the 2x and 4x options via the menu. However, you won’t be able to pick a point in the movie in which to start playing – if you do, your video stops on you, forcing you to start again from the beginning. Because it doesn’t always support indexing, your next best option to getting where you want to be in your movie or video is to choose the 2x and 4x play options mentioned above and wait …  and wait …  and wait. The Archos needs an option to play the video or movie more quickly than 2x and 4x. 8x, 16x, 32x seem pretty standard way of fast-playing through your content. What’s worse, this plug-in sometimes quits in the middle of the video or movie for no apparent reason, leaving the user to do the fast-play dance to attempt to get back to where they were. This hasn’t happened too often but … it has happened, probably in 15-20 movies I’ve had it happen 3-4 times. The crashes would be much more tolerable if you could scrub back to where you were in the movie.

The above indexing problem is not necessarily true for all H.264 files as “some” of the movies encoded in H.264 can be searched like any normal video file. The way that some files are encoded is compatible with the Archos. I haven’t taken the time to encode H.264 and find out why some files work fine and others don’t work at all. To confirm this is an Archos bug, I took the same file and played it on my wife’s iTouch – files the Archos had issues with can be searched just fine on her device. Clearly there’s more work to do with this plug-in’s indexing capabilities – improve reliability & indexing.

Barring any crashing, quitting and index problems this plug-in seems to have associated with it, it plays the content with as good a quality as the other file types Archos natively supports. I don’t regret purchasing this plug-in as I really needed it, but there is certainly room for improvement.

Other Add-ons & Plug-ins

Other add-ons for the Archos include:

• GPS card holder – turning your Archos into a portable GPS device
• DVR Snap-on (omitting some features the DVR Station has)
• Mini Dock (Video out only, USB, quick charging)
• Battery Dock (charges batt quickly, extended batt life, USB, composite & S-video output)
• FM Remote (Receive and record FM radio, vocal memo recording with built-in mic)
• Cinema, H.264 & HD plug-ins mentioned above

For a bit more investment you’ve added quite a bit in the way of capabilities and features to your tablet, such as keyboard and mouse support as well as video recording and playback and an expanded file compatibility list.

In the next review I’ll list the pros and cons I’ve found with the Archos and cover a bit more advanced topics for the Archos, such as general authoring pros and cons to the flash apps & opera Widgets this device supports, etc.

Thanks for reading and see you in Part III!

John David Hutton
Sr. Technologist & Evangelist

Product Review:
Archos Internet Media Tablet

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.

Faced with increased travel and a desire to consolidate my media needs such as Digital Video Recording, MP3 libraries and my movie and television show libraries into a more singular and portable device, I began researching mobile travel companions. I was looking for a device smaller than a laptop but still convenient enough to use on a regular basis. My wife has an 8 GB iTouch so I decided to research other options. I came across the Internet Media Tablet by Archos. This is a portable media player (PMP) that’s very similar in capabilities to the iTouch or Cowon.

Like all things I research, I read the standard marketing bull to get an idea of what the device was supposed to do, then hit the user forums to discover what works well and what doesn’t, how well the drivers are maintained, what new features were delivered upon and which have been withheld, etc. I’ve found this generally a good practice with anything you buy – nobody will be as honest and direct as the product’s current user base. The forum I frequented when checking up on Archos’ Internet Media Tablet is at the following address: http://forum.archosfans.com.

I chose the Archos 250 GB Internet Media Tablet (IMT) sporting a 4.8” screen and built-in Wifi with web TV/Radio plug-ins included. I was drawn to this unit because of its screen size, storage capabilities as well as capabilities that differentiated it from most other devices out there, such as streaming media over local network as well as flash lite compatibility. I also opted to purchase the DVR add-on, which turns the Archos into a portable Digital Video Recorder.

In part I of this review, I’ll cover general capabilities and features of the device. Part II will cover some of the add-ons and plug-ins available, specifically the DVR add-on and H.264 plug-in. Part III will explore the widgets, flash capabilities and streaming capabilities as well as a complete list of pros and cons I’ve gathered for this device.

Storage

The size is probably the most obvious feature to start on. It sports an internal laptop hard drive versus flash memory the iTouch works off of. As a result, it’s thicker and heavier than the touch and you can feel it spinning up and down while it’s working (not enough to be bothersome). It does have a small kickstand built in so you don’t have to hold it – nice if you’re on a plane or anywhere else with a flat surface to help you out.

I have just over 100 movies currently stored on my device, along with just over 8000 songs. For a 250 GB hard drive you have about 232 GB of that space to call your own. With the movies and songs and recorded TV episodes I’ve put onto the Archos, it’s just over halfway full. Clearly space will not be an issue for you.

Note: All movies are encoded at around 700 MB a piece. This means around 75 GB is taken up for movies, around 36 GB or so for music and another 11 GB or so for various asundries (TV Shows, data files transferred to my computer, etc).

Because the hard drive is large it’s significant to note that you can transfer files to and from your IMT through the operating system’s file explorer as well as through media players (and not just through one piece of software such as iTunes for the iTouch and iPod). This allows you to use different encoding software packages to prepare video, audio and other types of files your archos will play. This also allows you to hold regular data files as well as other types of files you may want to keep on your device, such as zip archive files that are too large to fit on a regular thumb drive. This might also free you a bit in the syncronization issues some users experience with other devices when connecting to different computers. In essence, you have a 250 GB portable drive at your disposal. In my case I have the capability of placing large, high-definition video files slated to play on a client’s signage product or Kiosk. I can even play those files directly from the Archos through a LCD screen or projector for client review before installation (this is done through the DVR add-on discussed in Part II of this review).

The archos does sport a proprietary USB cable, which was an unnecessary hitch in making it a completely portable hard drive device. If you can remember to take that special cable with you, you can hook into any USB-enabled PC and transfer files (under 4 GB in size) with the normal operating system’s file explorer.

Screen

The screen itself presents smooth video, decent blacks, great picture quality and an overall great-to-stellar rating in quality and performance.

The physical screen is responsive and resembles a pda in the screen type. My wife found the navigation clunky and poorly designed versus the iTouch. She felt she had to tap harder than the touch makes her, and more often. After some investigation and a little getting used to, I’ve identified most of its touch screen problems as just being software-related – poorly designed touch regions. Many of Popstar’s products involve touch screen navigation and I’ve come to appreciate how much of a difference a well-designed touch interface can make towards the perception of your product. Some think of clunky design as more “nerdy”, not as sophisticated, less friendly towards the “average” user. I wouldn’t categorize Archos’ touch design in this way, but I would suggest they design their interface so it requires fewer clicks and touches to get where you want to go. I would also add that this sort of screen lends itself better to a stylus at times, especially when browsing the internet or choosing menu options that are smaller than a pinky-sized fingerprint size. You’ll probably find yourself tapping with your fingernail to fine-tune your target region.

Interface

As suggested above, the interface may be improved by implementing tweaks to how the screen responds to touch. For example, the main menu on the left will allow one-touch reaction to its submenus – you can even drag your finger along the menu and watch as each menu option expands itself. However, while on a sub-menu you will have to touch an item (like a particular video) once to select it, then again to execute the action. Before you’re used to it, you’ll be clicking the item once to see if the action took, then waiting for a reaction. After about 30 seconds the screen will blank out on you, leading you to believe it’s either ignoring you or has crashed. Clicking it again engages the screen out of screen saver / power mode, then clicking the item again initiates the original action you wanted to happen. Because you have to essentially double-click, a lot has happened in the way of confusing the initial user as to what’s going on. This leaves the initial impression that the screen is unintuitive and unresponsive. I suspect Archos requires you to double-click an action item in case you simply want to scroll the entire menu. A better method may be to time how long the initial press took place – if the finger stays where it is, it’s a drag not a touch. If the finger lifts up quickly, it’s a touch and not a drag. Another method may be to draw a region around the text of the item and if pressed once initiates that action. However, if a press happens over to the right or anywhere but the text, a drag action happens, scrolling the entire menu. I found multiple places within the interface that could use this sort of tweaking. If you’re coming from the touch or similar device, you may need to fiddle with the device for a few minutes to get used to how it operates. Improvements in this area would help a user’s initial reaction as well as for users (like previous ipod users) who are trying out the device from a store or through a friend. First impressions are key to sales – Apple appreciates this better than most companies do.

Video Encoding

The Archos supports a wide array of video formats. I’ve been using the h.264 codec wrapping it in an .avi containing file format. Because file encoding is a common process, I have access to multiple tools both on the PC and Mac platforms. But I wanted to check out some freebies & shareware versions out there to see if I could find one I liked. One of the more popular, free encoding tools out there is called “Handbrake” and after finding the correct settings (the trick with any encoding tool) you can save the profile and load those every time you want to encode something new. However it’s difficult to get the settings quite right and given the mixed content you may have (4:3, 16:9, etc.) it may not be the most user-friendly piece of software to auto-detect aspect ratio and regions of letterboxing or pillarboxing. In addition to the standard letterbox and pillarbox issues, those of us in the digital signage realm will appreciate how many different resolutions (both horizontal and vertical) we may deal with, so programs with good auto-detection features built-in are highly appreciated.

I like the auto-detect feature in a piece of software called Fair Use. This is a great little program that supports a lot of juicy features that makes it easy for the novice to get started (as well as the experienced but lazy user). This handles episodic discs correctly and has an excellent auto-crop feature so that it encodes the parts of the screen you want and leaves out what you don’t (switching from 4:3 to 16:9 content is a breeze). It lets you know the bitrate and filesize before you commit to the settings and supports a nice batch feature so you can add many videos and movies and save for later encoding (or overnight / weekend encoding). The free version limits you to 700MB files which is good average standard quality for the archos. Lip sync and indexing (moving to any place in the movie) works flawlessly. I’ll offer my settings below in case you’d like to try it yourself.

The archos comes with several codecs including MPEG-4 (Xvid, up to DVD resolution), WMV (MP@ML, up to DVD resolution) including WMV protected files, M-JPEG (in QVGA resolution), with the option of purchasing plug-ins to extend its capabilities (ie. Mpg-2 for standard def DVDs and h.264, HD 720p content, etc.).

I went ahead and purchased the H.264 plug-in. In part II I’ll offer more in-depth information regarding this plug’s capabilities and downfalls. Archos calls this the “podcast” plug-in, which to me suggests this codec’s main purpose is encoding to small podcasts viewable on a very small and portable screens. However, I use the H.264 codec heavily in my work with Popstar, encoding full-screen, high-profile content viewable on forty and sixty inch plasma and LCD screens, maintaining friendly file sizes for transport over a local network and the Web. At the time of this writing, it’s one of the most efficient and preferred video codecs out there for quality vs. file size ratios. H.264 files are wrapped in what’s called a “container” file, which can be formats like mp4, mpg, avi and mov file formats.

Fair Use Wizard Settings

Music / Playlists

Audio formats supported on the Archos include MP3, WMA, Protected WMA, WMA pro 5.1, WAV, Flac, OGG, AC3 stereo audio and 5.1 sound files (via SPDIF output of DVR Station).

This sort of device isn’t something I would run or bike with (some people do), but I do still use it as a portable music library. I can hook it into my computer and play through my computer speakers or dock it with the DVR station and play songs through my stereo, both of which have worked great.

You have several options to choose from when building playlists for the Archos. If you prefer to build playlists using the device itself, Archos has a good built-in playlist builder that will assist you in organizing your content. You may also build your playlists from the PC instead of the device. Among the software choices on the PC, you have Windows Media Player, Media Monkey and WinAmp. Using Windows Media Player may be the most common tool in building a playlist, as most PC users are on the windows platform and WMP is built in. I tried out the capabilities of the windows media player version 11 on Windows XP SP3 platform and Archos firmware version 1.5.08.

In WMP you can click on the library tab, build a playlist, then click the “sync” tab and drag the desired playlist(s) to the right pane. At the bottom you’ll see a “start sync” button that when pressed, copies the playlist and media files to your archos in their appropriate locations. For a detailed set of instructions for using all three software packages to build a playlist, visit this link. For a video tutorial on how to build a playlist within Archos itself, visit this link.

Users have reported a lot of problems with the ArchLib feature in the past, specifically some music tracks not showing up at all in the library, even though the files themselves reside on the tablet’s hard drive. See the user forums for updated information on that problem. As of this writing a new firmware was released which all but alleviates this problem. I haven’t noticed issues such as this myself, but then I haven’t pushed the music library features of the Archos very hard (yet). To my understandings these issues have stemmed from how the files themselves are named. For example, names with an ellipse are not interpreted correctly by the Archos OS and will be ignored when listing your albums.

Internet Browsing

Archos supports wifi featuring the Opera software with built-in flash support. The Opera browser performed well for me and seemed very responsive. The links are difficult to press on at times but this is due to the fact that I’m using a touch screen and not a mouse. I did try browsing with a mouse and it worked great (see Part II for more information on keyboard & mouse support). A small mouse pointer shows up while in motion, then unplugging the mouse makes the cursor vanish, leaving you with just the touch screen input as before. Couple mouse / keyboard capabilities with the ability to place the Archos content on the screen and you have a complete web-browsing capability with large screen and user-friendly controls – a nice user experience.

The flash support is flash-lite. What this means to content developers using flash and users watching a specific piece of content, is that (at the time of this writing) it only supports flash 9 with actionscript 2. Since flash is currently at 10 and is beginning to use the more commonly accepted actionscript 3, this limitation may be a problem depending on how you need to develop and watch your flash. What this means to everyone else is you’ll be able to view most flash content on the web, such as most mainstream sites like youtube, but this is becoming increasingly difficult as more sites and users update their versions of flash. This is a limitation of Flash lite and not of Archos. Hopefully Adobe will get Flash lite up to date soon!

On a related note, Apple has announced its intension to incorporate the Flash lite platform into its own product line. Adobe has encountered more technical hurdles than it originally anticipated and it’s reported that Apple is working with Adobe to solve these issues.

The Geek Factor

Given the possibilities of Archos’ platform and the fact that Apple has already attained a significant headstart in the pmp and mp3 market, it seems logical to me for Archos to open up its platform up to 3rd party developers and present a comprehensive SDK that will benefit this product and its users in the long run. As a company, the behemoth that is Apple simply has the lion’s share of the market and will continue to do so. Many 3rd parties develop plug-ins and add-ons for the iPod & iTouch whereas the choices for the Archos are significantly dwarfed (Archos’ opera-centric widgets and flash apps notwithstanding). It’s pretty clear that if Archos opens up their platform and allows 3rd party vendors (and individuals) to develop their own widgets and plug-ins and hacks for the Archos, their community (and inevitably market presence) will begin to grow exponentially. One of the big criticisms of the Apple product line is that they force their users into a certain way of working and thinking – Archos could use this to their advantage and leverage a completely open, linux-based user-controlled environment.

Stay tuned, in a few weeks I’ll post the next part of this review, where I go into more detail on the available plug-ins and add-ons for the Archos Internet Media Tablet, followed by part III, offering a complete list of pros and cons for this device.

John David Hutton
Sr. Technologist & Evangelist