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