Anyone try one of the new Archos Dish compatible players?

[treiher]

I'm going to have to do quite a bit of international travel (i.e. long, long airplane rides) and was thinking of getting one of the new Archos 605 or 705 players. I already have an AV402E which I have had for several years now, and have gotten a lot of great use out of it. Only complaint is the screen is too smal for extended movie watching and it has no stand, but for the most part, I've always looked at like an mp3 player that I can watch movies on.

Anyway, just curious if anyone has any thoughts, negative or positive about the new 5th generation players.

 

[littleguy]

I have the 605 and love it. It is great for storing movies on it and using it on a plane. My daughter thought it was the greatest thing. I have no complaints.
Also great to have to check email at the airports.

 

[jimijam28]

605 wifi is great,, easy too use,,

 

[treiher]

What about battery life? I've also heard that it is hard to recharge while on the road or watching it. Are there any accessories you would recommend?

By the way, I've also noticed for anyone else considering this, Archos sells the 605's refurbished for a really good price and it comes with a 6-month warranty. You can buy it directly from their website with free shipping.

 

[littleguy]

The battery life all depends on what you are doing. I know my little one watched about 6 hours worth of shows or movies and I checked email and battery still had some life in it.

I went to ebay and bought a power charger for like .99 and just plug it directly into the wall. Charging it by computer takes forever.

 

[treiher]

Just an update for anyone else considering getting one of these, went ahead and dropped the bucks to get one, and so far it is pretty nice. I am annoyed with the fact that they do nickel and dime you a bit, as it comes with not even an AC charger, and there are some pretty basic features you have to pay extra for. But overall, it works great. Sound is good and picture quality blows away my old AV402E, ofcourse it's not as compact either. It fits exactly what I was looking for. The screen size is big enough to comfortably view it on an airplane, but its not like carrying around another laptop.

 

[Jenny_Piccolo]

I bought a 30gb 605 wifi last week.

It's nice because I've converted a lot of my DVDs to divx. It's also nice because I can transfer SOME programs from my VIP722. Unfortunately SD only. So I'm stuck with frontline, charlie rose, etc or I'll need to record in SD for the sole purpose to transferring to the 605.

 

[treiher]

Yup . . . I've been focused on only recording HD movies and programs whenever possible for so long, and now I find myself actually searching for SD movies that I can push to the Archos player. It would be nice if Dish could eventually allow us to push HD content over to it. I wonder if that is even possible, if they have any plans to do so.

What DVD rip program are you using? I have DVD Fab Platinum which works great, and even has the Archos 605 conversion settings already in it, but I"m on a 30-day trial and it's pretty pricey if I want to buy it.

 

[shortspark]

I have had one of the old Archos 500E PocketDish units and it has done well for me. Although I have not downloaded from my 622 for quite some time, it was very easy to do (once they fixed a glitch that is). I particularly like the USB port that allows for playing audio files from a flash drive. I simply connect the jump drive when I want to hear music saving the storage for movies only.

The screen is starting to become problematic as there is a yellow tint to video. I have to press hard on the rear of the unit for it to go away. I have a bag clip that I use to apply the force when I watch a movie so it does not bother me much. But, I may upgrade to something like the 605. Does it work like the PocketDish in that you simply download from the Dish receiver via USB? Does it also have the USB port to play audio via a jump drive?

 

[treiher]

The functionality of the 605 with your 622 is virtually the same. You do have to download a dish plug-in from the Archos website and follow the instructions to install it, but once you do, you simply plug it into the 622 or 722, and it pops up and asks you if you want to manage the device. One thing to remember, now with the external hard drive support, you cannot have both connected at the same time. If you have an external USB drive you have to unplug it first. And I have found that it does get a little confused if you do that and then quickly plug in the Archos 605. My wife got quite a kick out of the error message which popped up and said, "you have too many devices". She said it has know idea how right it is. Anyway, a reboot and it was fine.

I have to tell you though, the screen quality on the 605 truly is amazing, compared to my old Pocket Dish. And I love the touch screen capability, with just the right mix of hard buttons on the side. It is very bright, and so sharp, you really can't even see the pixels, even very close to your face. So far I am very pleased.

 

[navychop]

I'd love for them to offer an HD capable device. Seems they're leaving money on the table by not offering such a product. I don't even need to watch the recordings on the built in screen, and it wouldn't even need to have a battery.

I want to carry recordings from my ViP622, mostly HD recordings (in HD not SD), with me to my RV. I would then play them on an HDTV there. I'd buy such a device today. I can't get a satellite LOS from the RV. Very little TV reception there. It would be nice to be able to watch stuff we've recorded at night.

I gather there's no news on an HD capable device, not even a refusal to produce one?

 

[rjssox]

I believe you can record hd content on the archos via the dvr docking station but can not transfer hd content fron the 622 or 722'

rick

 

[navychop]

DVR docking station? What's that?

 

[TheKrell]

To answer your earlier question, there is no news from Archos about their HD plug-in for 5th gen players. Rumor has it that the TI chipset cannot play HD content smoothly, despite the hype out of TI that it can. Some people think that true HD will have to await gen 6 players.

DVR docking station? What's that?

One of the good things about the TI chipset is that it can record as well as play back video. Record capability unfortunately does not come with the player out of the box; it's added with accessories such as the headcam or one of the docking stations. What you get in the top-of-the-line docking station is USB-host as well as USB-client, a cute little QWERTY remote control, and the docking adapter itself with a variety of video inputs and outputs including component video. (I would have to look at mine to make sure it's both I and O, but it definitely has O.)

So, what rjssox was referring to was the ability to record HD content via the docking adapter to down-rez'd video. I believe this will be 640X480 mpeg-4 (divx) quality. Not too shabby, but not real HD either. You can also play back DVD quality video without conversion (by spending more $$ for the Cinema plug-in).

 

[navychop]

Thank you.