ARCHOS TV Plus, 250GB

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Product Description

The ARCHOS TV+ is the first WiFi Digital Video Recorder that provides the easiest access to content, and the most advanced features of any DVR today. ARCHOS TV+ combines a WiFi Media Player with a high-capacity DVR for enjoying movies, music, photos, podcasts, Web video, the full Internet and more right on your widescreen TV. With up to 250GB of capacity on a multimedia hard drive, you can record hundreds of hours of video and transfer content via high speed to your ARCHOS Portable Media Players.

Product Description	Archos TV+ - digital AV recorder
Device Type	Digital AV recorder
Dimensions (WxDxH)	9.8 in x 6.5 in x 1.5 in
Weight	2.9 lbs
Key Features	Digital audio player, digital audio recorder, digital photo viewer, external HDD function, video capture from external source, digital video player
Hard Drive	250 GB
TV Standards Supported	NTSC, PAL
Supported Still Images Formats	BMP, JPEG, PNG
Supported Audio Formats	WAV, WMA, MP3
Video Playback Formats	MPEG-4, WMV
Video Capture Formats	MPEG-4 SP
External Control Devices	Remote control
PC Interfaces	Hi-Speed USB, Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX, IEEE 802.11g
Included Accessories	Remote control, 2 x audio cable, 2 x S-Video cable

Specifications
General
Device Type	Digital AV recorder
Key Features	Digital audio player, digital audio recorder, digital photo viewer, external HDD function, video capture from external source, digital video player
Width	9.8 in
Depth	6.5 in
Height	1.5 in
Weight	2.9 lbs
External Control Devices	Remote control
PC Interfaces	Hi-Speed USB, Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX, IEEE 802.11g
Features	TV recording, PDF viewer, USB host function
Display
TV Standards Supported	NTSC, PAL
Memory / Storage
HDD Capacity	250 GB
HDD Form Factor	Built-in
Still Images
Supported Still Images Formats	BMP, JPEG, PNG
Digital Audio
Supported Audio Formats	WAV, WMA, MP3
Supported Bit Rate	30 - 320Kbps
Features	VBR
Video
Video Playback Formats	MPEG-4, WMV
Video Capture Supported	Yes
Video Capture Formats	MPEG-4 SP
Video Capture	MPEG-4 - 640 x 480 - 30 fps
Connectivity
Connections	Hi-Speed USB - USB Type A ¦ Audio line-in - RCA x 2 ¦ Audio line-out - RCA x 2 ¦ SPDIF output - RCA ¦ Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45 ¦ Hi-Speed USB - USB Type B ¦ Component video input - RCA x 3 ¦ Composite video input - RCA ¦ S-Video input - 4 pin mini-DIN ¦ Composite video output - RCA ¦ Component video output - RCA x 3 ¦ S-Video output - 4 pin mini-DIN ¦ HDMI output - 19 pin HDMI Type A
Power Adapter
Type	Power adapter
Miscellaneous
Firmware Upgradable	Yes
Included Accessories	Remote control, 2 x audio cable, 2 x S-Video cable

Customer Reviews

Reviewed on 2008-05-23 Great Device, still a little rough around the edges I've had this device for over a month now and here are my impressions. The first thing I had to do was to update the firmware. This was a REAL pain the rear. The device has an "auto-update" feature, but it doesn't seem to work without the latest version of the firmware. ACK. Newer buyers might have a newer version pre-installed. Once I finally got the latest version of the firmware and had purchased a couple of the plugins, I must say it's a really cool machine. My main purpose was to put all of my kids DVDs on it - this seems to be a common theme :) I won't go over the specs, but here are few things you should know before you buy (in no particular order). This device is NOT rock solid. Overall, it's stable "enough", but about once a week I run into a situation where I need to reboot the device. Personally, that's acceptable. The dual USB mode is awesome. I can either attach it to my PC and copy stuff over (I use the mode where it looks like an external HD, but it also has "media player 11 support" whatever that is) OR I can attach an external HD to it and copy stuff over via the interface on my TV. The main functions in the interface are easy to use and pretty intuitive, but some of the more advanced stuff took me a while to figure out. The manual wasn't always that helpful either. Still, this is just a one time thing. The remote sucks big time. I understand they wanted something with a keyboard for web browsing (and file administration which is nice), but I really don't like the "feel" of it. 99% of the time there are just 8 buttons you'll be using. I've considered getting a learning remote to use most of the time. It's great that it can play .vob files (these are the raw video files on DVDs) but I REALLY wish it could have played a directory with all of the DVD files as if it were a DVD. lots of video players on my PC can do this. The TV recording function is "nice" but only useful if you know exactly what time and channel the program is in advance. The TV listing is purely an online TV guide you can browse and set to record something. On the other hand, it's nice to have a real time digital recorder to convert old VHS tapes or just record what I'm watching now (if I have to leave in the middle). If you're recoding something from TV, the IR transmitter is on the front of the device. There is no "extender" like the tivo has. This means you need to either (a) change the channel in advance (b) have the tv+ facing your cable box (c) have something in front of the tv+ that will reflect the IR signal back to your cable box. As I said earlier, the recording functionality is "nice" but don't think this will replace a tivo. The browser is surprisingly usable. I was able to do just about everything including 99% of the flash based sites I tried. I wish it directly supported streaming audio (Internet Radio) like shoutcast.com. It DOES support flash through the browser, including sound. I tried to use pandora.com (it uses streaming audio via flash) but it never fully loaded the page. If you only have composite video (just a single "standard" connector) then the Apple TV isn't even an option! My TV is 7 years old and composite is the only video connector I have. Apple TV does NOT have composite (which is one of the reasons I didn't get it). When you're browsing your video files, it shows a thumbnail for the video (nice) but the really cool thing is that the thumbnail will show about 10 seconds from the video when you "hover" over it. This is VERY helpful for my 4 year old daughter. My final thoughts would be that if you're a bit technical and want the ultimate flexibility - get the archos TV.

Reviewed on 2008-03-25 Great networked DVR I have many Archos products and the gen 5 series is the best of the lot. Archos TV+ is everything they promised. You can network it with your computer or other Archos wifi enabled units. The TV+ does not include a tuner so you will need a tuner source such as a VCR,DVR,cable box or a sat receiver. TV+ controls the tuner source with a built in infrared emitter and scheduled recordings are easily programmed with an on screen menu. I would give the TV+ five stars but I'm having a problem with setting up some scheduled recordings that requires a firmware update. I'm still waiting for it but Archos tech support told me it would be fixed. I'm happy with my TV+!

Reviewed on 2008-03-25 Not yet completely matured After 3 weeks of using this device, I have mixed feelings towards it: - This is an useful product, and I'm sure there is a market for it; - The wifi and network capabilities are great and the hardisk is of decent size; - The setting up was easy, as was the connection to my wifi network; - It is easy to program a recording but it could be simplified. Actually the whole interface is workable, but it could be more user friendly; - The price is a little too high, considering that it comes without a web browser and some video codecs, all of which have to be purchased apart if you want to access the full potential of this machine; - I didn't like the quality of the videos I've recorded. I got some fuzziness and sombre images, even after tweaking the recording settings; - I had the machine in my bedroom. For some reason, every night around 3 or 4 AM, the hardisk began to whirr for some minutes. It wasn't too loud, but it was enough to wake me up. All in all, I took the decision to return this item, hoping that it'll be perfected in the future.

Reviewed on 2008-03-16 Has potential, but purposely hobbled by Archos to get more money OK, first here's what the Archos TV+ will NOT do (as there is a lot of confusion out there) 1. It will not surf the Internet. This requires an additional $30 plug-in. 2. It will not play surround sound encoded movies. It's not that you just don't get the surround sound, it won't play the movie period. This requires another $20 plug-in. 3. It will not play H.264 (.mov or .mv4) movies. This will run you yet another $20 for the plug-in. 4. It will not record TV shows. It does not have a built in tuner, so you need to attempt a Rube Goldberg type setup where the Archos TV+ controls a real recording device (VCR, DVD Recorder) to turn it on, change the channel, etc... (Didn't work with my 2 year old DVD recorder.) So, it will cost you another $70 to realize the potential of the Archos TV+. (Plus the as yet defined cost of the 'TV Program Guide' that is only free for one year.) Without the additional money, any attempt to play a movie other than a MPEG-4 .AVI with (only) Stero sound will bring up message that you cannot play the file and need to purchase one of the various plug-ins, with a convenient button that lets you 'buy it now'. There is little doubt about their strategy to make more money here. The Archos TV+ also has this weird Bright White top to it (check out my photo in the product images). All of the Archos photos for the TV+ show a distinctly silver top, and in multiple calls to Archos they were even confused about the color. I got stories that a few had white tops, that there were many different colors of tops out there, then finally as I went up the chain (I really wanted the silver), that ALL of them had a white top despite what the Archos photos show. The white top really sticks out like a sore thumb amid the rest of the A/V equipment. Now that the random, things you wouldn't expect are out of the way, the reason I got the Archos TV+ was to get beyond the piles of DVD's that my kids watch. The DVD's get misplaced, or left out and scratched, etc... and the TV+ does a great job in storing them! It is also easy for my kids (Hi Kat and Maddy; ages 5 and 8) to browse the videos and select what they want to watch. Let me be clear, it is worth the price just for that. It is also fanless, so no extra noise. Connecting through a home WiFi network was fairly painless (just set up a home network workgroup and share out a folder on your PC), although even with a strong signal from my router (about 20 ft away), it will still drop the connection about 20% of the time, and I will need to re-start the transfer. So, I really like the TV+ to keep the kids shows on, and once I got my conversion workflow set up to avoid all of the annoying 'can't play this file buy the plug-in' messages, using it has really smoothed out. You don't get HD quality, the Archos customer service is totally lacking (policy appears to be to tell you anything just to get you off the phone vs. get you a real answer), but if you can control your video file conversion to align to it's strict spec's, it's a nice little addition to your home entertainment system. (Except that white top!)

Reviewed on 2008-02-15 Archos TV Good product and compact! I was looking at purchasing the Apple Tv for quite sometime, but I was waiting to see if Apple Tv would incorporate web surfing. I mean isn't it a computer after all? Shouldn't I have the ability to browse the internet? The Archos Tv was all that I was looking for. Web browser, Tvio, hard drive all wrapped up in one. The Content Portal is okay, but I can watch Youtube videos and Google Videos with a click of the keypad. Pros: does what it says it does, download videos from the internet, watch streaming media, access my computer files Cons: Keypad could have been better, Purchasing additional plugins becomes expensive

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