dadams.co.uk

I don’t believe I’m writing this. Less than two weeks after unwrapping my Christmas present it’s knackered. I set it up to record off Sky Plus, and a little later noticed that it wasn’t recording. I took it off the DVR Station and tried to turn it on - nothing. After a few more attempts at holding down the power button the boot-up screen appeared - “Archos - entertainment your way” - and then I saw “Recovery code 102 - system is damaged”. The device felt warmer than usual, an ominous sign.

I was provided with three options for recovering the system - ‘no’, ‘repair’ and ‘format disk’. Ah, clearly ‘repair’ was the best option. Unfortunately this just seemed to turn the device off, back on again and land me at the same screen. I tried it again… and again, and again. I pressed the reset thingy. I tried ‘repair’ again. I left it switched off to cool down. I tried again.

I then started searching the Archos forum and found (ominously) that several other people had suffered this problem but (ominously, there’s that word again) it seemed no-one had a solution. Someone suggested connecting to the computer via USB and doing a checkdisk, but unfortunately Windows wouldn’t even recognise it as a connected device (hardly suprising, during normal operation it asks you if you’d like to enable USB).

So, the last resort before I face the reality of sending it back or starting the battle to get a replacement - ‘format disk’. Obviously this was a last resort as it would render many hours worth of transferring content to the device pointless. But I took the plunge and pressed it… and… nothing. I just came back to the same three options.

As I’m typing I’m holding on to play.com’s customer service line - all of their agents are currently busy (but my call will be answered shortly… mind you, they said that 25 minutes ago).

What really annoys me is that I’ve invested in stuff to go with the Archos… a case, a screen protector, additional software, the DVR Station. I was going to take it to Lotusphere with me, and that’s now looking unlikely.

Number 1 - recorded from Sky Plus. I mentioned in an earlier post that most things concerned with Sky Plus are usually doomed to failure. Everyone in the house (even the hamster) is actually forbidden to physically touch the Sky Plus box on the grounds that “it’s working, don’t touch it”. So the thought of moving it to plug some extra cables in filled me with dread. However, after carefully plugging in said cables and attaching to the Archos’ DVR Station, recording was very easy. The quality of the results is excellent and - how cool is this? - the Archos is able to edit the results (chop off over-runs, remove the adverts, that sort of thing).

Number 2 - set up UPnP. Of course, you all know that UPnP stands for ‘Universal Plug and Play’. Not wanting to break the sacred covenant of IT people I didn’t read the manual, but it didn’t take long to add a UPnP service to the ThinkPad, share a folder, and then stream video and browse photos from that folder wirelessly to the Archos. I probably won’t use it that much, but it’s cool and important to get these things working. Mind you, having the DVR Station means that it is possible to stream movies or photos from the ‘Pad to the Archos and then to the television.

Number 3 - work in progress… content captured from Sky Plus converted into a format that will then work on the wife’s iPod touch. This project is extremely important for a) chick-flick ‘The Holiday’ and b) Take That live on New Year’s Eve. However, it’s not working… yet.

You’ll be pleased to know that the Archos 605 versus Apple iPod touch argument was resolved during the festive season. The wife very generously procured an Archos 605 plus DVR Station for me, while I furnished her with a tasty new iPod touch. This had the knock-on effect of a new-ish iPod for me, as she graciously passed on her iPod Video to me (to replace my faithful old 4th generation iPod). Lauren also got a new iPod (a blue nano), and this was welcomed by my older sibling Steve who is an Apple shareholder.

So, having played with the Archos 605 for a couple of days, was it the right decision? It’s a resounding ‘yes’. Now, the first thing you might say is “why have you got two devices Daz, an iPod and an Archos, when one iPod touch could have done the job?”. That was covered in an earlier blog post, but as a quick summary…

• The iPod touch’s top-of-the-range 16gb capacity isn’t enough for me (I have 9gb’s worth of music before I even start thinking about movies)
• I wouldn’t consider moving the music off the iTunes / iPod combination
• The Archos has a much better screen (larger and better resolution)

The first issue I came across with the Archos was getting DVD content onto the device, and after some experimentation and exchanges of opinion with Choddo, I went for DVD Ripper from Xilisoft (I already have another Xilisoft utility for getting movies onto iPods, but it wouldn’t work for the Archos - typical). Here lies one of the downsides of the Archos, that once you’ve bought the device you haven’t finished spending - I could actually have used iPod-ready movies but then I would have to have bought a plug-in to play them, so you have to spend either way.

Next, which format to rip to? Windows Media Video worked fine, but for some reason was very slow to rip… The Simpsons Movie would have taken (I estimated) about 10 hours. But I then discovered that the XviD AVI format worked on the device and was a lot quicker to rip.

The Archos 605 is WiFi-enabled so you can use it to browse the web… if you buy the Opera browser plugin (another £20). The case that comes in the box is rubbish (a flimsy pouch that offers about as much protection as a bus shelter in the event of a comet hitting the Earth) so chalk up another £20 for a decent case. So, there’s £60 gone on top of the cost of the device.

However, despite coughing up a few extra quid the overall experience is worth it. While the iPod touch wins for slimness and it’s user interface, the display on the Archos is beyond comparison (and you can also navigate using buttons if you want to avoid swiping your mucky digits all over the touch screen). The Opera browser is excellent (Opera are doing a good job, along with the browser on the Wii and OperaMini on the BlackBerry), there’s seven free ‘widgets’ available, the photos are crystal-clear, and the promise of being able to record from the Sky Plus box sounds great (despite my low expectation of anything to do with Sky).

Given the trouble promised at the UK airports in January (just in time for my trip to Lotusphere) I think the Archos 605 is going to be a godsend… perhaps I just need the battery extension pack.

Apple are quite smart really. I think they announced their new range of iPods just in time to capture the imagination of the Christmas market and ensure that they’re actually available (Nintendo take note). And yet again they’ve delivered something with the “I want one of those” factor. Actually, several devices with the “I want one of those” factor, addressing several market segments and budgets. Very few companies can do that. One the downside, they also served up a huge helping of device envy to their existing iPod owners (but as discussed here before, that’s part-and-parcel of investing in technology - life stinks, so hold your nose and get on with it).

An iPhone-lookalike iPod (the iPod touch) was expected, as was the re-vamped nano with added video. Less expected, from what I’d read, was the re-vamp of the more traditional iPod (now re-branded as the iPod classic). Nice new colours for the iPod shuffle, but I really couldn’t care less about that one.

Last week I debated whether to wait for the iPod announcements or get an Archos 605. In the end procrastination resulted in me waiting for the Apple announcements. And to be honest I’m still undecided. The iPod classic wouldn’t be of any benefit to me - personally I think the screen is too small for watching movies, so it would only be a music player, and my existing grey-screen 20 gb iPod is fine for that. So, the iPod touch with it’s 3.5 inch screen and integrated Wi-Fi is the most coveted. However, when you compare it to the Archos 605 the specifications are rather disappointing.

The iPod touch wins hands-down on look-and-feel, style, weight and ’slim-ness’, and it looks like there’s a few more bits in the box. The Archos 605 wins on screen size (4 inch) and resolution (800 x 480, compared to the touch’s 480 x 320). Battery life for video is roughly equal.

Where the iPod touch falls down is on it’s storage capacity - it will be available in 8 gb and 16 gb models. Not including the 4 gb flash drive model, the Archos 605 starts at 30 gb and goes up to 160 gb. The small capacity, and the fact that storage is on a flash drive, gives the iPod touch that slim advantage. But let’s put this into perspective - currently I have around 9 gb of music on my current iPod, so that’s more than half of the 16 gb capacity gone. An average DVD ripped into the right format will be around 1 gb - ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ (a bum-numbing 2 hours 34 minutes) weighs in at 1.5 gb. ‘Team America’ (1 hour 33 minutes) is 928 mb. Therefore after the music goes on, the 16 gb iPod Touch would have room for 7 DVDs if I’m lucky. Not exactly a broad choice when you’re considering what takes your fancy when sitting in Manchester airport. On the other hand, the 40 gb Archos 605 should comfortably hold 30 DVDs.

Of course, despite all this thought process, I’m no nearer a decision. But if I hang on another year…

There are many things you can be sure of in this life. Death is one, but if you want to discuss something less morbid let’s talk about technology - the fact that if you purchase any item, as sure as night follows day, at some point in the not-to-distant future you will be disgruntled when the new / improved model is launched.

As it happens, I discussed this on the old dadams.co.uk web site when my iPod (the classic white model with the grey LCD screen) was superseded. That didn’t really bother me since it’s primary (indeed, only) function as far I was concerned is playing music. And it didn’t need a colour screen to do that.

However, in general, there’s probably no good time to buy technology. Buy too early and you’re likely to be the guinea pig who suffers the early teething problems. Buy too late and a severe case of device-envy could hit you even before you get home from the shop (or in this world of e-commerce, before the courier company finds your house).

So what’s with the Archos or iPod title? Well, I’ve been considering buying a portable movie player for a while. I have a few trips coming up, including one to South Africa - lots of time sitting around airports or on airplanes. And loads of DVDs and recorded t.v. programs that I’ve never watched (and probably never will). I’ve been pondering an Archos 604 for a while, but that’s now been superseded by the Archos 605. Seems to do all I require, plus it boasts built-in WiFi and can make use of the same software we purchased to enable the wife’s collection of chick-flick DVDs to be viewed on her iPod.

I was seconds away from hitting the purchase button when I entered into a conversation with Lakeland Steve (Florida resident and Apple share-holder). He informed me that the 5th of September was the day to watch out for the new product announcements from Apple, and the smart money is on a new large-screen touch-screen iPod (built along the lines of the iPhone). Let’s face it, Apple are pretty good at marketing and doing things at the right time, so they’d be mad not to update their product line before Christmas. However, this scuppered my Archos purchase - whether temporarily or permanently I don’t know. Of course, if I wait for the new iPod, it won’t be available in time for the South Africa trip.

So readers, what do you think? Archos now or iPod later?