Returning Archos AV 700
I am returning the Archos AV 700 40 GB Portable Video Recorder after spending a day with it. The promotional copy mentioned it was the easiest PVR ever without actually telling you why or via what means. Archos AV 700 uses a composite output to play any audio and video on TV, but it also uses the composite input (those yellow-red-white cables that get shipped with it, and probably came with your TV or DVD player) for input, which means that the source of data cannot be a simple coax cable (the one that your cable company supplies) or TV itself (outside of S-Video connection).
Moreover, Archos support is pretty much non-existant, as during the call to Archos US support center I was told the wait is 8 minutes and the call is very important to them (to Archos, that is). 45 minutes later the call was just as important, but the estimate of a few minutes went away. An email sent to support after that remained unanswered, and it was quite obvious that after one spent a three-digit amount on personal video recorder and player, Archos really wanted you to use a set of boilerplate FAQs on their Web site. After spending some time with the cable set up, I figured out I could record the video successfully off the DVD player, otherwise I was required to have a digital cable tuner or a TiVo to provide me with composite output.
Third, the video quality was quite grainy, but was generally acceptable. The controls for playing with the volume levels were also quite grainy, and it looked like the video encoder was designed for a 5″ screen and just ported to the 7″ screen without any concerns for pixellation or video quality.
Anyway, the concept is great, but requires some additional work and maybe placing actual support reps on the other end of the phone line.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:25 pm #ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 - TV recording that finally works - alexmoskalyukblog
[...] Getting a portable video recorder like Archos made sense at some point, but after discovering its lack of support for coax cable input (that’s the cable that the cable company provides you with), the thing was sent back to Amazon. Getting a PCI DVR card also seemed to be an option, but there’s always that fear that after tinkering with it and all the card won’t work, and at this point will not be returnable due to open shrinkwrap. [...]
September 30th, 2006 at 10:30 pm #Alex S.
Having a coax input would require the AV700 to have a TV tuner built in; it is not a tuner… it’s a recorder (DVR). Besides that, the fact that it uses composite input makes it a perfect candidate for mobile console gaming (I have mine with a PS2 in my car for passengers to play). =D
Interesting that you had trouble with support; I’ve had my AV700 since shortly after it was released, and I was going to RMA it because of a dead pixel. I called support and within fifteen minutes I had an RMA number and was told to just put it in the mail and they’d send me a new one. I changed my mind since the one pixel ended up not really bothering me that much. Firmware upgrades have been just fine.
As far as quality… did you really mess with the settings much?
The video settings I use are:
Source - S-Video (default is Composite)
Resolution - VGA (for better resolution w/ PS2)
Bitrate - 2000kb/s
…and I get good-looking videos. Your quality is going to depend heavily on the source video and connection type. As for controls looking grainy… I have no answer to that other than possibly get checked for astigmatism. Here’s a photo I took (and it’s a JPG photo of the screen, not a screenshot): http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/8554/p1010889dn0.jpg . There are also some pics here: http://www.infosyncworld.com/video/media_viewers/archos_av700.html … not sure where the grainy is…
January 7th, 2007 at 12:06 pm #Wull D.
Alex S.
How did you manage to connect up the PS2 to the AV700, I can get the PS2 connected via the AV in but can only view the screen in the video recorder menu but it is not full screen & also has the recording options visable???
October 4th, 2007 at 7:05 pm #mike
I have an Archos AV700. After going through all the settings and playing with the device for hours at times.I cant figure out why Im not getting any video output from my video player. Emailed Archos numerous times with no response, Im getting so frustated that Im thinking of selling. Any comment will help.