Archos 70 / 101

Just for the record: playing video on the Archos devices is not the problem - technically the "problem" is the audio codecs since AC3 which tends to be buried inside most MKV rips (HD stuff from Blu-ray/HDTV) requires a plugin from Archos that cannot be distributed with the devices directly per their licensing agreement with Dolby Labs.

Think back to when XP came out, even XP Media Center in its first showing back in 2002.

Could you play a DVD on it? Yanno, good old DVDs with MPEG2 and AC3 audio?

Nope, you couldn't.

Think of how silly that sounded back then, Windows MEDIA CENTER couldn't play a damned DVD.

Why? Because the licensing agreement with Dolby Labs didn't please Microsoft so they basically said "Fuck you, Dolby Labs" and people were required to go buy a "DVD Decoder" plugin from third party companies like Intervideo, Cyberlink, or some other company.

Hell, Microsoft still has a page with those decoders listed for sale for XP:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/windows-media-player/plug-ins

because XP can't play commercial DVD content with Windows Media Player.

So it ain't about the video with Archos devices (which technically is an audio/video file) - it's about the audio. :) With XP it was the video because of the MPEG2 content requiring the decoder - the AC3 came along for the ride with that one.

Of course, the same plugin for AC3 also handles MPEG2 content but not many people these days would rip a DVD (the VOB files) to such a device since that's a horrible waste of space. Instead, people encode the DVDs to single files using Xvid, Divx, etc with AAC or MP3 soundtracks and that's no issue at all because the Archos devices handle those files without issues.

It's when you toss that old craptastic MPEG2 stuff (by today's standards) and AC3 audio soundtracks into the mix that problems happen. Not a big deal, really, but... at least there's a reason behind this.
 
Skott said:
I wish it had 3G capability. I'd buy the 101 in a heartbeat. Yes, you can tether it to your phone but thats just one more thing I would need to do. Hopefully these tablet makers will make 3G/4G units soon. I wouldnt mind paying for the extra feature.
Click to expand...

Archos will never ever go that far, it would basically require them to work that cellular circuitry into these devices and they're simply not going to make that type of investment. If for some strange unbelievable reason they did such a thing for the 101 it would skyrocket in price to $400+ right off the bat and then they'd require people to get involved with some cellular provider for contracts, etc.

Can't sell 'em unlocked for a low price so, there goes that idea.
 
@heatlesssun
These early devices are putting down the standards that will be expected from future tablets. Archos put it in the $300.00 price point and every other manufacturer will be expected to follow suit. The rest is just software, which carries over to the following generations.

@Skott
Maybe they'll come up with one, but their entire product line is designed for tethering so that's rather unlikely.

For me tho, that's just perfect. I have an iPod, a netbook and three laptops, i can take any one of them (all of them at once) and have internet access through a single phone. That's a lot more convenient for me than swapping the sim card with each of them.

The modular aspect of it is why i liken it to a PC system. You need a GPS, it can hook up to a GPS unit, you need a wireles, it hooks up to your phone, need a more conventional input, it connects to your KB/M. You need it to access a network? It can do that. As long as a device follows some sort of open standard, it'll connect. You need an all i one tablet? Get the HP slate.
 
@Bahamut

If you check archosfans forum they have a massive thread about what it can play. Some were saying it plays DTS. Regardless re-encoding AC3 or DTS to MP3 takes 30mins if that.

Encode the audio to MP3. Remux it back with MKVMerge. Very fast :)
 
Bahamut said:
Think back to when XP came out, even XP Media Center in its first showing back in 2002.

Could you play a DVD on it? Yanno, good old DVDs with MPEG2 and AC3 audio?

[b sounded back then, Windows MEDIA CENTER couldn't play a damned DVD.
Click to expand...


Hmmm... Your point is is a little valid. Yeah you needed a third party codec if you built your own Media Center. nVidia and a bunch of of others provided them, I paid $20 for the nVidia one. So $20 and 10 minutes to install. It you bought a retail Media Center the codec came with it.

Not dumper on Android it's simply that when it comes to to slate and tablet discussions about Windows few give it credit for being mature and supporting media playback better than any other OS currently.

Being to navigate my Homegroups and then tapping recordings on my Media Center without a thought and having my HDTV play without otherwise a finger on my Slate, just damned cool.:cool:
 
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 640x352 29.97fps [Undetermined (Video 1)]
Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch [English (Audio 1)]
Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz stereo [Japanese (Audio 2)]
Subtitle: VobSub [English, English Audio (Subtitle 1)]
Subtitle: VobSub [English, Japanese Audio (Subtitle 2)]

How come i still have audio?

fb20101209133630.png
 
I take it that's an RDP session of some kind, yes? :D Very cool. I've been sitting here with a cutout I made that's a 7" diagonal based on the actual screen size (in real-world terms meaning inches) as well as a 10" diagonal and I swear, the 7" seems awfully damned small at times. ;)

Given that some retailers are selling the 70 for the same price as the 101 ($299) I just might end up getting the 101 and being done with it, who knows. The NOOKColor is still in the running, however, for purchase.

Dion:

Yeah, that's basically what I've thought about doing but, usually I just do a re-encode to save space. On such a small device (the 70 at 800x480 or even the 101 at 1024x600) I can't (nor anyone else) expect to get "HD quality" on those screens, they're just a) not that good to begin (meaning the LCD itself) with and b) low resolution compared to the content itself (720p or 1080p material). So I re-encode using HandBrake and drop the bitrate down considerably as well as dumping the AC3 tracks and I get a significantly smaller file that still lets me keep the subs embedded for my Wife (so I can enable/disable them at will).

And yep, I know about the thread over at ArchosFans, been involved with it since it started. ;)

Sly:

From what I gather based on the media properties you pasted, that 2 channel track (even though it's AC3 encoded) is what the device is playing for you, the Japanese track. If you attempted to listen to the 6 channel English track, that's where you'll probably get stuck I bet.

Try that audio track just in case and report on whether it works. I'm guessing the media player won't do it without that AC3 plugin (technically I think the name of the plugin is something like "AC3 5.1 channel decoder plugin" so it's differentiated from other types). It's that 5.1 channel surround aspect that requires the actual plugin; plain old 2 channel stereo works out to basic AAC audio iirc.
 
It defaults to the English track actually, and it lets me change to japanese.

Maybe they haven't removed the AC3 completely? If that's the case it might be gone in the next firmware. Which would suck.

I'm hoping you're right and it's actually a variation of AAC.

Would it also be possible that it's just a mislabel and the encoder was actually writing down the name of the source?
 
OH OH OH...

I'll bet you're still running Android 2.1 on that, aren't you? :D

That's what the it is: the AC3/MPEG2 plugin was left in 2.1 - it gets pulled back out in the 2.2 update... damn, I can't believe I didn't remember that till I just saw your post.

99% sure that's why you're having it, unless of course you tell me you did update to 2.2 since it's now available.

So... whatcha running on that thing, and that's the 101 right?

AAC is the encoding method used for AC3 tracks, yes - not MP3, etc. AAC supports multiple channels, and yes it can get confusing with the acronyms running around.
 
I'm using 2.2. Apparently some of the other users noticed this too.
 
Well hell, now things really get interesting. I knew about it still being there in the 2.1 factory install on the 70 and 101, but I hadn't seen anyone mention they were using 2.2 now and still had the capability. Who knows, maybe it slipped through the cracks.

Weird.
 
I would have to say when the Archos 70 hard drive model is released, it's not going to be the same form factor - that is most likely the reason for the delay at this point: they're having to create an entirely new design for the casing to fit the hard drive inside. There IS a possibility that they might be able to stack those batteries on top of each other to make a space for a very slimline 1.8" hard drive, but I doubt they'll go that far. It's gotta be a new form factor/case in progress.

After looking at that teardown, there is simply no place inside that such a drive could go, and they sure as hell aren't going to put a logic board full of Flash RAM inside it. :)

Can you imagine an Archos 70 with 256GB of Flash storage? $999, thanks! :D
 
Apparently they haven't checked what's actually available. China tablets have been saturating the market for months now. Not very good quality but they've spread Android as a viable os even better than the ipad. Maybe the author is only looking at north america? Coz. here, they're selling a lot more Android tablets then ipads.
 
Sly said:
Maybe the author is only looking at north america? Coz. here, they're selling a lot more Android tablets then ipads.
Click to expand...

Really? I honestly don't see how that's possible. The iPad has enormous retail presence now and the only Android slate that seems to have big sales numbers is the Tab but you know a lot more about Android slates than I do.
 
heatlesssun said:
Really? I honestly don't see how that's possible. The iPad has enormous retail presence now and the only Android slate that seems to have big sales numbers is the Tab but you know a lot more about Android slates than I do.
Click to expand...

There're a few guys here from Japan and Korea in the other threads that confirmed it in their countries as well. Apple Gadgets like the iPhone, while enormously popular in the west, are incredibly rare in asia.

The android slates i'm referring to are the apad/epad clones and other china slates. They're cheap, slow, resistive, disposable, and sold in mass quantities. These $100 tablets are making android a common sight. I was canvassin for a decently built tablet when i ran into the Adam mixed in with the china slate reviews, when they kept delaying it, i looked again and that's when i came across the Archos.
 
Sly said:
There're a few guys here from Japan and Korea in the other threads that confirmed it in their countries as well. Apple Gadgets like the iPhone, while enormously popular in the west, are incredibly rare in asia.

The android slates i'm referring to are the apad/epad clones and other china slates. They're cheap, slow, resistive, disposable, and sold in mass quantities. These $100 tablets are making android a common sight. I was canvassin for a decently built tablet when i ran into the Adam mixed in with the china slate reviews, when they kept delaying it, i looked again and that's when i came across the Archos.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you guys have heard...Adam status is now 'Pre-Order.'

http://www.notionink.com/

However, all the Pixel Qi variants seem to be sold out already.
 
2 months, while i got the Archos at the beginning of November. Dropping the Adam and going for Archos was a good decision as it turned out ;)
 
Remember the video i made?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfqVVAW4Qvw

The first 75 seconds of it is actually a flash vs html comparison. Well, i ran both of them for an hour with the wifi off and the screen dimmed.

Flash
10:35am - 94%
11:36am - 83%

Battery Report

Browser = 50%
Display = 43%
System = 5%
Wi-Fe = 2%


HTML
11:39am - 83%
12:40pm - 73%

Battery Report

Browser = 57%
Display = 40%
System = 3%



Flash sucks on mobile devices? Really?
 
So... what's your point? :D

Looks about the same I suppose. I'm not really sure what the video is supposed to be demonstrating aside from the ability to (somewhat) play multiple clips at once? Is the first 75 seconds there an HTML5 video comparison with Flash?

Just trying to figure out the intent here...

<I'm Bahamut, btw, finally resolved some account issues here at the [H] from the past and my old account was still around, just closed at my request so I asked to have Bahamut merged back into this one - and now that account is closed, hence the Guest status>
 
The video tests don't count. It's just a bunch of low quality videos i used as test videos for flash sites. They're the types you see on product sites where bandwidth has to be carefully managed (Youtube doesn't have to worry about bandwidth, so they can ramp up the bitrate) That's why i was only referring to the first 70 seconds :p When they release the Archos flash module that's supposedly able to play FLV better, i'll make another test video with that one.

This test is just to counter the claim that flash is horrible on both the browser and the battery. What isn't fair when they made that claim is that they were probably comparing a dynamic site like flash (Which are designed for dynamic content), to a static html page. This is a demo that directly compares a dynamic flash to a dynamic html. Flash turned out smoother and you can make fully interactive sites easily without impacting the battery ;) Of course, there are issues regarding rollovers/hovers, but i encounter the exact same thing on my html/javascript sites.
 
New Firmware is out and is more stable with the old features properly re-integrated into Froyo.

You can now do this.

15122010066.jpg


fb20101209170658.png


With a WD Passport attached, it was able to last five hours playing back 720p videos before shutting down.

The WD Passport has the CD Drive mode disabled so it's just a regular USB harddrive formatted with NTFS.
 
5 hours of 720p and powering the external drive too... now that's fairly impressive. One would think it could probably do 6+ if the video content was on the local drive (not that easy with 720p content because of the sheer size of the files most of the time).

Impressive, most impressive. :D
 
so, does this have flash support yet? what about netflix/hulu? anyone try playing 720p from a network drive?

i'd like a tablet but i really need it to be able to play as much media as possible.
 
flash yes,
hulu no (hulu blocks mobile version of flash)
netflix - no clue
720p from network - yes no problem.
 
Generic flash works, but falls back on software decoding for the video. They're still waiting for adobe to approve the official plugin before they can release it.

Of course, just because the video acceleration isn't working doesn't mean it wouldn't work at all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfqVVAW4Qvw

I'm streaming all my videos off a Buffalo NAS router, as well as the shared folder on my Windows 7.
 
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Sly said:
Generic flash works, but falls back on software decoding for the video. They're still waiting for adobe to approve the official plugin before they can release it.

Of course, just because the video acceleration isn't working doesn't mean it wouldn't work at all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfqVVAW4Qvw

I'm streaming all my videos off a Buffalo NAS router, as well as the shared folder on my Windows 7.
Click to expand...

so flash 10.1 beta doesn't work so there is no hardware accelerated flash?

I spend time on video game review sites and stuff and it would be a bummer if the embedded video content wouldn't load (gametrailers/etc).
 
flash works and you can watch embedded videos, but the decoding is done in software so the performance kinda sux. Once official flash with hardware acceleration comes out it will get much better.
 
Sweet, nice to have a slate that you can plug stuff into. Did you try to play videos off the internal SSD? I need to do some video play back tests myself tomorrow for a professional review I'm doing for the Slate and see how the battery lasts. I have no idea what to expect really but I'm hoping around 4 to 5 hours from the internal SSD, pretty easy to stuff even 720P video with the 64GB drive, I have over close to 25 GB free with my basic stuff on it, Office 2010, Steam with a few smaller games, and so other mid-sized apps.

The next thing is to see if I can bet Blu Rays to work. They should with Arcsoft Total Media Platinum 3 as it has a decoder for the Broadcom chip but it crashes every time I try to play either a BD disc or a rip from my Passports, that's how I store movies so that I can take them anywhere and plug them into any of my Windows devices.
 
Funnily enough, i haven't actually tried watching anything off the unit itself. I've watched a lot but everything was streamed from the network folders.

The A101 is meant to be used around the house, so having native ability to access your home network is a plus.
 
Yeah, the Slate is definately meant to be carried outside the home as it's a note taking device and it even looks like a little leather notebook when it's in the portfolio case.
 
One of the flash misconceptions is that it's only good for video.

The thing is, when they say flash sites, these are what we are referring to

http://odprtomesto.com/

That site was put together by the author in just a few hours, and was made 8 years ago.
 
I gotta admit I really hate it when I visit a site and get nothing off the bat - I use NoScript and whitelist as required, so it's a pain in the ass when you encounter sites that are nothing but Flash on their portal page. It's sickening, really. I don't care if everyone had 10 GHz machines with video cards that could decode such content with CPU usage in the 5 decimal point range (0.00001% to decode it) - I honestly wish websites would stop using that shit, it's ridiculous.

Ah, the good old days so long ago when content was king. Now it's just "Flash" in the pan bullshit... :(
 
Because it's easier to make content on flash than it is for HTML5. Do you know that HTML5 sites made for an iPod will not work on an iPad? Nor will it work consistently on desktop browsers if at all? When i make an HTML site, i have to create multiple code paths because each browser has it's own way of rendering. The <video> tag alone is a headache to get running. On the other hand, you make a site in flash once, encode the videos once, and it's ready to go.

That flash video player prototype in the youtube video i posted was made 2 years ago, and it ran perfectly on the Archos (except for the buttons being too small).

Yet, when i was making the video player for a site in html5, i was making it in firefox, i thought i was all done, submitted it, and got complaints that it doesn't work in IE. So i fixed it, and it turned out that it doesn't work in Safari. Fixed that, and found that it doesn't work on the iPod. Fixed that and it didn't work on the iPad. Added some jquery to make it look cleaner on the iPad, it broke the rest of the sites on safari. I had to make a different codepath for each browser just to make it work. In fact, it was probably easier if i just made separate HTML sites for each browser!

Interactive multimedia sites that you can make without needing to be some sort of elite scripter is what flash brings to the table, and being able to run them on a multimedia tablet without adversly affecting the battery (As claimed by apple) is what the android is starting to prove.
 
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This is an Archos thread, who gives a shit about the iPad? :D

(sorry, had to do it...)
 
What about the iPad? I thought we were talking about flash?
 
No idea, you mentioned iPods and iPads so I was just being facetious I suppose, bad habit of mine. ;)
 
Well, from a site developers perspective, it's just so much easier making corporate and personal sites with flash, so i'm really hoping android successfully saturates flash into the mobile market :)
 
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