This pruduct could be improved upon | Archos DVR Station Gen 5 for 405, 605, and 705 Players

Worth much more than the 'Travel DVR' | Archos DVR Station Gen 5 for 405, 605, and 705 Players

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	• Archos DVR Station Gen 5 for 405, 605, and 705 Players Archos Archos, 2007 average customer review:based on 49 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Returned for refund

I returned the Gen 5 Station as it was no use to me because I had returned the Archos 705. I gave it 5 stars as it did what it was supposed to do. The problem I had was with the 705.

This pruduct could be improved upon

This a good little unit and is a must for watching your Archos on the TV. It needs to have the latest inputs though (HDMI,DVI,etc.). It charges the Archos pretty quickly so that's good. It's a little pricey for what you get but overall it is a good product.

Worth much more than the 'Travel DVR'

I needed to copy content from my cable DVR box to the Archos for viewing on business trips. The 'Travel DVR adapter' would have done the job, but for $25 more, you get the full DVR docking station. This provides a nice, stable place to leave the A605 while it's charging, you get AV output connections as well as input, AND you get the QWERTY remote control. Buy the travel DVR and you're paying nearly $60 for nothing more than a socket that does input only. I'm now $500 into this system, what with the browser, codecs and input adapters.

It's kind of clunky looking - very square and a weird, slope-like design. I found the 'DVR adapter' in the original A605 box - luckily the misses hadn't thrown it away. This is a piece of silver plastic that you have to clip onto the top of the DVR station to enable your particular type of Gen5 Archos to sit on top. It's quite tricky to dock the A605 without straining the connectors - you have to insert it into a channel between 2 pieces of plastic with about a +/- 2° tolerance. if you get it right, it drops straight in.

I haven't even bothered trying the DVR functionality yet, since I already have a cable DVR box. All I do is set the cable DVR playing and make the Archos do a manually started but timed finish record from its A/V inputs. Incidentally, according to Archos tech support the Travel DVR can do the timed manual recording that I wanted; it just doesn't enable the DVR scheduler. This isn't mentioned at all in the ridiculously sparse user documentation.

Once the A605 is docked, it enables the 'Recorder' menu icon. The choice of encoding options is rather limited, with only AVI files with compressed WAV audio possible. I leave the aspect ratio settings on 'Auto' and it seems to figure out what size the input video signal is. Video bitrate choices are 500, 1000 or 1500kbps. Audio is either 32k or 48k. On the highest quality setting, files aren't that small - about 700MB for a 30 min TV show. I can get a whole DVD movie into that space using Handbrake. I will do some experimenting with settings and post results...

I have tried using the video editing features built into the A605 firmware. This enables you to remove sections from media - e.g. commercials from a TV program. You have to manually scroll through the video file and set a start/end point for each section you want to cut out. You can only set one pair of start/end points at a time. When viewing the edited content, I notice that it always fails to cut the last 0.5s or so of video - even though I placed the marks accurately. At that point you can choose whether to save your edited file to a new file, which takes AGES since it's reading and writing several GB from/to the same HDD - lots of head movement.

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Great minus the program guide

I mainly bought this for the remote control. It makes an expensive remote control but there are no other options out there (that I could find).

So far I've owned it for about 3 weeks and performs as advertised, except for the program guide. Only certain countries can use the program guide. There is a list somewhere on the Archos website. Not a big deal breaker - just means I have to use the program function just like a vcr.

Recordings are good quality and the bitrate can be varied to save space on your archos. I have an 80Gb 605 so there are no worries about space.

The remote works great and the unit charges your Archos while it's docked. You can also use the unit as a usb interface between your computer, or an external hard drive or thumb drive. It has ports for both USB and Mini USB.

One good use for the dvr is to play videos that the Archos can't play. Eg some H264 videos won't play, and HD video has a resolution that is too high for it. The DVR can be used to record these files (in real time) through the video card on a computer (provided it has a TV out). For some reason the quality of HD (high defintion) video suffers when recorded to the Archos, even on the highest bitrate. This may something to do with downsizing the image from 1080 or 1280 to 640 pixels. I'm still experimenting with this.

All up the device does what it's supposed to do, except for the program guide, which can only be used in certain countries.

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.caption { font-family: Verdana, Helvetica neue, Arial, serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; } ul.indent { list-style: inside disc; text-indent: -15px; } The Archos home DVR station provides a convenient way to record TV and most video sources in MPEG4 format straight onto any Archos generation 5 device for later playback with DVD quality resolution. You can even set a personalized schedule with the DVR station and a generation 5 device to record your favorite TV shows. For added convenience, the DVR station is compatible with WiFi-enabled generation 5 devices, which allows you to stream video files from a PC onto your TV.

What's in the Box
DVR Station Gen 5, remote control, AC/DC power adapter, two 2RCA/2RCA cables, two S-Video cables, and owner's manual.

The DVR station provides a convenient way to record TV straight onto any Archos generation 5 device.

Record TV and most video sources in MPEG-4 format, or use it as a USB Host to exchange files.

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