iRiver PMP-120 v Archos AV420

Irish Gunner

Looking to buy either of these

Anyone got any views on them good and bad ?
Which one they think is better?

Want to watch movies in divx or any format that I have on PC Also the movies I have on my pc I want to load them up onto the player and then connect to the TV to play. I am getting to many coasters burning them

Also battery life etc as will be listening to some MP3s while on the bus or link it up to the Car cassette deck

Bloody Harvey Norman are charging €500 for them when they are €355 on Mx

Ta in advance

coreilly1

Alright mate,
Yeah had the same dilemma myself when choosing a PVP.I took the wrong move and went for the Iriver.The only good advantage was that it had a wide variety of movie types to play and you could drag and drop them as opposed to the Archos' record from your DVD player.Other than that,I found the Iriver impossible to navigate through,would freeze the odd time and just wasnt' the full shillin'

So I sold it and went for the Archos av420 and was defo the right move.Just from the design of the thing you know its a quality player.Great for playing tunes on the bus or as I'v been doing for the last while,I record a match or whatever,and the next day watch it on the 1+1/2 hour bus trip into work.Its the daddy.

Its a pain in the arse not being able to drag net movies onto it.The only solution might be burning onto an RW (CD,DVD) and playing it through your DVD player onto the media player.Check the archos website for newer versions of the av420.The av500 looks slick,haven't really checked out the spec but looks the biz.

Anyways,go with the archos if you're choosing between the 2.Oh and go for the 80gb version if you're planning on putting alot of movies on and your CD collection

The Recliner

If you have the movies on your pc you just need to convert them to Divx to play on your Archos, you don't need to record them off the DVD player

I have an AV420 and I use DVD Deycryptor to copy the DVD to the pc and Auto Gordian Knot to convert to Divx. The handy thing with Auto Gordian Knot is that you can decide how big you want the compressed file to be. Have recently been copying movies down to 300mb and they still appear perfect on the Archos. Means I can fit loads of movies and music on my 20gb player

Haven't used the iRiver but the Archos is definitely a more compact unit even though the screen size is much the same.

Works well for MP3's although the interface isn't the most well laid out.

Am more than happy to recommend it

MrPinK

coreilly1 wrote:

Its a pain in the arse not being able to drag net movies onto it.The only solution might be burning onto an RW...

Like The Recliner said, it's only a matter of converting them, the archos player can only play files with certain resolutions. They have a tool to automatically convert called Mpeg4 Translator on their site:
http://www.archos.com/download/software.html

Washout

I also went for the PMP and its the worst thing I bought.
Initially it was to have games support (thats how it was advertised) but as to date no sign.

I also get xvids and divxs from american cousins which dont work on it.

and plus the not being able to record direct from tv sux. i wish i had done my research like you are doing now.

coreilly1

The Recliner wrote:

I use DVD Deycryptor to copy the DVD to the pc and Auto Gordian Knot to convert to Divx.

Nice one,any chance of a link to these two programs?

The Recliner

coreilly1 wrote:

Nice one,any chance of a link to these two programs?

Here you go

http://www.free-codecs.com/DVD_Decrypter_download.htm

http://gordianknot.sourceforge.net/

They are both handy enough to use, AutoGK has a great tutorial/set of instructions so download that as well and you will have no problem resizing your files.

4red

Just to back up everyone else, the iRiver has incredibly badly designed software and user interface. Forget it as an MP3 player - making a playlist is near impossible. It's got a nice screen for playing movies, that is if it doesn't freeze and decide a movie file is unplayable today when it played fine yesterday....

MrPinK

The Recliner wrote:

They are both handy enough to use, AutoGK has a great tutorial/set of instructions so download that as well and you will have no problem resizing your files.

There's also a good step-by-step guide on Doom9

Irish Gunner

Cheers

Was going to go for the iRiver but looks like I will go for the Archos

Have a few cough movies on PC and want to watch them on TV
What formats does Archos take, may look up their website

Finally best place and cheapest place to buy them

coreilly1

Irish Gunner wrote:

Have a few cough movies on PC and want to watch them on TV

Ah yes,wouldn't mind havin a look at a couple of your eh,cough movies either mate

T "real deal" J

The PMP is poor. I bought one in america.

The battery power is abysmal,

It's tedious to navigate around the menus,

The divx movies are out of synch after conversion,

Hopefully that helps

Irish Gunner

Just got the Archos Av420 and still messing around with it. Bit Dissapointed with the earphones

Loaded up divx movies and they played ok. Not sure if I can shuffle the music asd it only seems to have playlists

Looking to buy a few accessories to it. Saw some on datamind.co.uk

Any recommendations on earphones or other accessories and where to buy online ?

judomick

just got mine too, where did u download the divx movies from?, i have wmv and having a little trouble converting them also, cant seem to get the archos working through my digibox anyone know how to do this?

Irish Gunner

you dont have to download you can convert using the software provided

check out www.doom9.org and http://www.digital-digest.com for help