Video Review: Browser and MKV 720p (15 minute video)

[Charbax]

OK, here is my first extensive video review showing mostly the Browser, my favorite app (so far) Last.fm, 720p MKV playback and a few other things: http://archosfans.com/2009/10/22/charba ... id-part-1/

There are still tons and tons of things that I would like to show in more videos. So I will post more. You could tell me what you would want me to film and I could include that in the next video.

[kiyu727]

ahaha xd, dont get me wrong but your accent ... so funny xD
"What should I do ...? " XDD
good start, made me even more excited since mine arrives in about 2 hours

though you might wanna watch some more video reviews on youtube to improve your presentation skills

[perrin21]

ahaha xd, dont get me wrong but your accent ... so funny xD
"What should I do ...? " XDD
good start, made me even more excited since mine arrives in about 2 hours

though you might wanna watch some more video reviews on youtube to improve your presentation skills

Lol that's a bit harsh, charbax has a certain way about Him, he is die hard archos and gets so excited. Its funny to watch. Like its so amazing and out of this world, when it really isnt lol. But nice and harmless to watch. the tv tuner video on the other forum is good, so excited its like tv add ons were never available, I mean my game gear back in the late 80s did it.

[v_c]

'Im playing a movie which of course I got legally'

And clearly it can be seen in the movie title that the movie is a BRRip from release group VISION.... LOL

[perrin21]

'Im playing a movie which of course I got legally'

And clearly it can be seen in the movie title that the movie is a BRRip from release group VISION.... LOL

Lol at least my movie fiiles are rips of films I own. Hence home made.

[kramer28]

Charbax,

Have you attempted to review extensive MKV playback with feature films as you did with tv-show episodes since you mentioned at Archos Fans that the Archos Android, basically, has issues playing video with files that are over 3,500kbps?

Can they REALLY updated resolution capacity in a firmware upgrade?

[v_c]

Can they REALLY updated resolution capacity in a firmware upgrade?

Impossible to say to be honest. (I assume you are talking about increasing the capability of the player in terms of H264 bitrate, smoothness, etc)

Anybody with an old computer or Atom netbook will know the difference between a normal decoder and a high efficient one (eg CoreAVC). It can drop your CPU utilisation down quite a lot of %.

So maybe there can be some efficiency improvements, or 'quick and dirty' tricks to improve playback. Maybe there will be none. It all depends on just how much they are currently getting out of the hardware.

[Pingmeister]

Thanks for the browser review. I had been hoping to see how "snappy" it was and am very impressed.

[perrin21]

Thanks for the browser review. I had been hoping to see how "snappy" it was and am very impressed.

I can confirm that after the latest update the browser is now the killer feature for me. Works great

[Charbax]

Charbax,

Have you attempted to review extensive MKV playback with feature films as you did with tv-show episodes since you mentioned at Archos Fans that the Archos Android, basically, has issues playing video with files that are over 3,500kbps?

Can they REALLY updated resolution capacity in a firmware upgrade?

4.4GB movies at 2h length or more seem to play mostly fine. I tried a 1h45 Ghostbusters 4.4GB MKV, it played kind of fine for 4-5 minutes until the first fast action scenes happen then it drops frames and the synch goes out a bit.

Archos "just" needs to improve bitrate support by about 50% on top of the about 3500kbit/s it does now for MKVs and I think most TV episodes of 400-800MB per 20-30 minutes will play fine even for faster action scenes and I think most movies 90minutes and longer at 4.4GB should play smoothly.

If you will want support for 4-8GB movies, those are generally a bit over the 5000kbit/s as far as I have seen so then Archos probably needs to double the bitrate efficiency to about 7000kbit/s or more.

Chengbin and others will be able to provide more details on what exactly is supported. I can only really test my complete MKV collection from next week when I receive my new Fonera 2.0n so that I can setup Samba/Upnp shares with all my big files instead of transfering them one by one over USB.

[kramer28]

Archos "just" needs to improve bitrate support by about 50% on top of the about 3500kbit/s it does now for MKVs and I think most TV episodes of 400-800MB per 20-30 minutes will play fine even for faster action scenes and I think most movies 90minutes and longer at 4.4GB should play smoothly.

If you will want support for 4-8GB movies, those are generally a bit over the 5000kbit/s as far as I have seen so then Archos probably needs to double the bitrate efficiency to about 7000kbit/s or more.

Do you believe Archos has the capacity/know-how to make this happen? I am still not sold on this if it can't play all MKV's just like it can play all Divx or Avi's for example.

[Charbax]

Do you believe Archos has the capacity/know-how to make this happen? I am still not sold on this if it can't play all MKV's just like it can play all Divx or Avi's for example.

If you want full MKV 720p high profile support with high bitrates, then wait a bit to see what Archos can prove to support in firmware updates. Who knows, maybe they release 10mbit/s support next week and 95% of MKV 720p tv shows and movies will be fine. Right now, they support most of my TV episodes fine for 98% of the episodes length, just some fast action scenes and transitions animations here and there that makes it drop frames. And I think 720p MKV TV shows are a big part of the MKV files downloaded probably 50% or more. So it's a good start to support at least that reasonably well.

In terms of Archos having the capacity/know-how to improve bitrate support. I think Archos works with Texas Instruments and some of the worlds best DSP hardware acceleration engineers, and I think both Archos and TI are very interested in demonstrating that MKV support can be really complete. Otherwise also, I can't see much of the reason why they would change the filesystem to ext3 if they can't play most of the 4GB+ MKV files..

[perrin21]

Apparently there will be some progress on mkv in the next update, for me it should mean that 152 movies will go from unable to play to working. Fingers crossed.

[kramer28]

I sure hope so Charbax and Perrin. This is the only hiccup holding me off from purchasing the Archos Android - full MKV support.

[v_c]

I am still not sold on this if it can't play all MKV's just like it can play all Divx or Avi's for example.

Never going to happen. MKV is just a container - you can put almost anything in it. It depends entirely on what your movies are whether they will play or not.

[perrin21]

I sure hope so Charbax and Perrin. This is the only hiccup holding me off from purchasing the Archos Android - full MKV support.

Unfortunately the only way of knowing if your movies will play is to buy one and try them. Id wait until after the next update if I was you. Although there's plenty to play with until then. If it helps, its the same story with any player you buy.

[kramer28]

VC -

Well like Charbax said as long as the popular formats playable under the MKV container play smoothly I am content. Also 3,500kbps is not nearly enough; that should be bumped up to at least 6,500kbps. If this happens; I buy one.

Perrin -

Not true. Thank you to the creators of this forum. Even still I wouldn't buy blindly like I have done the last two generations. Being burned by the 605 (crashing, re-booting, poor craftsmanship, etc. etc.) to last year and (much more of the same issues as the 605) I wasn't about to spend my hard earned money until there was enough evidence that this player was the stable pmp it should have been at least 2 years ago.

[Chengbin]

I don't think video decoding capabilities can increase by much more.

The hardware is not powerful enough. It is probably at its limits. Although I don't know why the iPhone can play really high bitrate. Maybe it is not at its limits.

@perrin21

The next firmware will get your videos play.

[AllenPapapetrou]

ahaha xd, dont get me wrong but your accent ... so funny xD
"What should I do ...? " XDD
good start, made me even more excited since mine arrives in about 2 hours

though you might wanna watch some more video reviews on youtube to improve your presentation skills

I enjoy his accent.

Do you have specific recommendations about his presentation skills?

[CruNcher]

HGehe yeah i was asking myself is it a selling commercial or is he just going nuts seeing such a device i mean he saw a lot already but with the Archos 5 Android he goes nuts i wonder how he's gonna react with 1080p MIDS i mean those wont be released by Archos in the near future but soon by Archos Competitors