Cowom A3 offers 1280x720!!!

bas · Post by **bas** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:21 pm

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/02/19 ... _cowon_a3/

standard DC jack for charging
standard mini usb cable

no proprietary crap like archos

sharp910sh · Post by **sharp910sh** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:38 pm

yes,bit its lacking in memory and touch screen. need atleast a 120gb drive then i would consider it

Missionsparta · Post by **Missionsparta** » Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:05 pm

No one is interested in HD support. Don't believe me? Go check out the 605 forum. None of that matters. Please don't ever compare a Cowon to the far superior Archos, again.

ANAKIN RESIDES HERE, NO LONGER!

BUC · Post by **BUC** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:29 am

<8 hours for audio... you got to be kidding me.... My Jukebox Studio 10 from 2002 used to have a little more autonomy out o NiMH batteries

Post by **Charbax** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:49 am

Glancing over the review, it doesn't look like Reghardware know how to test a HD video file. Does it say they can confirm 720p works smoothly for any kind of video and audio codec, encoding complexity levels, encoding features?

Also it seems they want to compare a touchscreen from Archos with a non-touchscreen of Cowon. Pretty pointless, unless you can't find an AV500 or an 604 anyplace in stock or on ebay anymore, if you absolutely want a 2005-style non-touchscreen PMP.

bas wrote:no proprietary crap like archos

Which basically means Cowon doesn't support:

- WMV DRM (or the whole concept of "legal" content, Content portal, partnerships and so on),
- WMV DRM Subscription (the cool type of DRM, that gives you access to unlimited amounts of all the big label music of the world for $5 per month)
- Dish (instant copy over USB of recordings from a DVR)
- Browser (Opera is the best browser, and they want to get paid),
- Flash (has become the web standard for video)
- $200 touchscreen 800x480 WiFi PMP with "pay only for codecs and software licences you need" model.

Sure proprietary isn't sustainable in the long run, but if you want those features right now, you need support for proprietary stuff.

So unless your need is absolutely to have Ogg and Flac support right now, and you cannot spend time re-encoding those files that you happen to have in those formats automatically to Mp3 or synch them using Windows Media Player (basically like iTunes for synching files and will re-encode automatically Ogg and Flac files), then I really don't see any interest in this perticular Cowon model. But surely this being Cowon's first Texas Instruments DaVinci based PMP, they are certainly on the right track, next up Cowon needs to learn how to integrate touchscreen, wifi, HSDPA and proprietary licences on this Texas Instruments platform if they want to compete on a technological and value level.

The day Archos does the expected firmware update that adds:

- Stable 720p HD support
- Ogg and Flac
- A bunch of other wishlist features

Then of course the Cowon will be even less interesting.

cjcox · Post by **cjcox** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:26 pm

While I don't own an A3, I do own an A2. I also own a 504. I will say the quality of the A2 is much better. And from what I read in the forums (both sides), Cowon doesn't do as many weird (hangs) things as Archos. But YMMV.

The A3 is a worthy competitor, albeit lacking in some possibly very interesting feature areas.

If the Archos had a better reputation and didn't keep cheapening their platform (e.g. the loss of a removable battery), then Archos would be an obvious winner.

As it is... others can definitely compete against them.

One thing I will say... is that it's pretty obvious that Archos is committed to Linux, whereas Cowon is not. Which matters a lot to me... and means someday I'll probably have another Archos device.

Midas · Post by **Midas** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:07 pm

cjcox wrote:One thing I will say... is that it's pretty obvious that Archos is committed to Linux, whereas Cowon is not. Which matters a lot to me... and means someday I'll probably have another Archos device.

Can that statement be upholded in the face of what Archos did with the latest 605 firmware?

IMHO, in what concerns linux, Archos is just another freeloader...

Semantics · Post by **Semantics** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:49 pm

Uhhh...

The A3's 4in, 800 x 480 resolution, 16m-colour TFT screen is little short of a work of art and makes nearly every other comparable personal media player on the market look like an Etch-a-Sketch. Supporting video resolution up to 1280 x 720 - so we are talking HD here - it's simply a thing of beauty.

How would it support 1280 x 720 if the display is only 800 x 480? What's the point in being able to play such large video if you can't see it large?

That it can output to a TV? Hmm... why not just use a 360 if you have to leave it hooked up at home? At least that can play games, too. :P

I'll wake up when it can actually display all decoded pixels.

ETM · Post by **ETM** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:25 am

Semantics wrote:That it can output to a TV? Hmm... why not just use a 360 if you have to leave it hooked up at home?

And... um... if you don't? I mean - seriously?

cjcox · Post by **cjcox** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:26 pm

Midas wrote: Can that statement be upholded in the face of what Archos did with the latest 605 firmware?

IMHO, in what concerns linux, Archos is just another freeloader...

Just trying to understand... what did they do that indicates they are moving away from Linux? I was not aware.... I have a generation 4 device.

mx344 · Post by **mx344** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 3:32 am

thats pretty sweet but,like it is said before it sure lacks a ton of stuff that archos products have.

_________________
archos 605 wifi 4GB
FW 1.8.05

mitchelln · Post by **mitchelln** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:48 pm

Charbax wrote:
The day Archos does the expected firmware update that adds:

- Stable 720p HD support
- Ogg and Flac
- A bunch of other wishlist features

Then of course the Cowon will be even less interesting.

Sorry to sound negative here, but this simply is not going to happen. The current TI chipset cannot do 720p reliably. They've tried all sorts of tweaks, but it's a no go. Perhaps the next gen will. Archos need this for their next gen TV+ box, but is HD valid on a handheld device with a 4.3" screen anyway? Probably not.

Archos have no interest whatsoever in providing Ogg and Flac. The reason? They have no in house codec development resource and no political will. It's a shame, but there it is.

Midas wrote: Can that statement be upholded in the face of what Archos did with the latest 605 firmware?

IMHO, in what concerns linux, Archos is just another freeloader...

I've tried the shell access tweak and I have to say there's a lot of truth in this. Apart from the GUI and firmware protection, the Linux on the 605 is pretty much the bog standard variant that TI ships with its DaVinci dev boards, right down to the codecs. Last year I wondered why the AAC plugin exhibits the same quirks as the one on my desktop Linux machine. Now I now why. This is also why there is no Ogg for Flac - TI don't ship these codecs with the dev board.

Missionsparta · Post by **Missionsparta** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:02 pm

The main reason I am worried about HD, is that MOST HD boxes in the US, will only send and HD signal out, if the channel is available in HD. Say a program is being broadcast in analog -- the box will send an analog signal. But if the program is in HD, it is sending and HD signal. The only way around this, is to go in the menu setup of the box, and tell it not to play videos in 720p,1080i, or 1080p. Which sounds easy, but what this entails, is that you turn those resolutions off if you are using the Archos, then turning it back on when you want to watch TV in HD. Becomes a giant hastle and sometimes you forget to turn it off when you tell it to record something - hence the unit sees nothing. So it is really becoming vital for alot of us, that the unit be able to at least see HD signals. Or it is game over next year, for the DVR aspect of this thing.

Post by **Charbax** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:12 am

mitchelln wrote:The current TI chipset cannot do 720p reliably. They've tried all sorts of tweaks, but it's a no go.

Current TI chips do 720p quite reliably for Mpeg4 simple profile and Mpeg2. Archos has been delaying it probably cause they have been trying to squeeze in 720p WMV support for HD content on the Archos Content Portal with DRM.

But now with the latest Widevine DRM partnership, Archos can apply secured DRM on whatever codecs, so they could launch HD video-on-demand using plain Mpeg4 simple profile. They could have launched it before as well using DivX DRM, but I guess perhaps for some reason Archos does not want to be officially DivX Certified (implies certain things in terms of bitrate support, DivX menus, DivX subtitles including .sub, other codecs such as DivX 3.11 at high bitrates (which Archos perhaps only supports at 2500kbit/s currently). So no DivX DRM without being DivX Certified, so instead, now Archos could do Mpeg4 simple profile encoded HD content with XviD or whatever Mpeg4 codec it could be DivX as well (any case of commercial use of Mpeg4 requires licencing anyways as a % of sales revenues) and still use Widevine DRM technology.

I have seen that DivX and Mpeg2 at 720p can work relatively smoothly on the TI chip. (on the Maxian, DivX still did slightly stutter, but that might be because of their implementation of it).

mitchelln wrote:Archos have no interest whatsoever in providing Ogg and Flac. The reason? They have no in house codec development resource

This is plain BS. Archos has one of the most advanced teams of embedded Linux codec specialists tweaking codec support for each generation of TI chips coming in since the Archos JBMM20 released in 2002. In fact, Archos has been providing Texas Instruments with the code to optimize codec support on each of their generation of TI chips. Where Archos has always been able to have exclusivity for a certain time to market certain of the technologies, which has been part of the aggreements since Archos has had a privileged partnership with Texas Instruments going on for more than 8 years now.

Ogg and Flac simply hasn't been a priority cause less than 3% of Archos customers even ever had a file in one of these formats on their computer.

alankayser · Post by **alankayser** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:11 pm

Archos has one of the most advanced teams of embedded Linux codec specialists tweaking codec support for each generation of TI chips coming in since the Archos JBMM20 released in 2002.

Charbax, do you know this to be a fact? I was under the impression that they outsourced much of this work.

3% of customers with Ogg and Flac seems very low. What is your source for these numbers?

Missionsparta · Post by **Missionsparta** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:22 pm

alankayser wrote:
Archos has one of the most advanced teams of embedded Linux codec specialists tweaking codec support for each generation of TI chips coming in since the Archos JBMM20 released in 2002.
Charbax, do you know this to be a fact? I was under the impression that they outsourced much of this work.

3% of customers with Ogg and Flac seems very low. What is your source for these numbers?

I heard they outsource almost all of their work also

mitchelln · Post by **mitchelln** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:23 pm

Charbax wrote: Ogg and Flac simply hasn't been a priority cause less than 3% of Archos customers even ever had a file in one of these formats on their computer.

Where did that stat come from? Archos have never spoken to me for example. I have hundreds of Oggs on my computer.

alankayser · Post by **alankayser** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:33 pm

I've never heard from Archos either. I have a 250GB usb hd with at least 100GB of FLAC files. Wait, the phone is ringing...

Yes...

That's correct, Mr. Crohas...

Maybe give or take 10GB...

My pleasure. Thanks for calling.

Missionsparta · Post by **Missionsparta** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:27 pm

alankayser wrote:I've never heard from Archos either. I have a 250GB usb hd with at least 100GB of FLAC files. Wait, the phone is ringing...

Yes...

That's correct, Mr. Crohas...

Maybe give or take 10GB...

My pleasure. Thanks for calling.

Their tech support calls me all the time.... friendly bunch of fellows.

mitchelln · Post by **mitchelln** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:36 am

Missionsparta wrote:
alankayser wrote:I've never heard from Archos either. I have a 250GB usb hd with at least 100GB of FLAC files. Wait, the phone is ringing...

Yes...

That's correct, Mr. Crohas...

Maybe give or take 10GB...

My pleasure. Thanks for calling.
Their tech support calls me all the time.... friendly bunch of fellows.

Tell 'em you have Ogg and FLAC files! Your input might boost it to 4% of customers polled