Archos Launch Their Own 'Apple TV' Round 1

I know a pair of brothers, one is handsome, charming, easy with women and easy with life. His brother is more of a craven soul, always looking sulky, always avoiding eye contact and cringingly shy.
If Archos and Apple were these brothers then Archos would be the shy one. Their products need a longterm committment to get the best out of the them and their new Archos TV+ is no different.
At Archos' press conference to launch this product much was made of Apple's CES 2008 claim that 'nobody else' was providing a device that downloaded video content from the Internet to be watched on your main HDTV/SDTV set apart from themselves. Archos were pleased with themselves because they had one which on the face of it actually did more that the Apple equivalent, it would record from your TV's set top box and surf the internet not just the iTunes site.
But are Apple worried? No because they have suave, cool marketing and their products easily connect themselves into your life without hours of geek-filled tinkering and plug and unpluggery.
Archos TV+ needs you to be patient and re-learn how to be an amateur AV installer, a skill you had forgotten the first time you bought an Apple product.
But like those brothers Apple will one day have a hiccup and you will be glad you made friends with the shy, cringing one. Maybe! I am an Apple fan boy after all...

Features
Archos TV+ will allow you to stream content from a PC, copy content from a PC, surf the net with a Opera plug-in, play MPEG2 files and DVDs apart from other file formats (Not WMV HD). You can also hook it up to your set top box and use it as a PVR with its own EPG. All with wifi enabled connectivity and a 250GB drive for around a £ a GB. Prices are €250 for 80GB, €400 for 250GB. (Apple only offer 40GB and 160GB)
But God don't they make you work for it. As a reviewer we were given a free code to download the plug-ins needed to get surfing, watch podcasts (H.264 plug-in) and watch DVD (MPEG2 plug-in). That little lot would have cost about £50. Archos' take on this is very French in as much as they say 'At the beginning everybody is the same, you choose to upgrade yourselves'. Vive La France! Vive Le Egality! Vive Le Liberte!
So you get your Archos working and connect with your wifi network only to remember that you need a surfing plug-in to go to the Archos site. You then have to turn everything off and take your Archos to your PC where you then go to the Archos site with and download the plug-ins and then copy them over to your USB connected Archos product.
Unconnect and re-connect to your TV with the new plug-ins installed and off you go. But a strange thing is happening, like any close relationship you start seeing different things in a person you spend alot of time with, the Archos TV+ even through its stumbling, offish, craven way of doing things starts charming you. OK its going to take me a bit of time to figure out how to connect my SKY box to it so I can record programmes, OK the controller they give you make you seem as if your hands are a big as Henry Cooper's. But it's like when you used to tinker with cars, if you know a machine's foibles you can work around them and you bond!
So in the midst of our relationship we have gotten over the initial squabbles and I have forgiven Archos for putting a very tempting reset button at the back although pressing it basically makes it invisible to a PC and it will switch itself off making any firmware upgrades a huge and fustrating event.
I'm going to persevere and am even tempted to buy a portable Archos to watch all the programmes I will record from Sky. That's when I make it work...

'U2 3D' A Personal Opinion

When I saw a few songs of the U2 3D film at 3ality's HQ last December I was pleased with the result - this was something new, something Joe Bloggs would choose to watch down at the local multiplex. There was some question of a 'ghosting' around some of the heads and some interesting transitional effects but I had a good time.
I was however watching U23D in the optimum environment, in the producer's own preview theatre with around 40 seats, a very expensive silver screen and 2k projector. Fast forward to a cold work day afternoon in Ipswich UK and I'm not so sure we're on the frontier of anything new.

The ghosting was much worse, there were some strange flaring artifacts when one hard light transitioned into another and me and the other three people in the cinema weren't making much of an atmosphere to feed off.

The ticket cost £7.70 and you got to keep the glasses, but all through the concert I wanted to see the 2D HD picture as the ghosting was getting to me. Some great camera angles overhead were new but any 'heavy 3D effect' had me blinking and squirming.

Yes it's better than before and maybe the heavy posting of this concert has led to some false images which jar. Would I rush to see another 3D movie? Well the kids want to see Hannah Montana next month and so ask me then.

Panasonic's NEW AVC HD Camcorder

Panasonic has raised the ghost of their old DVX100 with the news of a NAB launch for their AVC HD equivalent, the AG-HMC151. The media is SD & SDHC which they use for their consumer versions and the spec is 3x 1/3 CCDs with a Leica Dicomar 28mm lens out front. Spec is very similar to their consumer cameras with a 13mps performance for 720p / 1080i. They do mention a higher bit rate but don't say what it is. 

Pro spec includes XLR audio connectors with HDMI and USB, both which appear on the consumer models. But there is a recording buffer and remote capability for focus and stop/start.

Still the big problem is the AVC HD -if you have a Power PC mac forget it you need an Intel version and if you've got a PC try Pinnacle but you'll need a stonking processor.

Available this Autumn, price to be announced.