Archos PMA400TM Video Application, VideoCorder Application, Playing Video Files from the Internet

7 Video Application

This is the video viewer application. When you click on this icon in the main screen, you will be sent directly to the Video Browser. Like a music file, you simply highlight the video file and then click the PLAY button.

The thumbnail images on the right side will show you a frame from the highlighted video file (centre) as well as a frame from the file above and the file below the highlighted one. Keep in mind that the PMA400 will only play video files that are encoded in MPEG4 format (see section 8.3 for details). Other files such as .mov, or .mpg, will not automatically be playable.

Select the desired video file and click PLAY. Click on the button (top right) for file info.

To watch your video files on a television, make sure you have connected your TV Cradle correctly to your television (see the TV Cradle Manual) and then hold down on the LCD/TV button on the top of the unit or hold down on TV/LCD button on the Archos remote control for 3 seconds. If you don’t see a clear color image, you may have to set your PMA400 to your local television standard (NTSC or PAL) in the Settings > TV Out. The screen overlay information will disappear after a few seconds.

ƒUse the PLAY button to pause/resume the video.

ƒUse the UP/DOWN buttons to control the volume.

ƒHold down the RIGHT/LEFT buttons to fast forward or fast reverse through the video.

ƒTouch the screen to Hide / Show the overlaid video file information.

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7.1Playing Video Files from the Internet

The number of encoding and compression schemes currently used to create video files is very extensive and seems to change on a weekly basis. There are so many standards, formats, and encryption methods that it is very possible that the video file you download from the Internet will not play right away on your device. Due to certain “variations”, even when video files are formatted in “MPEG4” they may not play right away. The PMA400 series can play video files of type MPEG4 Simple Profile which have an MP3, PCM (standard .wav) or IMA-ADPCM (compressed .wav) audio sound track. It can play such video files at a maximum size of 720 by 576 pixels (25 frames/second). The PMA400 will not directly play files of type .mov, .mpg,

.mpeg, or .avi files created with codecs (compression/decompression) other than the XviD and DivX™ MPEG4 codecs. If you have video files of these other types that you would like to view on your PMA400, they will have to be converted first. You will have to use the software found in the Archos folder to re-encode them into the proper XviD or DivX™ MPEG4 format with an MP3, PCM, or IMA-ADPCM sound track. See the chapter Creating MPEG4 Video Files with your Computer for details.

8 VideoCorder Application

This is the video recorder application. Connect your TV Cradle to your home entertainment system as shown in the TV Cradle Manual. Once this is done, you can use the VideoCorder application to make recordings like you do with a video cassette recorder, either directly, for a fixed amount of time, or scheduled for when you are away. When you click on this icon, you will go directly to the pre-recording screen. From this screen you can instruct the PMA400 exactly how and when you want your video recording to be made.

Manual Recording

If you click on the red Record button on the bottom right of the screen, your recording will start. Click on the Stop button next to it when you want to stop your recording. You will find your recorded video in the folder /Video/recordings.

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