User manual ARCHOS AV 400 - annexe 1

English Language User Manual AV420 · · · · · MPEG-4 Video Player & Recorder MP3 & WMA Music Player Photo Viewer USB 2.0 Hard Disk Digital Audio Recorder USB Windows® Device ARCHOSTM POCKET VIDEO RECORDER User Manual for ARCHOS Pocket AV420 USB Windows® Device Manual version 1.0 Please visit our website to download the most recent manual and software for this product. 1 Table of Contents 1 2 INTRO - Ports, Buttons and Connections INTRO - First Time Usage 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Plugging in the AC Adapter Turning on the AV400 Shutting off the AV400 and Battery saving features Changing the Interface Language Foreign Character Sets Charging the Batteries Caring for the AV400 Hardware Reset Setting a Bookmark The Resume Function Display Format Settings Non Protected Internet Video Content Setting the Recording Parameters Where is the Recording Saved? Copy Protection Manually Setting the Scheduler 8 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 6 8 3 VIDEO - Playing Video Files 3.1 3.2 3.3 12 13 13 11 4 5 Playing Video Files from the Internet 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 14 14 15 16 18 18 18 VIDEO - Recording Video Files 6 7 VIDEO - Automated Yahoo!® TV Recording Scheduler VIDEO ­ Setting the Infrared Emitter Code 7.1 7.2 Part 1: Choose your Device, Brand and Model Part 2: Testing the Emitter codes 23 24 21 23 8 9 VIDEO - Editing Video Files VIDEO - Creating MPEG4 video files with your computer How to create an MPEG-4 video file PC Tools Macintosh Users Installing the PC Software DivXTM Codec Virtual DubTM MPG4 Translator MP3 Sound Codec Using MPG4 Translator Select Source & Destination Files Change Settings Target & Priority Start 28 28 28 29 26 28 9.1 29 29 29 30 30 9.2 31 31 31 32 2 10 MUSIC - Playing Music Files 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 13.1 13.2 Button Control Play Screen Icons Browsing through your Music Library Playing Through your Stereo System Setting a Bookmark The Resume Function Synchronizing Music from Windows Media® Player (WMP) to the AV400 Comparison of Windows Media Player 10 to Windows Media Player 9 Transferring your CD collection to the AV400 Installing Windows Media® Player 9 (WMP9) Installing Windows Media® Player 10 (WMP10) Playing a Playlist Creating a Playlist Saving a Playlist Adding songs to a Playlist while listening to Music Cable Connections for Audio Recording Recording Procedure Microphone Analog Line-In Incremental Recording Where is the Recording Saved? Audio Editing 33 34 34 35 36 36 33 11 MUSIC ­ Putting Music onto your AV400 37 38 38 39 40 37 12 MUSIC - Playlists 41 42 42 43 41 13 MUSIC - Recording Music 44 44 44 45 45 46 46 46 13.3 13.4 14 MUSIC - Using iTunesTM with your AV400 15 PHOTO - Viewing Photos 15.1 15.2 15.3 16.1 16.2 Viewing Photos Magnifying Photos Viewing a slideshow Transferring photos to your AV400 Navigating the Directory Structure File and Folder Operations File Operations Folder Operations Copying and Moving Files and Folders Using the Virtual Keyboard USB Connection Type (`Hard Drive' or `Windows Device') Connecting the AV400 Windows® XP Windows® ME and 2000 MacintoshTM OS X Disconnecting the AV400 from your Computer Windows® Macintosh® 49 48 49 50 50 50 16 BROWSER - Using the Browser 52 53 52 53 53 54 55 16.3 17.1 17.2 17 Connecting/Disconnecting* the AV400 to/from your PC 56 56 56 57 57 58 58 17.3 58 59 3 18 SETTINGS 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 18.7 Sound Settings Play Mode Settings Clock Settings Display Settings Power Settings System Settings TV control 60 61 62 63 64 66 67 60 19 Updating the AV400 Firmware Operating System (OS) Download the Update_AV400.AOS file Read the History.txt File Copy to the AV400 `Hard Drive' or `Windows Device'? Activate the Update 68 68 68 69 69 68 20 Technical Support 21 Troubleshooting 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 USB Connection issues Charging and Power issues AV400 locks up (freezes operation) or Stops The Computer locks-up (freezes operation) or Stops File issues, corrupted data, formatting, and partitioning Windows® 98SE & ME Running Scan-Disk (Error Checking) Windows® XP & 2000 Running Check Disk Utility (ChkDsk) 72 73 73 74 74 70 72 76 76 22 Technical Specifications 23 Legal 77 78 4 Dear Customer, ARCHOS thanks you for your choice of this exciting AV400 product. Never before has one been able to record, play, and carry with them, so much digital media. Be it digital videos, digital music or digital photos, you can enjoy all of these, on the go, without a computer. The AV400 is designed to be the companion to your home entertainment system. With the TV cradle connected to your television, you can slip your AV400 in and out as desired. Optionally, you can connect it to your computer with the included USB Cable. By connecting to a computer, you get the advantages of downloading digital audio and video content from the Internet. Since it is a PlaysForSure device, you have a wide choice of music and video content on the Internet. For more information about the PlaysForSure program, see www.playsforsure.com. Remember, with the AV400, you can... · · · · · · · · · Play MPEG-4 & WMV video files on the built-in screen, a television or video projector Record and edit MPEG-4 video files from a television or other video device Listen to MP3, WMA, or WAV music files or PlaysForSure protected music files Record music files into digital format directly from your hi-fi without a computer Synchronize your Windows® Media Player music and video library to your AV400 Use it as a digital voice recorder, it has a built-in microphone View JPEG and BMP images and slide shows Copy Pictures or data from CompactFlashTM cards directly to the AV400 Store .DOC, .TXT, or any type of data file ­ it's a portable hard drive too! We wish you many years of enjoyment from your AV400 product. Please do register your product at our website www.archos.com/register/products. html to ensure that you get access to our help line and to be informed of free software updates for your product. Wishing you the best Video, Music, and Photo experience, The ARCHOS TEAM 5 1 INTRO - Ports, Buttons and Connections a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p,q,r Hard disk activity indicator (red) On indicator (green) Battery charger indicator (green) Move UP (also increases volume during media playback) Move DOWN (also decreases volume during media playback) Move LEFT (also plays previous song or fast reverse through song or video) Move RIGHT (also plays next song or fast forward through song or video) On/Enter/Play/Go ­ Hold for 4 seconds to turn on Escape/Stop/Off ­ Hold for 4 seconds to turn off device Left function button ­ Activates the left on-screen menu item (p) Also buttons lock. Center function button ­ Activates the center on-screen menu item (q) Also speaker on/off Right function button ­ Activates the right on-screen menu item (r) LCD/TV button ­ Hold down for 3 seconds to switch between LCD and external TV display TFT LCD screen 320 x 240 pixels Built-in loud speaker (hold down on button k for three seconds to turn speaker on and off) Screen function buttons which correspond to j, k, l 6 a b c LCD/TV button ­ Hold down for 3 seconds to switch between LCD and external TV display Microphone ­ for making digital voice recordings CompactFlashTM Type I slot a b c USB 2.0 high speed port (USB 1.1 compatible) to connect the AV400 to your computer Power Connector (use only the supplied Archos power charger/adapter) Multi-connect jack* ­ for headphones, TV Cradle, and AV in/out connections *The optional multi-connect adapter and AV cable allow for audio and video playing (cable) and recording (cable+adapter) without the TV Cradle. Multi-connect Adapter AV Cable 7 2 2.1 INTRO - First Time Usage Please take the time to read though this manual. There are many things that this device can do that you may not be aware of. Plugging in the AC Adapter · Use only the included ARCHOS charger/adapter. · Before using for the first time, charge the batteries completely. The charge indicator (CHG) light just below the navigation pad will start to blink when the battery is charged. · You may use the Archos Video AV400 while its battery is charging, but it will then take longer before the battery is completely charged. 2.2 Turning on the AV400 · Hold the PLAY/ON button for 4 seconds. The green "On" indicator light will turn on. Be patient, it will take about 8 seconds for the operating system to boot up. · If the unit shuts off after holding the ON button for several seconds, plug in the Archos adapter/charger to make sure the batteries get charged. 2.3 Shutting off the AV400 and Battery saving features To shut off the unit, press and hold the STOP/ESC/OFF button for 3 seconds. In the Power menu [Setup Power: Battery Operation] there is a Power Off parameter. It is factory set to 2 minutes. Thus, if your AV400 is idle for 2 minutes, it will shut off. This setting can be changed from one to nine minutes. In the Power menu [Setup Power: Battery Operation] there is a Backlight Off parameter to save battery power (the lighting of the screen consumes a lot of the battery power). It is factory set to 30 seconds. That is, if there are no buttons pressed, the screen will shut off in order to save battery life. To turn the screen back on, just click once on any button. See section 18.5 for a complete explanation. 8 2.4 Changing the Interface Language The AV400 interface can be set to English (default), French, Spanish, German, or Russian. · Using the arrow buttons, highlight Setup and then click PLAY/ ENTER . · Highlight the Display icon and click PLAY/ENTER . · Highlight the Language parameter. · Click the Right or Left button to choose the desired language. · Choose the desired language. · The language displayed will change immediately. · Click on the STOP/ESC button twice to return to the main menu screen. 2.5 Foreign Character Sets You have the possibility to display your file names, folder names, and music tags in various character sets (ex: Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, etc.). You can find the language files CodePage_name.4FZ in the font folder under /Archos on the AV400 hard disk or on the Archos website under the heading Software. If, for example, you would like to have the Korean language display, then you would copy the file CP949.4FZ into the folder /system on the AV400 and shut down and restart the AV400. File names, folder names, and music tags written using the Microsoft® codepage for the language will now be displayed in that character set. Only one .4FZ can be used at a time, thus you should only put one .AFZ file into the /system folder. When an .4FZ language file is used, the interface language will be set to English. 2.6 Charging the Batteries Use ONLY an Archos charger/adapter that is specified for the AV400. Other chargers or adapters may damage the AV400. The green CHARGE indicator lights up to indicate that the external adapter is connected. The batteries will charge automatically when the AC adapter/charger is plugged in. Once the battery is charged, this light will blink, indicating that you can disconnect the charger/adapter. To charge the battery to the maximum capacity, continue charging (with AV400 on) for at least an hour after the charge light starts to blink. The internal battery can only be changed by an Archos technician. Opening your product will void the warrantee. * depending on how you use it (start/stop/writing, etc.) 9 2.7 Caring for the AV400 The Archos Video AV400 is an electronic product that needs to be treated with more care than typical consumer electronic products. · Do not subject it to shock. · Do not subject it to heat. Keep it ventilated (especially when connected to a computer). · Keep the AV400 away from water and excessively humid areas. · Keep the AV400 away from high electromagnetic fields. · Keep any connected cords to the AV400 neatly arranged. This light product could fall if a cord is accidentally pulled by a child. · Do not open up the AV400. There are no user serviceable parts inside. Opening will void your warranty. 2.8 Hardware Reset In the event that your AV400 freezes operation (due to electrostatic phenomena for example), you can actuate a hardware reset by holding down on the STOP/ESC button for 15 seconds. In normal operation, the STOP/ESC button will shut down the AV400 after being held down for 3 seconds. 10 3 VIDEO - Playing Video Files Click on the Video icon in main menu, highlight the desired video file and then click on PLAY/GO . The thumbnail images on the right side will show you a frame from the highlighted video file (center) as well as a frame from the file above and the file below the highlighted one. By clicking on the Video icon in the main menu, you will enter into a `video only' mode. Other playable file types that may be in this folder are only listed if you enter the folder via the Browser. To watch your videos on a television, you must hold down the LCD/TV button for three second. The AV400 screen will go black and the video will be sent out to your connected television. Switch your television to auxiliary video input (often found just below channel 1 ­ sometimes called L1 or L2). If you don't see a clear color image, you may have to set your AV400 to your local television standard (NTSC or PAL) in the Setup > Display settings menu. 11 LEFT ­ Slow /2 Put the video into slowmotion view. You can cycle through the values Normal , ½ , ¼ , and 1/8 speed. The sound is muted when in slow motion. While in slow mode and paused, you can step image per image with the LEFT button. CENTER ­ Options Setup: Go to the Setup menu Set Screen Format: Change the screen's display format Set Bookmark: Set a mark within current video to return to at a later time. Save as thumbnail: save the current image on the screen as the video file's thumbnail in the Video browser view. RIGHT - Hide / Show the overlaid video time information. 3.1 Setting a Bookmark If you are watching a video and would like to place a bookmark in it in order to continue from this point at another time, you can use the Bookmark function. You simply click on the center function button labeled Options, then choose Set Bookmark. This will set a bookmark in the video file at the current position. You can only set one bookmark per file. When you look at the file in your browser, it will have a yellow check mark on its icon indicating that this file has a bookmark set within it. You can have a maximum of 16 files bookmarked. Setting more bookmarks will then start to erase the oldest bookmarks. The next time you play this video file, you will be presented with three options: Resume: Start playing from the bookmarked position. Ignore: Clear: Keep the bookmark but start playing from the very beginning. Clear the bookmark from this file and start playing from the very beginning. 12 3.2 The Resume Function When you turn on your AV400 you will sometimes notice that the icon which is highlighted on the main screen is not the Browser but rather the Resume icon. This icon is highlighted when the AV400 can resume the last played audio or video file. 3.3 Display Format Settings You will notice in the Options button (center function button), that you have a number of display format options. In certain cases, depending on how the original video was recorded, you may want to use these adjustments. Default mode : Adjusts the video size to best adapt to the LCD screen. 4/3 aspect: Enlarge the image to fill the screen (usually a vertical fill) and then cut the sides to completely fill a television screen. 16/9 aspect: Send out a TV signal without the black horizontal bars. Will not be cropped on the LCD. No Overscan: Picture will not pass into the overscan area. Entire picture will always be seen on all televisions. 13 4 4.1 Playing Video Files from the Internet When using Windows Media® Player 10, you will have the advantage of being able to download protected video content from the Internet. When you see the PlaysForSure symbol on a web site for Windows® Portable Media Center (PMC), then these protected downloads will be playable on your AV400. Non Protected Internet Video Content 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 and formats 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 AV400 plays .AVI files that are encoded with the XviD or DivXTM MPEG-4 codec (compression/decompression). It can play such video files at a maximum size of 720 by 576 pixels (25 frames/second). It can also play .WMV files (WMV9SP) up to a maximum size of 352x288. The AV400 will not directly play files of type .mov, .mpg, or .mpeg. If you have some video files that do not run directly on your AV400, they will have to be converted first. Windows Media® Player 10 (Available only for Windows XP) will convert your video file automatically* when you sync the file that is on your PC to the AV400. It will display a little message `converting'. You can also use the software MPEG4 Translator included on the AV400 hard disk to re-encode some of your video files into the proper MPEG4 format that the AV400 can play. See chapter 9 for more details. * Windows Media® Player 10 may not be able to convert (transcode) all file types. 14 5 VIDEO - Recording Video Files 1. Select VideoCorder on the main menu screen. In the pre-record screen, you should see movement on the sound level bar indicating that sound will be recorded. Adjust the sound level by clicking the LEFT/RIGHT buttons. Before starting the recording, you can adjust the recording parameters via the middle function button Settings. Hold down on Scheduler button for 3 seconds to hide the overlaid screen info. 2. In most situations, the video recording will work fine without your having to adjust the settings. However, by clicking on the middle function button, you have access to a number of parameters that you can change before you start the recording. See the table below for descriptions. Click any function button to return to the prerecord screen. Pre-record Screen Setup Parameters 3. Click on the PLAY/PAUSE button to start the recording. While recording, you will see the length of time of the recording in the top left of the screen as well as a red "record" indicator. Click on the PLAY/PAUSE button again to pause the recording. Click on the STOP/ ESC button to stop the recording. The AV300 will take a few seconds to complete the proper saving of the .AVI video file. During Recording 15 5.1 Setting the Recording Parameters You can set the recording parameters manually to suit your specific needs. Click the center Settings button while in the pre-recording screen. Rename Auto Stop Rec Allows you to change the filename before the recording begins. On, Off. If set to On, the AV400 will stop recording after the duration set in the next line. For example, you want to record a television show for two hours but do not want to stay around for the two hours to stop the recording. In the screen above, a recording that you start manually will last for 2 hours. If set to Off, the recording will continue until you click on the stop button or until the entire hard disk fills up. This is the duration of time your recording will last if Auto Stop Rec above is set to On. This is a safety margin added to the beginning of a scheduled recording which was set via the My Yahoo!® TV scheduler of your personal calendar. It affects ONLY those recordings. This is just in case the clocks between your AV400 and the broadcast station are different or if the broadcast station starts earlier than expected. This is a safety margin added to the end of a scheduled recording which was set via the My Yahoo!® TV scheduler of your personal calendar. It affects ONLY those recordings. This is just in case the clocks between your AV400 and the broadcast station are different or if the broadcast station runs overtime. Composite, S-Video, Auto. You can choose which video input you want the AV400 to use. Normally, with a good video signal, you can set it to Auto, and the AV400 will scan the two inputs to see which one is receiving video. Auto, 4:3, 5:3, 16:9, 2.35. This is the aspect ratio of the screen that the AV400 will record. You can set this manually, but in most cases you can just leave it on Auto. Duration Pre-record Post-record Source Format 16 Resolution TV, LCD. Use this to set the resolution of the recorded image. If you plan on playing the video most of the time on the built-in screen, then set it to LCD to record at the screen resolution of 320x240 pixels. Set to TV, it will record at the highest resolution possible. (Actual resolution depends on 4:3, 5:3, 16:9, or 2.35 recording format). 500 kb/s, 1000 kb/s, 1500kb/s, 2000 kb/s, 2500kb/s. Use this to set the encoding quality (similar to the idea of JPEG image quality settings). The higher the encoding rate, the higher the image quality but also the more hard drive space is used. 32kHz, 48kHz. The sound sampling rate. The higher value gives a higher quality sound but will take up more space on the hard drive. Use this to increase or decrease the recorded image brightness. Use this to increase or decrease the recorded image contrast. Use this to de-emphasize or saturate the colors in the recorded image. Use this to change the color spectrum in the recorded image. Change the above settings to the AV400 default settings. Bitrate Sampling Brightness Contrast Saturation Hue Reset · Once you have finished changing the parameters, click any function button to return to the pre-record screen. · Concerning the video standard, the AV400 will automatically recognize if the incoming video signal is NTSC (American), SECAM, or PAL (European). There is no need to set anything. You will see the signal type, as well as the selected aspect ratio on the top left of the prerecord screen. · Click the LEFT/RIGHT buttons to adjust the sound input level. Too far to the right will often give an overdriven distorted quality. Too far to the left may make for a very soft sound. Try a few recordings to get a sense of what is the best sound level. Do not let the headphone volume fool you. That can be adjusted independently with the UP/DOWN buttons. · If you would like to make a recording in another folder instead of the default "Video" folder, go to the desired folder via the main Video icon, then click on the right function button Record. 17 5.2 Where is the Recording Saved? The default location for video recordings is the folder called Video. If you click on the Video icon in the main menu, you will go to this folder. Notice that the right function button is labeled Record. Each time you use this button to record video instead of the VideoCorder button on the main menu, you set the recording default location to the current folder. For example, you have a folder called /Video/Television/Documentaries. If you go to this folder and then make a recording using the right function button Record, you will set the default record location to this folder. Now, each time you use the VideoCorder icon to start a recording, your recording will be saved in the folder /Video/Television/Documentaries. 5.3 Copy Protection The AV400 video recording system is designed to respect the copyright protection system. If the source of your video is copy protected, the AV400 will record in protected mode. You will see a "P" icon on the recording screen (not playback) indicating that the file will be a protected file. Protected files can only be played back on the AV400 that created it. The file will not play on a computer. Further, the playback of protected files will be limited to the built-in LCD screen and not to an external television. 5.4 Manually Setting the Scheduler If you would like to make a video recording for a future date or time, you can use the scheduler. You can find it by going to VideoCorder and then clicking on the right function button Scheduler. You can program up to twenty different recordings up to one month in advance. Once you program your dates and times of recording, press the left function button SAVE. You can now put your AV400 into standby mode by pressing on the red Standby/wake-up button on your Archos remote control. Once the scheduler is set, you will see an icon on the top VideoCorder status bar indicating that it is set to make a timed recording. 18 · Click on the right function button Scheduler. · Set each line to the desired date and time (and channel if you are using the InfraRed emitter to control your VCR, cable box, or satellite receiver). Click on the center function button Title to set the file name of the scheduled recording. Click on Save. · The scheduler icon indicates that a scheduled recording is set. You can set the AV400 to Standby. Empty Scheduler, ready to be programmed. Once a valid record time is entered, and the Enter button pressed, the empty box will get a green checkmark. Scheduler after having been set. The "--- Current" means that the AV400 will record the current video signal (no channel changing). This is for people who do not use the stick-on Infrared Emitter system. 19 Notes about setting the Scheduler. · The scheduler chronologically. automatically reorganizes the recording events · In order for a scheduled recording to start, you must leave the AV400 in the main menu screen or set it to standby mode (press Standby/ On button on remote control). That is, if you are listening to music, watching a video, or looking at photos on your AV400, it will not interrupt you in order to go make the scheduled recording. · If you have connected and will be using the IR Emitter system (see the TV Cradle manual as well as section 6 below) with a video cassette recorder (VCR) please note that in order for the IR Emitter to properly control the VCR: 1. Your VCR should not be left in sleep mode. 2. Some VCRs will shut off automatically after a few minutes when left on. See your VCR user manual for instructions on how to force it to stay on continuously. · When the user interface is in English, the Date format is set to Month/ Day. · If the end time is earlier than the start time, then it is assumed that you start recording on the start date, and the recording ends on the following day at the end time. For example, the first scheduled item in the screen above will start recording on the 16th day of June, and end on the 17th at 2am. · Once a scheduled recording has been made, or the date of a recording has been passed, without the recording having been made (the Archos unit was not in the TV Cradle or not in Standby mode), the schedule entry will be erased from the scheduler. · Long recording times (2 hours and more) can create files that are greater than 2GB each. The AV400 will create multiple files in order to make long recordings. Thus a long scheduled recording may produce video files called VID0000, VID0001, and VID0002. This is only in the case of recordings that are over 2GB in size. This 2GB file size constraint is due to the WindowsTM FAT32 AVI file type specification. · When you set the scheduler, the AV400 will create a text file its System folder called DVRTimer.txt. You should not erase this file. 20 6 VIDEO - Automated Yahoo!® TV Recording Scheduler For those who have a My Yahoo!® account and use the calendar feature, the AV400 can read the TV programs scheduled into your personal calendar and thus make scheduled recordings this way. You can sign up for an account and learn how to use the My Yahoo!® TV and calendar functions at the Yahoo!® Website (www.yahoo.com). You must do the following: 1. Connect your AV400 to your computer. 2. Go to your personal Yahoo!® calendar which has your TV programs scheduled. 3. Choose the Week view ­ starting with the current day as the beginning of the week. 4. Click on Printable View to show a cleaner printable version. 5. From your browser menu click on File > Save As... to save the file. 6. Do not change the File Name, but do change the Save as Type to Web page, html only. Now save the file to the folder System on your AV400. 7. Once you disconnect the AV400 from your computer, the AV400 will automatically update its scheduler with the newly saved TV programs from your My Yahoo!® calendar. If the AV400 encounters a television station name that it does not know the channel number for (was never set), it will indicate so, and direct you to go to the scheduler to manually assign a channel to the station name. Notes: · If the TV programs from your personal calendar do not seem to be correctly copied to the AV400 scheduler, go to the Archos web site to make sure that have the very latest version of the AV400 firmware. Update your firmware (Operating System) as explained in the chapter "Updating the AV400 firmware". If you change your Yahoo!® personal calendar by deleting some TV programs and adding new ones, only the new programs will be added to the AV400 scheduler when you save the html file to the AV400. If you want to delete scheduled items, you must do this in the AV400 scheduler itself. Missed recordings (because you did not have the AV400 in the TV Cradle connected to your Television at the record time) will be deleted from the scheduler. 21 · · · If a personal calendar recording event does not find the station name in your list of channels, it will put the event into the scheduler and mark it with a ?, indicating that you must assign a channel number to the name. Move the cursor to the line containing the ?, and click on the center function button "Set Channel". You can now scroll through the channel numbers and assign a number to the station name for that event. You only have to do this once. 22 7 VIDEO ­ Setting the Infrared Emitter Code This is a one time step to set your AV400 to send the correct infrared codes to your video cassette recorder, cable box, or satellite receiver in order that the AV400, via its TV cradle, can turn on and off your video device and also change its channels. If you do not plan on making scheduled recordings, then you do not need to install the IR emitter or set the infrared emitter code. Before beginning this procedure of setting the emitter code, your AV400 must be connected in the TV Cradle, the IR emitter cable plugged in and securely stuck in place on your tuner's (VCR, cable box, satellite receiver) infrared receiver window. See the TV Cradle instructions for the exact placement of the emitter. 7.1 Part 1: Choose your Device, Brand and Model On the main screen, go to Setup then click on TV Control. 1. Select the type of device that you have stuck your IR Emitter to. You have the choice of either a VCR (video cassette recorder), Cable Box, or Satellite Receiver. 2. Select the brand of your device. 3. Click on Tune IR Emitter button. 4. The TV channels button allows you to give names to each channel. For example, if channel 6 is CNN then you can name it in this screen. 23 You can fill these in by hand. Or, if you use the My Yahoo!® personal calendar to set your recording scheduler, any unknown station name will be indicated in the scheduler with a ?. You then have the possibility to assign a channel number to the station name by clicking on the center function button Set Channel. This avoids having to fill in all the station names and channel numbers by hand. 7.2 Part 2: Testing the Emitter codes 1. Tune channel select: These four parameters usually do not need to be set. Keep the default values to start with. See the table below for an explanation of each. 2. Tune device code (one code available): Some manufacturers use only one set of codes for all of their products. Their codes do not change from one model to another or from one year to another. In this case, there will only be one single code. You can now test the channel select. 3. Tune device code (multiple codes available): Some makers of video equipment don't use the same set of control codes for all of their products. They have various code sets for various models and various years. You will have to try each of the codes to find out which code works with your device. In the example screen, you see the code C109. If this code does not work when doing the Test: channel select, advance it to the next code and then test to see if that next code works. 4. Test channel select: When you press the Test channel select button (Highlight test channel select and press ENTER button ­ on AV400), the AV400 will send a signal through the cradle to the Infrared Emitter stuck to your device and changes the channel. If the Number of digits parameter is set to three, it will try to select channel 123. If that parameter is set to 2 or 1, it will send the code for channel 12 and channel 1 respectively. 5. Test ON/OFF: When you click on the Test On/Off button, the AV400 will send a signal to the TV Cradle, which will then send a signal out to 24 the Infrared Emitter stuck to your device and turn your device on and off. Click this test button again and your device should change from on to off or off to on. If pressing this button does not turn on and off your device, try the next code for your device (step 3 above). If none of the codes work, check that the infrared emitter is directly over the infrared sensor on your tuner device. Note: In some rare cases the ON/OFF functionality may not work. Parameter Key: -/-Number of digits Description Set this to On if normally, you have to press this same key on your device's remote control in order to select a channel. Set the number of digits that your device can recognize for a channel. Example: Set to 3 if you need to choose a channel greater than channel 99. Set this to On if normally, you have to press the Enter key on your device's remote control after you enter the channel number. Example: If you normally press 1, 3, Enter for channel 13, then you would need to set this parameter to On. Change the delay between the emission of each digit of a channel. You may need to adjust this if the AV400 seems to send only half the digits of a channel or more digits of a channel. Example: Adjust the key delay and retest channel select if it sends channel 1 instead of 12 or sends 112 instead of 12. Key: Enter Key Delay 25 8 VIDEO - Editing Video Files Video files recorded by the AV400 (not internet files) can be modified by deleting the sections you do not wish included. The editing you can do is either cropping or cutting of particular segments of the video file. You will mark a segment of your video file, and then you will tell the AV400 to CROP it out (delete everything except the marked segment) or to CUT it out (delete the marked segment from the video file). These operations can be done multiple times on the same video file. Once finished, you will have the option to save the edit marks with the video or to write a new video file. If you save your file with edit marks, you can always go back and change your edits at another time. The actual video information is not deleted. On the other hand, you can write a new file which will only include the video parts that you specified in the edit session. This file will be smaller but you can never un-edit it. Music Video section to keep Beginning of recording (a) (b) Example 1: You have recorded a music video program and would like to keep one single music presentation. The rest of the television recording you do not care to keep. In this case, you would set a Start mark (a) at the beginning of the desired segment, and an End mark (b) at the end of the desired segment. You would then choose CROP which would then delete everything except the designated section. to delete (a) (b) (a) to delete (b) Example 2: You have recorded a television program but would like to remove certain sections before the program started, parts during the program, and the program afterwards because you had recorded a little extra. In this case, you would make a Start mark (a) at time 00:00 and then forward to the end of what you want to delete and make your End mark (b), and choose CUT. 26 This part of the video recording will now be cut out. Fast-forward to the center of the recording and make a Start Mark (c) where the section that you want to suppress begins, and make an End mark (d) when it finishes. Again, choose the CUT option and this section will be cut out. Do the same for the final section that you want to cut out. IMPORTANT NOTE: When you pause at a given point to make a Start or End Mark, the actual point of the cut will be the nearest I-Frame. I-Frames are special frames in the video file which come about every one to four seconds. The editor can cut ONLY at an I-Frame. It is thus recommended that when you pause at the point you want to make your Start or End mark, that you click the LEFT button once (will jump to the previous I-frame) and then click the RIGHT button (shows the next I-frame) so that you can see your choice of I-Frames to cut at. Go to the I-Frame you desire and then set your Mark. Trying to set a mark between IFrames is ineffective since the AV400 will just choose the closest I-Frame. 1. Play the file and pause at the spot you want to make your Start mark. Click the RIGHT button once, then LEFT once, and choose the I-frame you want for the mark. Click on the Edit function button and select Start Mark. 2. Let the video play. Now click on Pause at the location you want to mark the end of your segment. Choose your I-frame and then select End Mark from the Edit menu. You can now click on the Edit button again and choose to Cut or Crop the specified segment (blue portion in the time line.) 3. Continue to mark other segments that you would like to delete and use the edit Cut function. Once satisfied with your edits, you can Save Edit which keeps the edit points and allows you to re-edit another time, or you can Write to new File which will create a new edited file named (old-name_Edit0000). 27 9 VIDEO - Creating MPEG4 video files with your computer How to create an MPEG-4 video file Please understand that video re-encoding is not always a simple one button process. Video segments that come from your digital camcorder or which are freely available on the Internet are encoded in many different ways. If not already in the proper MPEG4 Simple Profile format, transforming these videos into this format readable by the AV400 requires use of the below mentioned software tools. This is due to the relatively new nature of the ISO (International Standards Organization) MPEG4 video format. Unlike its predecessors MPEG1 and MPEG2, there are a number of levels in this format and thus not all MPEG4 video files will work on all MPEG4 players, and older MPEG1 and MPEG2 files must be re-encoded into this format. Although you may have a bit of a learning curve in the initial re-encoding of video files, once you have the process down, it is just a matter of letting your PC or Mac go to work and create video files for playing on your AV400. PC Tools The AV400 is delivered with two Windows® based programs that allow you to create MPEG4 Simple Profile .AVI video files. They are the MPG4 Translator and Virtual DubTM. The MPG4 Translator will call the Virtual Dub program and give it the correct parameters to encode your video from its original format, .avi or .mpg (mpeg 1), and then encode it into a DivXTM based MPEG4 .AVI file. The file will be scaled in order to be played back properly. Only MPEG4 files encoded with DivXTM or XviD can be played on the AV400. Please visit the website of DivXNetworks, Inc (www.divx.com) to download this codec. This is a free codec. This will allow your PC to create DivXTM type videos which play on your AV400. There are other tools available on the Internet, some free and some for sale, that can also convert your video files into the appropriate MPEG4 video file for the AV400. See the web site www.mpegmobile.com for a few of them. Macintosh Users There are now tools available at the DivXTMNetworks web site which will allow you to create DivXTM simple profile files with your Macintosh that are playable on the AV400. 28 9.1 Installing the PC Software If your video file is not an MPEG4 Simple Profile .avi file of the proper size, you will need to re-encode it using the following utilities. For the AV400, you will need to create an AVI file that is MPEG4 Simple Profile with a resolution up to 720 x 576 (depending on frame rate) and a sound track that is stereo MP3 or WAV. In actuality, in all cases, a resolution beyond 640x480 does not add any advantage. Run the program SETUP.EXE (the Archos Installation Utility) found on the AV400 hard drive in /Data/PC Installation. Please install the programs in the following order. DivXTM Codec This software will install the DivXTM Compression/Decompression onto your PC. You should shut off any anti-virus programs when installing this or other codec software. This is not a program that is run by itself. Rather, it installs background software which allows your computer to do high quality video compression. This is the MPEG4 compressed video type that the AV400 knows how to play. You can find this codec software, as well as an application that allows you to play DivXTM videos on your PC, at the website www.divx.com. Virtual DubTM A utility for transcoding one video file into another. This is a general purpose transfer and cleanup utility which has many options allowing for even the most difficult video translations. When you install it with the Archos Installation Utility, it will automatically unzip. It will prompt you to save it to C:\Program Files\VirtualDub. You should use this default directory location. Otherwise you will have to instruct the MPG4 Translator program where to find it. MPG4 Translator This program, developed by Archos, is a "Front-end" for the Virtual Dub program. It has a simple interface which you use and it then tells Virtual Dub how to process the video file. It sets all the parameters for Virtual Dub specifically to create a video file in the right size and format to be read by the AV400. When you run it for the first time, the MPG4 Translator will need to locate the Virtual Dub program. If you did not install Virtual Dub in the default location, you will have to show the program where Virtual Dub is. 29 MP3 Sound Codec If MP4SP detects a suitable MP3 codec on your PC, it will use it, and your video file sound track will be MP3. Otherwise, it will use the standard IMA ADPCM codec. There are MP3 encoders (usually packaged together as an encoder and decoder) available on the Web for you to download. If you choose to use the LAME codec, make sure that you have a version built with the ACM front-end. You can find other MP3 codecs on the web by using the search terms ACM, MP3 and CODEC in your favorite web search engine. Once this MP3 codec is installed into your system, MPG4 Translator will be able to create final video files with MP3 sound, even if the source video file does not have an MP3 sound track. If you are unsure what codecs (audio and/or video) have been installed on your computer, you can see the list by going to the following location. For Windows XP, click on Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices Properties > Hardware > choose Audio Codecs, then click on Properties. You will find a list here of all the audio codecs that are installed on your computer. Decoding of MPEG 2 video files is currently not supported by MPG4 Translator. These are usually .mpg or .mpeg format files, not the required AVI file. There are other tools found on the Internet (FlaskMPEG, Rippack, etc.) that may be downloaded in order to help you with these file types. A good starting place is the website www.digital-digest.com. 9.2 Using MPG4 Translator To the left you see the image of the main MPG4 Translator program. When you first run the program, if the DivXTM codec has not been installed yet, you will be notified. You should download the codec and install it on your computer. If the Virtual dub program has not been installed, you will also be notified, and you should install it (either with the Archos Installation 30 Utility or the Virtual Dub website). If you have placed the Virtual Dub program in a folder other than the default, it will ask you to locate the file. Select Source & Destination Files In the example above, a source file 24 hours of Lemans.avi has been selected as the source video. You can see on the bottom of the window its original characteristics (width 720, height 576, frame rate 30). Next, you must then tell the program where to place (Set Destination file) the newly recoded version of the file (don't worry, it will not erase the original). You should give it a new descriptive name, such as shown above Lemans_AV400.avi. Make sure you add the .avi extension. If you forget, Windows® will give you an error when you try to launch it. Change Settings Next, you can change the parameters (Change Settings) of the DivXTM encoder to adjust the level of quality of the final image. Like MP3 music, the higher the bit rate setting is made, the higher the quality of the music, or video in this case, that you will get. However, this will also take up more space on your hard disk. A setting of 900 kbps will give you a nice looking image for viewing on a television. For near DVD quality, you can set it up to 1200 kbps. 31 Target & Priority You should select the target as AV400. You will see a Priority box appear. This control is to allow you to select which feature of the video to be guarded. If for example you are re-encoding a video file that is 800x600 in resolution and 30 frames per second, this is beyond the maximum resolution that the AV400 can play. Thus, the MPG4 Translator program will have to decrease the resolution. Choosing LCD optimizes the final video format for viewing on the built in LCD screen. Choosing the TV option will optimize the movie to keep the highest possible frame rate. You can see what the size and frame rate will be by looking at the Video Image Size: Destination parameters. When choosing TV, it is understood that the output will be optimized for a television, and not the built-in screen. Start Click on Start and the program will call Virtual Dub to start processing the video. Depending on the power and speed of your computer, this could take real time (a 60 minute long video re-encoded in about 60 minutes) or much longer. As shown to the left, you will see the progress as it processes the video file. If the Start button is grayed out, it would be for one of two reasons. 1) The source file is not a true AVI file. Even if the file name ends with .avi, the internal file data determines if it is truly an AVI file. 2) The Virtual Dub program was not located when MPG4 Translator was started up. Close the program, restart it, and make sure you locate the Virtual Dub program. 32 10 MUSIC - Playing Music Files When you click on this icon in the main screen, you will be sent directly to the ARCLibrary. From here you can choose to either browse your music by the file system (Browse hard drive) or by music characteristics (Album, Artist, title, Genre, Year). Use the UP, DOWN, and PLAY buttons to locate one of the factory installed music samples and then Click on PLAY . If you hear nothing at first, make sure you have adjusted the volume control on the headphone cord. Current Directory Play Order Play Mode: One Directory Status: Playing Volume (maximum: 99) Battery level (full) Artist* or parent folder Album* or current folder Song title* or file name File format and rec info Next track to be played *Album picture Relative location in the track Volume level meters Song elapsed time Song time remaining Song Length Go to setup options Show Music Options Browse the hard disk for other tracks Time of Day *If the file contains these tag data 10.1 Button Control Increase the Volume Click once: Play the previous song in the folder or playlist (during first 10 seconds of song) otherwise go to the beginning of the song. Hold: Fast forward through the song. Hold: Fast reverse through the song. Click once: Play the next song in the folder or playlist. Stop Song Decrease the Volume Play/pause/resume song 33 To lock the AV400 buttons, press and hold the left function button for three seconds. The AV400 will display the message "Buttons locked!" on the bottom of the screen. Press this again for three seconds to unlock the buttons. 10.2 Play Screen Icons Status Play Order - no icon Play once Repeat playing Shuffle (random) track selection Play Mode AV400 is currently playing from a Playlist Folder: Play all tracks in the current directory All: Play all tracks on AV400 Single: Play a single track then stop Queue: User can queue the next track to be played * Scan: AV400 plays first 15 seconds of each track* Stopped Blinks while playing a track Pause Recording a track * See the PlayMode section under the Settings chapter of this manual for details. 10.3 Browsing through your Music Library The ARClibrary is your AV400's music library. It is a system for indexing your music by album, artist, song title, etc. When you synchronize music files from your PC using Windows Media® Player to the AV400, the ARCLibrary will get updated to include the new songs you have added. As shown in this screen capture, you can select your music by Artist, Album, Song Title, Genre, or Year. All music files that you purchase have internal `tags' which identify the artist, the album, and the song 34 title. If your music files do not have internal tags (ex: WAV file format or untagged WMA or MP3 files) then the ARCLibrary will put them under the category (Unknown). Audio files created with the microphone will be indexed as Artist = (ARCHOS) and Album = (Audio Recordings). You can reach the PlayMode settings screen from Setup > PlayMode. The play mode determines how your music is played (just the current folder of music, all music, one file, etc.). See Playmode in the section Play Screen Icons above for a description of how each one works. 10.4 Playing Through your Stereo System To play your music through your stereo system, you can connect your TV Cradle audio outputs to your stereo or purchase the optional Traveler Cable kit and plug it in directly. Connecting from the included TV Cradle Connecting with the optional travel kit cable 35 10.5 Setting a Bookmark If you are listening to a song, or perhaps a long recording, and would like to place a bookmark in it in order to pick up from this point at another time, you can use the Bookmark function. You simply click on the center function button labeled Options, then choose Set Bookmark. This will set a bookmark in the audio file at the current position. You can only set one bookmark per file. When you look at the file in your browser, it will have a yellow check mark on its icon indicating that this file has a bookmark set within it. You can have a maximum of 16 files bookmarked. Setting more bookmarks will then start to erase the oldest bookmarks. The next time you play the audio file, you will be presented with three options: Resume: Ignore: Clear: Start playing from the bookmarked position. Keep the bookmark but start playing from the very beginning. Clear the bookmark from this file and start playing from the very beginning. The Resume Function When you turn on your AV400 you will sometimes notice that the icon which is highlighted on the main screen is not the Browser but rather the Resume icon. This icon is highlighted when the AV400 can resume the last played audio or video file. 10.6 36 11 MUSIC ­ Putting Music onto your AV400 Your ArchosTM product is a certified PlaysForSure digital device which means that wherever you find music for sale on the Internet with this symbol, you can be certain that they will `Play for sure' on your AV400*. The AV400 is designed to work seamlessly with Windows Media® Player (WMP) versions 9 and 10. The Windows Media® Player software is used to download digital media content from the Internet to your computer and organize it. You will also use it to sync (copy) the contents of your Windows Media® Player media library to your ArchosTM device. See the comparison chart below for an explanation of the different features available when running Windows Media Player 9 and 10 or check out the web site www.playsforsure.com. *Subscription services require you to be running Windows Media® player 10. 11.1 Synchronizing Music from Windows Media® Player (WMP) to the AV400 The Synchronize button in WMP (Windows Media® Player) is a one way sync button. That is, it will add music, video, and photo files to your AV400 so that you have the same digital media on your AV400 as you have in your Windows Media® Player library. Of course, you can choose to sync only certain songs or sync your entire library. On WMP10, you can click the button Set up Sync in the Sync tab and then check the box labeled Synchronize Device Automatically. This is the auto-sync advantage of WMP10. If this box is checked, then each time you connect your AV400 to your PC, Windows Media® Player will automatically start up and check to see if there are any new music, videos, or photos in your library, and if so, will then send them to your AV400. You also have the possibility to decide what types of media automatically sync when you connect your AV400. For example, you may only want music files to be synchronized. On the other hand, with Windows Media® Player 9, you have to tell it what you want to sync, it cannot synchronize automatically when you plug it in. 37 Note for WMP10 users: Files added to your AV400 from another computer or files which are recorded from an analog source can only be added to your Windows Media® Player Library by opening the AV400 device in Windows® Explorer and dragging the item to the media. 11.2 Comparison of Windows Media Player 10 to Windows Media Player 9 Windows® Media Player 10 is only available for Windows® XP (service Pack 1) and newer operating systems. It is worth your while to upgrade to Windows® XP (home or professional) and to Windows® Media Player. The list below shows the advantages. Functionality Auto-synchronize the WMP library to Archos AV400 on connecting to PC WMP9 no WMP10 yes yes yes yes yes Can synchronize subscription music (`to go' no services) to your AV400 Carefree USB disconnection (no special green arrow unmount procedure) Will convert video files* to play on your AV400 if not in correct format Supports protected Internet video downloads no no no PlaysForSure audio content *Microsoft reserves the right to limit which video file formats it will convert with WMP10 11.3 Transferring your CD collection to the AV400 The process of transferring music from a CD into files for your AV400 is known as `ripping'. It is actually a transcoding process, taking the CDA (CD Audio) format and converting it to WMA or MP3 format which the AV400 can read. There are many music ripping programs on the market, but the easiest thing to do is to use Windows Media® Player to do it. In fact, when you place a music CD in your computer, Windows® will ask you if you would like to rip it. Depending on the power of your computer, to rip a 38 60 minute CD, it will take anywhere from 10 minutes to 60 minutes. Once this is done, the album will become part of your music library. Connect your AV400 to your computer with the supplied USB cable. Now, go to the Sync tab and tell Windows Media® Player to synchronize that album to your AV400. It will then transfer that album to your AV400. Note: Some music CDs have a special copy protection system that will not allow Windows Media® Player to make music files from them. 11.4 Installing Windows Media® Player 9 (WMP9) If you have Windows® 98SE, ME, and 2000, you should use Windows Media® Player 9. You can visit the Microsoft® Website to download the very latest version, or install the version found on the AV400 itself. Copy the Installation folder and run the installer First, make sure the AV400 is in Hard Drive mode. From the main menu of the AV400 go to Setup, then System, and then set USB to Hard Drive using the RIGHT button. 1) Connect the AV400 to your computer with the supplied USB cable. (See the section of the manual on connecting the AV400 to your computer if you are unfamiliar with the computer connection.) 2) Open the hard drive AV400 with Windows® Explorer (or double click on it in My Computer). 3) Open up the folder named Archos and then open the folder PC Installation. Double-click on the file named Setup.exe (it may just be shown as Setup). 4) Click on the + icon next to the Windows Media® Player 9 installer to see which languages are available. Double-click on the desired language and follow the on-screen instructions. 39 11.5 Installing Windows Media® Player 10 (WMP10) You must be running Windows® XP (Service Pack 1 or better) in order to install Windows Media® Player 10. Please visit Microsoft's PlaysForSure Website (www.playsforsure.com) and download the very latest version of Windows Media® Player. 40 12 MUSIC - Playlists A Playlist is a list of songs that the AV400 will automatically play one after the other. The AV400 can load one playlist at a time into its internal memory. You can create new playlists, add or delete songs from a playlist, or Save a playlist as a file (file type .m3u) to be used another time. There is no limit to the number of playlists you can save on the AV400 hard disk. Playlists are indicated by a special list icon (circled icon to the left). 12.1 Playing a Playlist To play a Playlist, you simply scroll to the Playlist, such as `Jazz Music' shown to the left, and click on PLAY . The list of songs will be loaded into the internal memory of the AV400 and then be displayed in a separate panel. Click on PLAY and the songs will be played in the order shown. To shuffle the music entries in a random order, you can click on Playlist, then choose Shuffle. You can open a Playlist file (Playlistname.m3u) on your computer with a text editor such as Notepad, and you will see that it is merely a list of files to be played along with the hard disk path to find them. If you delete a Playlist from your AV400, you are only deleting the list and not the music itself. Example of the contents of the .m3u Playlist file `Jazz Music'. 41 12.2 Creating a Playlist To create a Playlist, press the RIGHT button while you are in the Music browser. A second window will open on the right side to display the Playlist contents. You can now start adding songs to the current Playlist. In the left window, search for the songs you would like to add to your Playlist. Once the song is highlighted, click on the Add function button to add it to the Playlist. The song will be added to the Playlist and a small mark next to the music icon will be made to indicate that it is in the Playlist. Continue searching and adding songs in this manner until you are satisfied. You can also click the Add or Insert button when highlighting a folder. All the contents of the folder and its subfolders will be added or inserted into the current playlist. You can jump back and forth between the browser and the playlist by clicking on the LEFT and RIGHT buttons. A Playlist can have a maximum of 5000 songs. We recommend that you save your Playlists. 12.3 Saving a Playlist It is recommended that each time you create a Playlist, you save it to a separate folder called Playlists. These lists take very little space on your hard disk and if well named, give you easy access to your favorite songs. Go to the Playlist by selecting Music from the main menu and then click on the RIGHT button. You will then see the list of songs in the current Playlist. Click the LEFT function button then choose Save. ATTENTION: Make sure that your left window is the Playlists folder, because the open window on the left is the location the AV400 will be saving your Playlist to. 42 Save ­ Saves the current playlist to the folder open in the left window. The * next to the playlist name indicates that this playlist has not been saved. Close ­ Closes the windows and returns to the main menu screen. Rename ­ Renames the current playlist. Shuffle ­ Randomly shuffles the order of the songs in the current playlist. Clear ­ Clears the contents of the current playlist. Button Move ­ Allows you to change the place in the list of the highlighted song. Click on Move and then click on UP or DOWN to move the song up or down the list. Click OK when finished. Button Delete ­ Will delete the highlighted song from the Playlist. It will not delete the actual song itself from your hard disk, just from the current Playlist. Important: Once you save a Playlist it is important that you do not move or rename the actual MP3 files as the Playlist searches in the original file location. If you need to move your MP3 files to a different folder, you'll have to recreate your Playlist. 12.4 Adding songs to a Playlist while listening to Music This can only be done if you have entered your Music folder via the Music icon and not by the general browser. To add the song you are listening to or any other song to the current Playlist, do the following: · While playing a song, click on Options and choose Edit Playlist. A browser window and the Playlist will open. · Click on the LEFT button to go to the hard disk browser window. · Select the song or folder of songs to add, then click the button Add. · Click ESC to return to the playing screen. 43 13 13.1 MUSIC - Recording Music With the AV400 series, you do not need a computer to create digital music files. It is capable of recording from the built-in microphone or an analog line source (ex: HiFi system, Boombox, CD Player, etc) into a standard Windows® WAV format, either PCM (uncompressed) or ADPCM (compressed). Cable Connections for Audio Recording If you are using the Archos TV cradle, then you will have to plug the Red and White connectors of the AV IN cables to the output of your Hifi or other audio device that you are recording from. If you are using the optional multi-connect adapter and AV cable, you should plug the AV cable into the AV IN side of the adapter, and then plug the adapter into the AV400. Now connect the Red and White connectors of the AV cable to the output of your Hifi or other audio device that you are recording from. 13.2 Recording Procedure Before the actual audio recording begins, there is a pre-recording screen which will allow you to adjust your recording settings. 1. From the home screen, select AudioCorder then click on ENTER/GO . 2. In the pre-recording screen, adjust the recording level* by clicking on the LEFT and RIGHT buttons. Click on the right function button to start recording. Attention, the first time recording you should adjust your Settings. 44 3. Click on Settings to reveal the re- 4. Once you have clicked on the Start cording parameters screen as shown button, you can pause the recording by a b o v e . B e s u r e t o s e t t h e c o r r eclicking the same function button (now ct Source. You will hear silence during labelled Pause), or stop the recording recording and playback if the incorrect by clicking on the STOP button. source is chosen. * You should try some test recordings before deciding on which recording level gives the best sound quality. Don't be tricked by the volume of the headphones which can be adjusted independently with the UP and DOWN buttons. Microphone The built-in microphone is located on the top of the AV400 unit. Make sure that you have selected Microphone as the input source in the prerecording Settings screen. Analog Line-In You can record from any line-level audio source to the AV400. Make sure that you select the Analog Line-In as the input source in the prerecording Setup screen. If you have the TV cradle unit, you can plug the Red and White connectors of the AV In cables to the output of you home stereo system or the audio device you are recording from. If you have the optional multi-connect adapter plug, you can enter a stereo audio signal into the AV400 directly. Be careful that the source audio is supplying a line level and not an amplified signal (turning down the volume on the player will work if you are using the headphone out signal of your audio device). An amplified signal will make for a terribly distorted recording. You can also use a high quality pre-amplified microphone, such as the one Archos sells as an option. 45 Incremental Recording While recording, you will notice the center function button labeled Next. This allows you to create incremental recordings. That is, the current recording stops and a new recording instantly begins. The next recording has an additional number appended to its name. Thus if you create multiple incremental recordings, you might, for example, have files names of REC0000_01, REC0000_02, etc. This is good for recording old cassettes and old vinyl records. You can click on the Next button during the blank space between each song. That way, each song of the vinyl disk or audio cassette will be one single MP3 file. 13.3 Where is the Recording Saved? The default location for audio recordings is the folder called Music. If you click on the Music icon in the main menu, you will go to this folder. Notice that the right function button is labeled Record. Each time you use this button to record audio instead of the AudioCorder button on the main menu, you set the recording default location to the current folder. For example, let's say you have a folder called /Music/Voice/Lectures. If you go to this folder and then make a recording using the right function button Record, you will set the default record location to this folder. Now, each time you use the AudioCorder icon to start a recording, your recording will be saved in the folder /Music/Voice/Lectures. 13.4 Audio Editing Audio files (microphone recordings / analog recordings / FM Remote Control (optional)) can be modified by deleting the sections you do not wish included. If you would like to edit an audio recording, you have the possibility to "crop out" the exact section of the recording you would like to save. For example, you have recorded a lecture of 33 minutes and 22 seconds in length. You would like to cut out and save just one particular important section from 12 minutes and 15 seconds to 21 minutes and 5 seconds. The diagram below illustrates the situation. 46 Desired audio section 00:00 (0min 0sec) 12:15 21:05 33:22 To keep just this section (cropping it), you will: · · · · · locate this file from the Browser mode Select Edit from the File menu in order to enter the edit mode In the edit mode, set the cut-IN point (12:15 in our example) Next, set the cut-OUT point (21:05 in our example) Save the edit Highlight the file to edit and select Edit from the file menu. Only files which have been created with the AV400 recording function will show Edit in the file menu. Files created from CDs or downloaded cannot be edited. Once you enter the edit mode, the audio file will play in a continuous loop so that you will be able to hear how your edit sounds. Use the fast-reverse and fast-forward buttons (LEFT/RIGHT buttons) to locate the points you want the new file to start and end. These are the cut-IN and cut-OUT points. Once you have set these points, you can save the edit. In this example, a new file VOICE_01_Edit. mp3 will be made. Your original file is left untouched. You will notice that your Cut-IN and Cut-OUT times are marked just above the file name. 47 14 MUSIC - Using iTunesTM with your AV400 The easiest way to transfer music files between a Macintosh® computer and your AV400 is to use the Macintosh FinderTM to drag and drop the files to and from your Macintosh®. However, for Macintosh® users who do want to use the AV400 with iTunes®, Archos has developed a special i-Tunes® plug-in. You will find it in the folder /Data/i-Tunes Plug-in on the AV400 hard disk or from the Archos website. In this folder you will find a plug-in for Mac OS 9.x and another folder for Mac OS 10.x. You will also find a JPEG image illustrating where you need to copy the plug-in to. Once this is done, iTunesTM will recognize the AV400 as a `Device'. To make your user experience easy as possible, please keep in mind the following. 1) Music purchased at Apple's on-line music store are copy protected with a proprietary encryption system. The ARCHOS device will not be able to play this purchased music. It will happily play MP3 format files without problem. 2) When you create your Playlists with iTunes® (you can only create Playlists from songs that have been copied to your AV400), your Macintosh® will save these Playlists to the root directory of your AV400. It will not save them to the AV400 Playlists directory. It would be best to use the AV400 itself to make Playlists (section 12.2) and then save these Playlists in your Playlists folder. 3) When you drag and drop MP3 files from your iTunes® library to your AV400, the i-Tunes® program will look at the ID3 tag information of the MP3 file, and create a folder on the root of your AV400 using the name of the Artist as the folder name. Then it will take the Album name ID3 tag, and create a subfolder with that album as its name. Finally, it will take the MP3 song itself and place it into that album subfolder. Thus, although it is a clean structure of artists and albums, i-Tunes® does not follow the AV400 convention of placing the music into the Music folder first. 48 15 PHOTO - Viewing Photos The AV400 series support the viewing of JPEG (.jpg) and Bitmap (.bmp) image formats. Progressive JPEG images are not supported. The AV400 will resize the image to fit on the built-in screen or on a television screen if you choose the television output. The yellow bar above the list of files indicates that you are in the `Photo Only' mode, meaning that only files of type JPEG or BMP will be visible in the directory. The three images on the right are thumbnail sized pictures of the highlighted file (center) and the picture just before and just after the highlighted file. If you are viewing photos on a television, it is recommended that you set the Image Display setting to Progressive to eliminate any possible screen flicker. You will find this in the menu Setup > Display. 15.1 Viewing Photos When you click Enter on a highlighted image file, the AV400 will display the image in the carrousel, either alone, within a group of 4 images, or within a group of 9 images. A red rectangle will surround the selected photo. Click on Enter again to display the image in full screen. Once it is displayed as a full screen image, you can rotate it, magnify it, or set it as the AV400 screen background (Wallpaper). 1 x 1 image 2 x 2 images 3 x 3 images 49 Rotate picture 90° left View next photo Rotate picture 90° right View previous photo · Click the left function button #-Pic to change the number of photos in the carrousel view. · Click the center function button Picture to display the picture options. · Click on the right function button Hide to hide the picture name and function buttons. Magnifying Photos Once the picture is displayed in full screen, clicking the PLAY/GO button will magnify the image up to three levels. Each successive click of the PLAY/GO button will magnify the picture one more level. You can use your direction buttons to move the picture around in order to see the desired magnified area. The small + signs on the bottom left of the screen indicate the level of magnification, either +, ++, or +++. Click on STOP/ ESC to go back to an unmagnified view. 15.2 Viewing a slideshow By clicking on Slideshow, the AV400 will present each picture in the current folder for a set amount of time and then go on to the next picture. You can set the amount of time that each picture stays on the screen under Setup > PlayMode > Picture Pause. This parameter is the number of seconds each picture displays on the screen. 15.3 Transferring photos to your AV400 To transfer pictures from your digital camera directly into the AV400, you will insert your digital camera's Compact FlashTM card* into the slot on the left side of the AV400. Insert the card when the main menu screen is displayed. 50