7. Familiar Faces

Archos designed the AV 400 interface, which has Windows-type features. Navigation is by directory, with video, photo, music, navigator, settings, VCR and tape-recorder icons to choose from.

The Video icon, as the name indicates, enables you to watch movies. Each video that is listed can be organized into subdirectories. You can rename a video after recording it without having to go through the PC. A virtual keyboard helps you to do this. Long names are accepted, in which case the AV 400 will scroll the text. If you want to read the list by pressing a key, a contextual menu appears. You can fast forward or backward and use slow motion or pause it. It's very practical. You can also adapt the format to 4/3 or 16/9 and mark it in order to find a specific place in a movie after pausing. If you want to find a video but the file name is not descriptive of the content, a thumbnail of the first image of the video is shown on the right.

An Interactive Photo Album

The Photo feature lets you display images. As usual, you can display thumbnails, rename a photo and display information such as the name, size and format. You can also rotate it in 90-degree increments. That could be useful for viewing photos output directly from the memory card. You can also use your favorite photo as a screensaver. When trawling through the photo directory, thumbnails are displayed on the right to let you easily choose what you want.

Automatic Filing

The Music feature is more sophisticated. Each time an MP3 is added, the AV400 indexes it automatically if it has a tag. In addition to storing it in a file, it also files by album, artist, style and date, which is very practical. When you play it, the volume, photo of the album and the usual information are displayed. The equalizer is limited to treble and bass.

You can quickly switch to the VCR, which lets you record in WAV 44 kHz or in compressed ADPCM formats. You just have to choose between a mike or analog source.