20GB Audio/Video Jukeboxes - RCA Lyra / Archos

[BillyJoel]

Hi,
Does anyone know much about the RCA Lyra 20GB Audio/Video Jukebox or the Archos 20GB Audio/Video Jukebox?

Are these good? Also, does the RCA have a digital FM radio capability? Will other companies release similar items - if so, which?

Any information would be helpful!


Thanks,
Dan

 

[TheCorm]

I have the Archos Jukebox 6000....the older 6gb version....and it's ok but not great....in recent times it has been a real pain.

It's not very easy to up or down the volume without inline remote....menus are not the easiest....display of ID3 tag isn't too bad. It has a great amount of storage and is easy to setup....but mine is USB 1.1 which is damn slow...I think the 20gb newer version is USB 2.0 so transfer speeds will be good.

Main probs with mine is hard disk errors if you so much as move it while playing (soooo portable then) and battery life is hideous...you can tell it's running out because it tries to power up and then makes this "pewwwwwwwwww." noise because it doesn't have enough power.

Maybe they have improved it...

As mine is out of warranty I am gonna get around to hacking into it and putting a replacement hard drive in....maybe a cheap 10 or 20gb....it uses laptop 2.5" drives.

 

[arcas]

What's the battery life on your Archos like? Have you tried the "Rockbox" opensource replacement firmware for it? I've been tempted to buy an Archos (the existance of Rockbox only increases that temptation) but if battery life is that poor, maybe I'll look elsewhere.

Has anybody tried using an IDE-->Compactflash adapter in a hard disk player?

 

[TheCorm]

When I got it the battery life was good....up to 8 hours...which is not bad for 4x NI-MH rechargables powering a hard disk. But now...well it's never more than about 4 hours....but I think I may be mistaking hard drive issues for it being out of power.

Thanks for noting this Rockbox open source firmware....will have to take a look....I presume I can go back to the Archos firmware if I want/need to?

Rockbox Firmware

the site also has lot's of other useful information such as hardware mods which has a guide to taking it apart without causing damage...perfect if you do want to change the hard drive!

Hope this helps any other Jukebox owners!

Edit: I'm not sure on other peoples opinions of Lyra products...their HD MP3 players may be okay but my friend had a CD MP3 player by them and it was really awful to use, not user friendly at all....I even found it difficult figuring out how to turn it on!...didn't come with an AC Adaptor and it went wrong after 10 months...kept saying there was no CD when there was....when he took it back the store had stopped selling it so they said he could have a Sony one for an extra £15...he jumped at it...is much nicer.

 

[BillyJoel]

Are these audio & VIDEO models that you are talking about?


Thanks,
Dan

 

[oboeguy]

We have the Archos Jukebox MultiMedia 20 (20GB capacity). It's quite useful for long vacations, as you can transfer pics from the digicam to it, as well as do the whole movie & music thing.

I haven't really tested the battery life, to be honest, but I think it's merely "OK", not great. Out of the box, it looks like it supports USB 2.0, but I've only used it with USB 1.1, as we lack 2.0 on our PCs. The speed is reasonable it you have something else to do while copying a gig or two of MP3s.