I love television, and according to Nielsen findings, I’m not alone: Americans are glued to the tube for 250 billion hours each year. The problem is that I can’t watch TV when I’m at work, making dinner, riding the train, and so on, wasting valuable time when I could be watching Paradise Hotel. Thank goodness for the Archos AV320, a portable recorder that captures video and audio, and saves them as digital files for playback anywhere, anytime.

Essentially, the AV320 is a 20GB hard drive that plays videos, music, and displays your digital photos. Connecting via USB 2.0 (or a FireWire adapter for the Mac) Windows and Mac computers recognize it instantly. This allows the seamless drag-and-drop of media files to the appropriate folders (MP3s to Music, JPEGs to Photos). Music management can be handled by MUSICMATCH or iTunes. You can add ID3 tags and album cover art, but it’s easier to copy MP3 files onto the AV320.

For easy viewing, a large (for a portable device, at least) 3.8-inch color LCD takes up much of the front. It’s fairly bright, but don’t expect wide viewing angles. With the backlight-off power-saving feature, you can get up to 10 hours of battery life. With the LCD lit, you can expect 4 hours.

Archos developed a new user interface and controls for the AV320, but they are confusing and awkward. Whereas the onscreen menu is straightforward, the controls (five buttons and a navigation joystick on the right side of the display) are not: two buttons handle on, off, selection, and backtrack, but three different-sized buttons have various designations, depending on the menu. And, unless they are named properly, trying to find the right files isn’t easy. Fortunately, an onscreen keyboard is available for naming files on the fly. Where the AV320 excels is with the recording and playback of audio and video. Sound quality is sharp and clear; even analog audio sounds CD quality. A great feature is the AV320’s ability to capture audio from any source or via its built-in mic and convert it to MP3. This allows you to record streaming audio, like radio or lectures broadcasts, and save them for later.

Video is equally simple to capture, and this is where our love for television comes in. After attaching the included module to the AV320 and connecting a composite or S-Video cable to a video source, you can record to your heart’s content. Want to record tonight’s episode of Friends and watch it on the commute? You can. The video is recorded as MPEG-4 AVI files, and quality is near-DVD when viewed on the device’s screen. Plus, files can be transferred to your computer (the DiVX codec is required for viewing with Windows Media Player or QuickTime). The first thing we recorded was the Daily Show on Comedy Central. After plugging in the video and audio cables into the back of our digital cable box, we simply pressed record. The next day we were able to enjoy Jon Stewart’s monologue during our morning commute while others wrestled with their newspapers.

Next, we recorded Happy Gilmore right off of our DVD player to watch on the go, so we don’t have to sit through one more in-flight chick flick. The best part is that you can be watching the boob tube at home while you record, since the video output is going into the AV320 instead of your TV. Unfortunately, recording from A/V sources happens in real-time and it isn’t automated. If you want to record a specific show, you have to sit there and push the button when the program starts and stops. And, with the cables you need to connect, it becomes a tangled web. The AV320 can also output video to a TV, but the picture quality suffers. To transfer video files from your computer to play on the AV320, they must first be encoded to the DiVX format (software is included). This can be a tedious process for those who want to view their wedding footage wherever they go. There aren’t many DiVX videos you can download off the Web, and what you can download isn’t always good.

In-box accessories include a small remote control for basic functions and a pair of generic headphones since the AV320 has no built-in speaker. Archos also offers several optional accessories to turn the AV320 into a portable Transformer, including memory card readers ($29 each) for transferring photos from your digicams; an FM tuner ($29) for when you get bored of your MP3s; and a 3.3-megapixel camera ($199) that also functions as a MPEG-4 camcorder. The AV320 can accommodate only one adapter at a time, so you can’t listen to the radio while recording yourself singing. While all the extra functions might seem like convergence overboard, they demonstrate the versatility the AV320 tries to achieve.

While there are plenty of first-generation kinks, the Archos AV320 redefines the mobile entertainment experience. Now you can take all of your favorite music, pictures—and TV shows and movies—to go in one super-powerful device.

-- by Les Shu

Archos AV320 Video Recorder

Price: $569

http://www.archos.com