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Archos DVR Station Gen 5 for 405, 605, and 705 Players

See it at Amazon.com for $71.99

Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)

Amazon Customer Reviews

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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
(2 out of 5)

Understand What You're Getting

Jan 11, 2008 - By A TV Watcher (Escondido, CA USA)

A "DVR" without a tuner seems hardly worthwhile. You can't connect your cable to the unit, you're going to have something else to tune and convert your cable signal to composite, RGB, or S-Video. Then you're going to have to carefully position the IR emitter of the Archos DVR station so that it's pointed into the IR receiver of your tuner. In all likelihood this means you can't put the DVR station where you want it.

You'll be better off without this. Get a tuner for your computer, use it as your DVR and transfer the recordings via USB.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
(4 out of 5)

DVR good! Charging station bad!

Oct 10, 2007 - By Jason Mayfield (Huntsville, AL USA)

overall, the DVR station is very good at its jobs. as a video recorder, it is excellent. there are some learning curve items, but once you get smart, it works as advertised. the only issue i have is the charging side of the DVR station. my Archos 605 gets very warm while charging. this heat will cause the battery to have a reduced lifecycle.

since it is the only game in town. you will have to get one.

i am not a crackpot.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
(2 out of 5)

REMOTES ARE SHORT LIVED

Feb 7, 2008 - By Fitz-George Rattray

Yes, the station is a must have for the 05 series, but be seriously warned . . . . I have had three stations, 2 of the remotes have died so far, and both after the 30 day warranty, and ARCHOS tell me that since I did not purchase it from them it is not their problem and I am waiting to see if any Amazon merchants will source or sell the remotes only . . . . by the way, just in case you don't know, the station is all but useless without the remote.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
(2 out of 5)

No built in tuner should be a deal breaker

Dec 7, 2007 - By Michael W. Dube (Where am I not?)

No built in tuner means that when you want to record a show, the cable box will be turned to the recording channel. So if someone is watching tv when a scheduled recording is beginning, the channel will be changed and they will have to watch the show that is being recorded to the Archos. Unless of course you rent a separate cable box just for the Archos to use. Instead, Archos should have charged $10 more and put a built in tuner in the device. Instead, buy a usb or pci capture card, download free pvr software and have your PC or Mac do the recording and transfer the video to your Archos like you will with most of your video or music.

Any device like this or the low end sling boxes that don't have the traditional coaxial cable hookups (usually is a single cable that screws in - traditional cable company wiring) means the device will not have a built in tuner.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
(4 out of 5)

A Must Have for the 605

Oct 26, 2007 - By TC (San Diego, CA)

The DVR Station works as described. The DVR function is a significant portion of the 605 capability. It was a snap to cable it, and the IR setup, to control the S-Video source, was one of the easiest yet. The programming guide was also easy to configure, and use (not sure about the fee structure after the "free" one year period).

I also liked the external charger (didn't have to wait 24 hours to charge before "playing with it"). The docking station makes it easy to connect & disconnect, which is often during the setup phase.

I gave it only four stars because of the lack of a Tuner.