Archos Archos (, stylized as ARCHOS) is a French multinational electronics company that was established in 1988 by Henri Crohas. Archos manufactures tablets, smartphones, portable media players and portable data storage devices. The name is an anagra ...

Generation 5 is a series of

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored ...

s introduced in 2007.

705 WiFi

The Archos 705 WiFi was released on November 16, 2007 in capacities of 80GB and 160GB, with the same overall design of the last generation and an updated operating system and hardware compatibility. Unlike the 405 and 605 WiFi, the 705 WiFi has an 18-bit

color depth Color depth or colour depth (see spelling differences), also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring ...

instead of 24-bit Truecolor.

605 WiFi

The Archos 605 WiFi was launched on September 1, 2007. While the player is a technical update from the previous generation, the 605 WiFi is released in larger capacities, not unlike the

504 __NOTOC__ Year 504 (Roman numerals, DIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rufius Petronius Nicomachus Cethegus, Nicoma ...

. The 4 GB

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

-based version includes a

SDHC Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between Sa ...

card slot. The player is also available in

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

capacities of 20 GB, 30 GB, 40 GB (only in the UK), include a thinner profile and smaller buttons. The button layout remains the same but with the addition of a volume control. The battery is now irremovable, though an extended battery pack is available optionally, and the kickstand is moved to the edge of the player. The 605 WiFi features support for

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...

, which equips a portable version of

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

. An online content portal is linked to directly purchase or rent media from various distributors. A special edition of the 605 WiFi was released in Europe. This version has a 20GB capacity and is bundled with Charlie Chaplin movies and a custom engraving on the back. A

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edition was later released.

605 GPS

Archos released a variant of the 605 WiFi with an additional

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

feature. It was available in a 4 GB flash-based capacity and a 30 GB hard drive capacity.

405

Flash based, comes in 2 GB with SDHC expansion, and a 3.5" QVGA TFT screen in 4:3 format. Available in a limited edition lilac colour. A hard drive version of this player has been released in Europe in a capacity of 30GB.

105

The Archos 105 is a flash-based PMP with a

OLED An organic light-emitting diode (OLED or organic LED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light ...

display that is capable of WMV playback. The player is currently available in a 2 GB capacity.

Features

DVR Station

The optional DVR station plays back video in DVD quality resolution through the composite, S-video, RGB or YPbPr video outputs with the audio in stereo or 5.1 surround sound through the SPDIF output. An external harddrive can be attached to the DVR station via a USB hub to increase the storage capacity. The DVR feature has an infrared emitter that can control many different brands of TV's, cable boxes, and satellite boxes. An online TV guide can show scheduled broadcasts which you can set to be downloaded and viewed at a later time. The DVR station also comes with a qwerty remote control to surf the web or to use the TV Program Guide directly on a TV screen. Note: The online TV guide service has been discontinued in North America.

Content Portal

The Archos Content Portals (ACP) allow the 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi to directly purchase or rent videos on the device through wireless internet. The content on the ACPs are provided through other companies that have their own "portal". Currently only

CinemaNow CinemaNow was an international over-the-top (OTT) provider of on-demand, Internet streaming media available to viewers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1999 and was headquartered in Los Angeles, Cal ...

has service for North American users. There has also been announced a deal with Paramount in April 2008.

Web Browser

The web browser for the 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi is an iteration of

for devices. Unlike with the 604 WiFi, it is available as an optional plug-in. With Generation 5 Flash 7 support was added. On November 28, 2007, along with game packs, 7 widgets were added free as part of the Web-Browser plug-in. In April 2008, an update to Flash 9 was added giving better compatibility with the latest flash applications.

GPS

add-on was announced in April 2008 for the 605 and 705 with support for the Europe, North America, and China regions. The GPS is activated when a clamp is combined with the player, which gives the Archos 605 GPS and real-time traffic report.

WebTV & Radio

Archos Web TV: This allows you to aggregate and watch streams of web TV and video. Archos Web Radio: This allows you to aggregate and watch streams of web radio and audio.

Source Code Release

Archos has also released the source code for the current generation players. However, hardware locks have disabled any easy attempt at creating homebrew firmware without the use of an exploit.

GFT Exploit

A software-only exploit called GFT was discovered for several Archos players, including the 605 WiFi and 705 models, that enabled the user to run Linux commands directly on the system, and further uses this to install an SSH server on the system, allowing remote root access. However, the 2.x versions of the firmware have disabled the ability to apply the GFT exploit. This is an undocumented fix on Archos' side and is not listed in the change-form for the release. They automatically include 2.0 and later on all newly shipping 605 units.

QTopia

The 605 WiFi, along with, reportedly, the 705 WiFi and 604 WiFi, were successfully hacked to run the Linux platform

QTopia Qt Extended (named Qtopia before September 30, 2008) is an application platform for embedded Linux-based mobile computing devices such as personal digital assistants, video projectors and mobile phones. It was initially developed by Qt Software ...

with help from the same users who had done so on the older

PMA400 The Archos PMA400 is a personal digital assistant (PDA) from Archos, with a hard disk drive and audio and video playback and recording capabilities, so it also functions as a portable media player (PMP). The PMA400 was the most expensive within t ...

. QTopia can only be installed on units that are compatible with the GFT exploit.

openPMA-NG

The exploit also triggers the development of openPMA-NG, based on pdaXrom. Updates show compatibility for common Linux applications such as

GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized ...

and

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current a ...

{{cite web, url=http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?t=14909&sid=a8524b5c517c4768766df2af1974f46a, title=openPMA-NG ! We are not dead...

References

External links

Manufacturer's WebsiteArchos 605 WiFi and DVR Station hands on review at ArsGeekArchos 605 WiFi at WikiSpecs
Portable media players Products introduced in 2007