Archos PMA400
Encyclopedia
PMA400

Storage : 20GB, 30GB
Display: QVGA touchscreen
Touchscreen
A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...

 LCD
Liquid crystal display
A liquid crystal display is a flat panel display, electronic visual display, or video display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals . LCs do not emit light directly....

Video: AVI
Audio Video Interleave
Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...

 containing MPEG-4 Simple Profile
MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...

 Video and MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 or ADPCM
Audio: MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

, WMA
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...

, Protected WMA, WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...

Photo viewer: JPEG
JPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....

, GIF
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....

, BMP
Windows bitmap
The BMP File Format, also known as Bitmap Image File or Device Independent Bitmap file format or simply a Bitmap, is a Raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device , especially on Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems.The BMP...

PDF viewer: Reads PDF documents
Video recording: (Into AVI, MPEG-4 SP + MP3) from external sources, like cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 or satellite television
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...

 tuners
Audio recording: (MP3 or WAV)
Connectivity: USB 2.0, 802.11b Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

, USB Host, IrDA
IRDA
IRDA may refer to:* Infrared Data Association, in information and communications technology , a standard for communication between devices over short distances using infrared signals...

Outputs: 3.5 mm jack for earphones / line-out, built-in speaker, composite video
Composite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...

Input: built in microphone, line-in, mic-in, composite video, S-Video
S-Video
Separate Video, more commonly known as S-Video and Y/C, is often referred to by JVC as both an S-VHS connector and as Super Video. It is an analog video transmission scheme, in which video information is encoded on two channels: luma and chroma...

Battery life: max. 9.5 hours
Weight: 280 g
Release date: January 2005 (since discontinued)


The Archos PMA400 is a personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

 (PDA) from Archos
Archos
Archos is a French consumer electronics company that was established in 1988 by Henri Crohas. Archos manufactures portable media players and portable data storage devices. The name is an anagram of Crohas' last name, and it is also Greek for 'master'...

, with a hard disk drive and audio and video playback and recording capabilities, so it also functions as a portable media player
Portable media player
A portable media player or digital audio player, is a consumer electronics device that is capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, video, documents, etc. the data is typically stored on a hard drive, microdrive, or flash memory. In contrast, analog portable audio...

 (PMP). The PMA400 was the most expensive within the line of products that they supplied.

Based on the Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 Qtopia
Qtopia
Qt Extended is an application platform for embedded Linux-based mobile computing devices such as personal digital assistants, video projectors and mobile phones...

 Embedded operating system, the device is more like a personal digital assistant than a normal media player. The PMA400 features the following:
  • IR remote
  • Software (pre-installed or from online feed)
    • PIM: E-mail client
      E-mail client
      An email client, email reader, or more formally mail user agent , is a computer program used to manage a user's email.The term can refer to any system capable of accessing the user's email mailbox, regardless of it being a mail user agent, a relaying server, or a human typing on a terminal...

      , Agenda
      Agenda (meeting)
      An agenda is a list of meeting activities in the order in which they are to be taken up, by beginning with the call to order and ending with adjournment. It usually includes one or more specific items of business to be discussed. It may, but is not required to, include specific times for one or...

      , Calendar
      Calendar
      A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...

      , Contact Directory
    • Text Viewer and Editor
    • PDF
      Portable Document Format
      Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....

       Viewer
    • Opera
      Opera (web browser)
      Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...

       and Konqueror Embedded
      Konqueror Embedded
      Konqueror Embedded is a version of the Konqueror browser designed to run on embedded systems. Unlike the full version of Konqueror, Embedded Konqueror is only a web browser. It does not require KDE or even the X window system...

       web browsers
    • Podcast
      Podcast
      A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...

       client
    • Most Qtopia apps that work out of the box are available.
  • Games using the Mophun
    Mophun
    Mophun, a product of Synergenix Interactive, is an environment for developing Mobile-Phone Games and Applications. The games are developed in the C and C++ programming languages using an open source SDK available upon request from the website. A compiler translates the projects into a system...

     engine


Though it remains Archos's only dedicated PDA, some of its features can be seen on the later 604WiFi including touchscreen and web browsing.

OpenPMA

The original firmware had some major bugs that are now being gradually fixed in an open source firmware by the openPMA project. Added functionality from openPMA are:
  • Audio support from openPMA: Ogg vorbis
    Vorbis
    Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...

    , Musepack
    Musepack
    Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s...

  • Many Zaurus
    Sharp Zaurus
    The Sharp Zaurus is the name of a series of Personal Digital Assistant made by Sharp Corporation. The Zaurus was the most popular PDA during the 1990s in Japan and was based on a proprietary operating system. The first Sharp PDA to use the Linux operating system was the SL-5000D, running the...

     packages are compatible or have been adapted
  • Access SMB/CIFS
    Server Message Block
    In computer networking, Server Message Block , also known as Common Internet File System operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an...

     network shares using Samba (software)
    Samba (software)
    Samba is a free software re-implementation, originally developed by Andrew Tridgell, of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain...

     and a GUI frontend
  • Act as a SMB/CIFS
    Server Message Block
    In computer networking, Server Message Block , also known as Common Internet File System operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an...

     server allowing other computers on the network to access the internal hard disk
  • The MediOS extension originally developed for the AV and Gmini series is available enabling the user to run NES
    Nes
    -Localities:In Norway:* Nes, Akershus, a municipality in the county of Akershus in Norway* Nes, Buskerud, a municipality in the county of Buskerud in Norway* Nes, Hedmark, a former municipality in the county of Hedmark in Norway...

    , Sega Mega Drive
    Sega Mega Drive
    The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...

     emulators and Doom interpreter.

See also

  • Archos Generation 5
    Archos Generation 5
    Archos Generation 5 is a series of portable media players 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...

  • List of portable media players with Wi-Fi connectivity

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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