What Portable Media Player do you recommend with Snapstream

[cheloperins]

I am thinking about getting my dad a personal media player for xmas. Most of the ones I am looking at support MPEG4. So my question does Beyond TV natively convert my recorded programs or do I need an external application.

I guess I am looking on some recommendations on a personal media player as well. I have looked at the creative Zen and a couple of the Archos Models. The Archos models are the ones that support MPEG4 and I think the Zen does WMV

Any suggestions would be helpful.... Thanks

[magic]

Well, Beyond TV will convert directly to wmv (with excellent picture quality), thus if easy conversion is high on the priority list, then the Zen would be a better choice. Assuming of course that Zen and Archos are roughly equivelent in quality, value and features- don't know anything about this however. MPEG4 encloders are free for personal use, I believe, and you can download software to suuport this (Pocketdivx encloder?)

[Eric3a]

I was hoping Archos would finally come out with their AV 500 series before X-Mas, but alas they didn't.
Some at Archos are saying "december release", so it should happen soon??
Th AV 500 series should have better resolution, act as USB hub, have wifi capability and act as a PDA as well.

If it does materialize that's probably the one I'll settle on.
Eric

[V_D_O]

I just bought myself the Zen; it seemed the best choice at the time, especially because the Microsoft PMC devices appear to have a special menu within BTV. I shall report on how well it works when I get home

[jgourd]

I have the Archos AV380. It is amazing and has features that have been left out of the new models. It is truly a "multi-media swiss army knife".

However, since you are buying for your dad, The Zen is probably a better way to go.

[jsereda]

Most PVP's play divx files.
Search for the Pocket Divx encoder. It's free and has batch processing.
I like it much better than Doctor Divx.
It also has a function to repair a problem caused by Doctor Divx that makes the Audio video out of sync and it only takes about 2 minutes per episode to fix.
By the way I have the AV480 and it's great, I can queue up a dozen shows in about 20 minutes, go to bed and have them all done by morning. Load them on the AV480 and watch them at work. Shhhhhhhh

[Eric3a]

Unofficial word from Archos insider is that the AV500 serie comes out Jan 07th.

Eric