Holiday Gift Guide 2008: Portable digital video players

A couple days ago I posted my Holiday Guide for MP3/audio players and a couple of commenters asked where ARCHOS and Cowon were on the list. I tried to stay focused on audio focused devices in that guide, although many digital media players today can play both audio and video. This guide focuses on devices that have the primary function of video playback, that similarly can also play audio.

While the iPod touch and even the Microsoft Zune are very good digital video players that many find better than a dedicated personal video player, I am not including them in this guide because the focus of those devices is music first so you can check them out in the MP3 player guide if you are interested in them.

The digital video players covered in this guide have good multi-format support, compelling hardware, and some other unique features. These video playing devices are good devices to have for commuters, business travelers, and those that want to enjoy video content away from a large TV at home. Keep in mind though that you can also use your iPod, Zune, iPhone or even PSP for enjoying video on the go too.

Archos 7

There seem to be two main companies focused on leading the digital video player market and the one company who has devices that I have personally seen and used for a

bit is ARCHOS. Their newest devices is just now hitting the streets and is actually marketed as an Internet Media Tablet. The ARCHOS 7 is the premier product in the ARCHOS lineup. The device has a large 7 inch 800×480 pixels display with 16 million colors and provides support for WMV, AVI, MPEG4, DiVX and Flash video formats. You can stream video content stored on your PC to the ARCHOS 7 via WiFi. YouTube video support is also included.

The ARCHOS 7 comes with either a 160GB or 320GB hard drive, runs a Linux OS, has an integrated 802.11 b/g WiFi radio, USB 2.0 port, supports music playback (MP3, WMA, OGG, and AAC) and image viewing (JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF). You can also use it to browse the web with the integrated Opera browser and Adobe Flash player. The integrated kickstand and stereo speakers allow you to enjoy video content on the go.

There is an optional DVR Station available that lets you use the ARCHOS 7 to schedule and record TV shows right to the device hard drive and then playback on the ARCHOS or a larger TV, which could be useful in a hotel room.

There is also a 5 inch display model with the same features, called the ARCHOS 5 that comes in 60GB, 120GB, and 250GB hard drive sizes.

Price: $449.99 for 160GB and $549.99 for 320GB