Archos PMA 400 User manual

EnglishLanguageUserManual
Pocket Media Assistant PMA400™
Video Player & Recorder / Music & Audio / Wifi / Linux®/ Personal Information Manager (PIM)
Please visit our website to download the most recent manual and software for this product.
PN: 103647V11

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English 3
Français 39
Deutsch 78
Español 118
Italiano 115

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Dear Customer,
ARCHOS thanks you for your choice of this exciting PMA400™ Personal Media Assistant.
Based on the tried and tested Linux®operating system, you can now get all the entertainment
you want, right in the palm of your hand. This guide will explain to you the functions of the
PMA400™. This product is, in reality, a computer. Our engineers have packed this product
with many functions and capabilities*. The better you know how to use it, the more
enjoyment you will get from it. Remember, with the PMA400, you can…
•Record video from your television, VCR, or any video source
•Play MPEG-4 movies
•Listen to and record digital music files
•Download images from a digital camera
•View photo images
•Play regular games as well as Mophun®based games
•Use it as an Internet browser or E-mail device
•Use it as a Personal Information Manager (calendar, appointments, address book, etc.)
•Add third party software for a variety of tasks
•Store any type of data file, it’s a portable hard drive too!
We wish you many years of enjoyment from your PMA400™ product. Don’t forget to check our
web site (www.archos.com category software), as we periodically update the Archos PMA400™
internal software to offer new functions and improved features.
The ARCHOS TEAM
*As our engineers are always updated and improving the software, your device’s software
may have a slightly different appearance or modified functionality than presented in this
manual.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1Overview ...................................................................................................................6
1.1 Ports, Buttons, and Connectors........................................................................................6
1.2 Application tabs................................................................................................................7
1.3 The Touch Screen and Text Input.................................................................................... 8
1.4 Updating the Operating System....................................................................................... 8
1. Download the file aimage.img.................................................................................9
ATTENTION Macintosh®Users..................................................................................9
2. Read the History.txt File .........................................................................................9
3. Copy to PMA400 System Folder.............................................................................9
4. Reset the PMA400 and set the time and date.........................................................10
1.5 Changing the Language....................................................................................................10
2Connecting/Disconnecting the PMA400 to/from your PC............................................10
2.1 Connecting the PMA400.................................................................................................. 11
2.2 Disconnecting the PMA400 from your Computer...........................................................11
Windows®...............................................................................................................12
Macintosh®...............................................................................................................12
3Music Application............................................................................................................13
3.1 Playing Music...................................................................................................................13
Button controls while a song is playing.......................................................................15
3.2 The ARCLibrary™ - Browsing by Artist, Album, or Title.............................................15
3.3 Putting Music onto your PMA400................................................................................... 15
3.4 Play Music through your Home Stereo............................................................................ 16
3.5 The Resume Functions.....................................................................................................16
4AudioCorder Application................................................................................................16
5MUSIC - Using iTunes™ with your PMA400 ...............................................................17
6Photo Application ............................................................................................................18
6.1 Transferring pictures to your PMA400............................................................................ 18
7Video Application ............................................................................................................19
7.1 Playing Video Files from the Internet.............................................................................. 20
8VideoCorder Application................................................................................................20
Manual Recording ......................................................................................................20
Scheduled Recordings................................................................................................21
8.1 Setting other Recording Parameters................................................................................. 21
8.2 Copy Protection................................................................................................................ 22
9VIDEO – Setting the Infrared Emitter Code.................................................................22
9.1 Part 1 : Choose your Category, Brand, and Model.......................................................... 22
9.2 Part 2: Testing the channel changer................................................................................. 23
9.3 Part 3: Give your channels a name ..................................................................................23
10 File browser Application.................................................................................................24
11 Personal Information Management (PIM) Applications..............................................25
11.1 Today ........................................................................................................................25
11.2 Calendar ........................................................................................................................25
11.3 Contacts ........................................................................................................................ 25
11.4 Todo List ........................................................................................................................25

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12 Miscellaneous Applications.............................................................................................25
12.1 Clock ........................................................................................................................25
12.2 World Time ......................................................................................................................25
12.3 Calculator ........................................................................................................................ 25
12.4 Text Editor........................................................................................................................26
12.5 System Info.......................................................................................................................26
12.6 Help Browser....................................................................................................................26
12.7 Mophun®........................................................................................................................26
13 Internet Applications.......................................................................................................26
13.1 E-Mail ........................................................................................................................26
13.2 Opera™ Browser..............................................................................................................27
14 Audio-Visual Settings ......................................................................................................27
14.1 TV Output ........................................................................................................................ 27
14.2 VideoCorder Settings....................................................................................................... 27
14.3 Equalizer ........................................................................................................................27
15 Hardware Settings ...........................................................................................................28
15.1 LCD Settings....................................................................................................................28
15.2 Light & Power.................................................................................................................. 28
15.3 Recalibrate........................................................................................................................ 28
15.4 Network ........................................................................................................................28
Start the Network Application......................................................................................28
Choose your service...................................................................................................29
Choose the IP Configuration Type..............................................................................29
Scan for active Access Points.....................................................................................30
Choose the Access Point............................................................................................30
Service Created..........................................................................................................31
Browsing the Web or Using E-mail .............................................................................31
16 Software & Other settings...............................................................................................31
16.1 Language ........................................................................................................................31
16.2 Security ........................................................................................................................31
16.3 Appearance....................................................................................................................... 32
16.4 Launcher ........................................................................................................................ 32
16.5 Date/Time ........................................................................................................................32
16.6 Software Packages............................................................................................................ 32
16.7 Restart ........................................................................................................................32
16.8 Application Services ........................................................................................................ 32
16.9 Plug-in Manager...............................................................................................................32
17 Installing & Using Qtopia™ Desktop.............................................................................33
17.1 Installation........................................................................................................................33
17.2 Usage ........................................................................................................................33
17.3 Synchronizing with Microsoft®Outlook ......................................................................... 33
18 Troubleshooting...............................................................................................................34
18.1 USB Device Connection issues........................................................................................ 34
18.2 Charging and Power issues .............................................................................................. 35
18.3 PMA400 locks up (freezes operation) or Stops............................................................... 35
18.4 File issues, corrupted data, formatting, and partitioning.................................................35
Windows®ME Running Scan-Disk (Error Checking)...................................................36
Windows®XP & 2000 Running Check Disk Utility (ChkDsk).......................................36

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19 Legal .................................................................................................................36
19.1 Warranty and Limited Liability .......................................................................................36
19.2 Warnings and Safety Instructions .................................................................................... 37
19.3 FCC Compliance Statement............................................................................................. 37
19.4 Electrostatic Discharge.....................................................................................................37
19.5 Avoiding Hearing Damage ..............................................................................................38
19.6 Copyright Notice.............................................................................................................. 38
19.7 LCD Pixel Policy ............................................................................................................. 38
The complete manual in different languages is available on the hard drive of your PMA400 under
/Archos/Manuals.
!!Backup the .zip folder!!!
You will find a file PMA400_Recovery.zip on the PMA400 hard drive in the folder
/Archos/PMA400_Recovery_zip. Please back this up onto your PC just in case you need to do a
complete system recovery in order to return your PMA400 to its original factory delivered state.
1 Overview
1.1 Ports, Buttons, and Connectors
a Hard drive activity indicator
b On indicator
c* Adapter/Charger Connected
d Move up (Increase volume when playing music or video)
e Move down (Decrease volume when playing music or video)
f Move Left (Move to left window in dual browser)
g Move Right (Open or move to right window in dual browser)
h On/Enter/Play – Hold for 3 seconds to turn on
i Escape/Stop/Standby – Hold for 3 seconds to put into standby mode
j Archos button - Scroll through the open applications

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k Menu button – Choose an application tab or select menu item
l Home button – Returns to main screen. Scrolls through the tabs.
m Hold 3 seconds to switch between internal and external display. A single short click will be
interpreted as a tab key in applications that use tabbing.
n TFT LCD Touch screen 320 x 240 pixels. Press lightly with the included stylus.
o Built-in loud speaker
*When the PMA400 is charging, this light will start to blink when the battery is 90% charged. To
charge the battery to its full capacity, leave it plugged into the charger for at least one more hour.
a Infrared communications port
b Microphone
c Headphone & AV in/out Multi-connect
jack – connect headphones, TV cradle, or
optional adapter.
d Power connector – use only the provided
Archos AC adapter/charger.
e USB 1.1 Host port – To attach compatible
USB devices to PMA400
f USB 2.0 Device port (USB 1.1
compatible) – use to see the PMA400 as
hard drive on your computer
1.2 Application tabs
Qtopia™ menu Archos ●Productivity ●Games ●Settings ●Documents
The PMA400’s interface is partitioned into five main application sets, or tabs. You can change
from one tab to another by clicking on the tab itself with the stylus (the PMA400’s screen is touch
sensitive), clicking the Home button, or by selecting it from the Qtopia™ menu on the bottom left
of the screen.
Pocket AV Tab
This contains the music playing and recording applications, the video playing and recording applications,
the photo viewing application, the file management application, and a resume playing application.

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Productivity Applications Tab
This contains applications such as E-mail, an Internet browser, a calendar, agenda, contacts, and others.
Games
A number of games have been included with your device. Further, there is a Mophun®game
engine found in the productivity applications tab. This is a special game playing platform. You can
check the Archos website for a list of available games to purchase.
Settings
This set of applications are to regulate the operation of your PMA400. They include setting the
clock, setting the interface language, setting a security password, and setting your network
parameters in order to use the built-in Wifi capabilities.
Documents
This tab will display all of your files that are located in the Documents folder which is at the top
level of the file hierarchy system. All ‘Documents’ (files) can be shown or just documents of a
certain type. These display regardless if they are in subfolders within the Documents folder. This
is where you will keep all your working documents.
1.3 The Touch Screen and Text Input
The PMA400 is equipped with a tactile screen. You can lightly press on it with your finger or use
the included stylus in order to start an application or to interact with a program. There are three
methods to enter text or numbers into your PMA400 when an application calls for textual
information to be entered. If you need to enter text, click on the text entry button (1) and then
choose your text entry method (2).
(1) (2)
Method: Handwriting Recognition
You write your characters on the screen itself. You must train yourself to write in the way that the
PMA400 can easily understand your written letters by using the training tutorial (circled question
mark on the right of the input screen).
1.4 Updating the Operating System
Archos periodically updates the Operating System (OS) and makes it available for free download
on the ARCHOS website (www.archos.com). Updates to the Operating System include new
features, feature improvements, and bug fixes. You should check to make sure that you are

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running the most recent version of the OS. The current version you are running can be found under
Applications > System Info > Version. The most recent version available can be found at
www.archos.com under the heading Download > Software.
1. Download the file aimage.img
The image file to download AIMAGE.IMG is quite large – approximately 22 MB. If you have only a
telephone modem connection, you should consider finding high speed connection to download the file because
of this large size. When you click on the link to download the new OS file, your browser may warn you that
the contents of the download may harm your computer. This is because the Windows®system does not know
what an .IMG file is. Be assured that Archos has made every effort to ensure that the file does not contain
viruses. Click on the option Save to download this file to a convenient place, such as My Documents, in order
to later copy this file to your PMA400. If your PMA400 is connected to your PC, you can even save it directly
to the System folder in your PMA400.
ATTENTION Macintosh®Users
Macintosh®users should be especially careful when they download and save this file to their Macintosh®
computer. Do not double-click on it. Macs use .img files and if you double click on this saved .img, it will try
to open it. Instead, simply copy it from your Macintosh to your PMA400’s System folder. Just drag and drop.
2. Read the History.txt File
On the Archos website, you will also find next to the OS download, a text file which details the list of changes
from the previous version of the OS.
3. Copy to PMA400 System Folder
Connect your PMA400 to your computer and then copy the AIMAGE.IMG file to the System
folder of the PMA400. Since there will be an older version of this file on your PMA400 already,
your computer will ask if you want to overwrite the current file. Click on Yes. Once this file is
copied, safely disconnect the PMA400 from the computer.
Attention: The aimage.img must always remain in the System folder of the PMA400. Even once
you have updated your PMA400, you must not remove that file.

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4. Reset the PMA400 and set the time and date
In order for the new software
update to take effect, you need to
reset the PMA400. Once you
disconnect it from the computer,
use a small pointed object such as a
paper clip, to press the recessed
RESET button on the bottom of the
PMA400.
It will turn off. Turn on the PMA400 now and it will boot up the new operating system. You
should check to verify that the clock time and date are correct after a reset.
1.5 Changing the Language
The PMA400 interface can be set to English (default), French, German, Italian, or Spanish. To
change the language, go to Settings then Language and select your desired language. Click OK
and wait a few moments. Your PMA400 will return in shortly in the new language.
2 Connecting/Disconnecting the PMA400 to/from your PC
Note that when the PMA400 is connected to a computer, it will use more energy than usual. Your
battery power will be consumed at a higher rate than normal. If the PMA400 looses power while
connected to your computer you could damage your directory structure and/or loose data. Thus,
you should always use the AC adapter when connected to your computer. Be careful to
understand the disconnection procedure also since disconnecting incorrectly can lead to data loss
or computer/PMA400 freeze up. The PMA400 is not compatible with Windows®NT, Windows®
95, or Windows®98 (first edition). While connected as a hard disk to your computer, the PMA400
buttons are blocked and are no longer functional.

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2.1 Connecting the PMA400
Use the power adapter to prevent the PMA400 from shutting off due to low power.
(This could cause damage to the contents of the hard disk if not done.)
Plug the USB cable into your running computer.
Turn on the PMA400 – wait until it completely boots up.
Plug the other end of cable into your now running PMA400.
Windows®ME, 2000, XP (Home/professional)
When connected, the PMA400 will be
recognized as a Mass Storage Class (MSC)
Device and display automatically within a few
seconds of being connected. You will see a
new drive letter, such as E: in My Computer
called PMA400. You can now use the hard
disk called PMA400 like any other external
hard disk. Simply access it using Windows®
Explorer to drag and drop files to and from the
PMA400’s hard drive. If it is not automatically
recognized, please refer to the troubleshooting
section at the back of this manual.
Macintosh™ OS X (10.2 Jaguar and 10.3 Panther)
If you have OS 10.2, you must update to version 10.2.4 or newer.
This is a free update from Apple®Computer. You will not require
any special installation of software drivers or extensions. You
simply plug the PMA400 into your Macintosh as enumerated
above, and within a few seconds, the PMA400 will be recognized
as a Mass Storage Class (MSC) device and mount on the desktop.
You can now use the Hard disk called PMA400 like any other
external hard disk.
2.2 Disconnecting the PMA400 from your Computer
WARNING: You must properly remove (unmount) your PMA400 from the computer before
disconnecting the USB cable to avoid loss of data or freezing the computer and/or the PMA400.
DO NOT SIMPLY PULL OUT THE USB CABLE AT ANY TIME!

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Windows®
To safely disconnect the PMA400 hard disk, click on the system tray remove icon (green arrow as
shown below) and follow the instructions. Wait until you get a message saying that you can safely
unplug the device before disconnecting the USB cable. Attention: The operating system will not
allow you to safely disconnect the Multimedia PMA400 if you have an open file from it in a
running application. You will have to close all open PMA400 files in any running application.
Sometimes, even when files are closed in an application, you will have to shut down the
application. Using the green disconnect arrow in the system tray will then allow you to safely
disconnect the PMA400.
1. The safe remove icon is in the system tray next to the clock.
Windows®XP Windows®2000 & Windows®ME
2. Click on the icon to eject (unmount) the PMA 400 from the computer and select the ‘Safely
remove’ message.
Windows®XP
3. There will be a message indicating that it is now safe to disconnect the PMA400. You can now
go ahead and unplug the USB cable from the PMA400.
Windows®XP
Macintosh®
Drag the PMA400 hard disk icon towards the trashcan, the trashcan
will become a big arrow as shown in the screen shot to the left. Drop
the hard disk icon onto the arrow. The hard disk icon will disappear
from the desktop. You can now safely unplug the USB cable from
your PMA400 and/or computer.

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3 Music Application
3.1 Playing Music
This is the music player application. When you click on this icon in the main screen,
you will be sent directly to the Music Browser. From the music browser you can
create a playlist of songs or you can just select a song and start playing it.
1. Choose to access your music by browsing
folders or by music characteristics. When you
play a song, all songs from the group will be
added to the playlist and the selected song will
start playing.
2. To create a playlist, click the RIGHT button
and the playlist window will appear.
3. Click the LEFT button to go back to the
music browser window. Choose a song or folder
of songs and click the PLAY button. The folder
of songs will be added to the playlist.
4. Various playlist commands exist in the pull-
down menu or in the playlist window.

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5. When you save a playlist, it will be saved to
the Music folder. Update the ARCLibrary and it
will then also be available in the Playlist
category.
6. Clicking the play button on a playlist will
load playlist and then start playing the first song
of the list.
The main screen of the music application is shown below. You can also go to the music browser
screen (to add more songs into the currently playing list of songs), the playlist screen (to see what
songs are in the current playlist), and the Equalizer screen (to adjust the sound quality).
A MusicApplication
B Song title* or file name
C Album* or current folder
D Artist* or parent folder
E Next track to be played
F Go to the Music Browser screen
G Show the current playlist
H Show the Equalizer screen
I Turn on/off the built-in speaker
J Play Order : Click on one to activate
K Song recording info
L *APIC Album picture
M Close Application
N Help icon
O Status: Playing
P Current Directory
*If the MP3 file contains these ID3 tag data

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Button controls while a song is playing
Increase the Volume
Click once : Play the previous song in the
folder or playlist
Hold : Fast reverse through the song.
Click once : Play the next song in the
folder or playlist.
Hold : Fast forward through the song.
µStop Song and return music browser Decrease the Volume Play/pause/resume song
Long hold to go to music browser
3.2 The ARCLibrary™ - Browsing by Artist, Album, or Title
The ARCLibrary is a database of all the songs in the
Music folder. You can choose your music to play by
artist, album, song title, genre, or year. Understand
however that not all music files have this information.
It depends on where you got the file from. Many
music files have information inside them to describe
what the music file is. These are called tags. Some
song files have all of these filled in and others have
none. Files of the type .wav do not have any tags
because the format does not allow it.
When you copy a song file or folder of files to your PMA400, your PMA400 is acting only as a
hard drive and does not ‘know’ what you are copying to it. Once you disconnect it from your
computer, you will have to go the music browser (just start the Music application) and select the
menu bar item Update ARCLIbrary. The PMA400 will then take a look at all the songs in the
music library, check to see if there are new ones, and then add the new ones to the database of
known songs. Now, when you choose to select your music from the various characteristics, you
will see your newly copied music. Understand that if your music files do not have the description
tags inside of them, then it be classified under unknown. The file name will be used in place of
the title if there is no song title tag.
3.3 Putting Music onto your PMA400
Because your PMA400 is seen as an external hard drive when connected to your computer, for
example, PMA400 (E:), you simply put your folders of MP3, WAV, or WMA formatted songs into
the folder Music on the PMA400 by dragging and dropping the files or by copy/pasting. If you have
purchased music from a web site that uses the Microsoft®copy protection system, you must use
Windows Media Player to transfer your music to the device in order for it to be played on the
PMA400. You will also be required to install the Archos supplied service provider plug-in in order
for Windows®Media Player to be able to recognize your PMA400 as a music device to copy to.

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3.4 Play Music through your Home Stereo
Instead of connecting the red and white AV Out cables of your TV Cradle to your television,
connect them directly to your stereo system’s auxiliary inputs. Then put your device into the TV
cradle and play your music from there. You will have to adjust the output volume of the PMA400
so that it is neither too strong (creates distortion) or too weak (cannot hear it). Alternatively, you
can purchase the Archos travel kit which includes an AV Cable. With this cable, just plug it into
the headphone jack of the PMA400 and the other end’s white and red plugs to the Aux in, CD in,
or line-in of your stereo system.
3.5 The Resume Functions
You will notice on your PMA400 the Resume Icon. Use this icon to resume the last
played audio or video file. That is, it will pick up from the last played video or audio
file that did not completely finish.
For example, if you are listening to a long audio file and you stop it during mid play and shut off
your PMA400, you can continue listening from that point the next time you turn on your PMA400
by clicking on the Resume icon. In addition to this resume icon, if you stop a song in mid play,
and shut down your device, the next time you play the music file, it will start playing from the
point that you stopped it at previously.
4 AudioCorder Application
With this application you can make digital audio recordings from the built-in
microphone (Int. Mic), a connected dynamic microphone (Ext. Mic), or from a line
level audio source (Line In) such as a cassette player, CD player, or the line output
of your home stereo system.
You can use the red and white
cables (AV in) of your TV Cradle
to make line-in recordings or you
can purchase the optional Archos
travel kit which will allow you to
make line-in recordings with just a
cable and adapter, thus making
recordings anywhere, and without
the TV Cradle.

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a Choose your recording source, Internal microphone, external microphone, or line in.
b Choose the quality of the recording (see technical specs for exact bitrates)
c Choose the format of the recording. .wav recordings will not allow artist and album tagging.
d If desired, you can set a fixed recording time.
e Press to pause your recording. Press again to resume recording.
f Press to start your recording.
g Press to stop your recording.
h Default names for the recording. Using the text input system, you change these.
i Recording time left or available (left) and elapsed recording time (right).
j VU meters for the recording level
k Recording gain control
Your recording will be saved in the folder /Music/Recordings. You can use the File application to
move or copy your files to a different location if desired. A recording will use the field Title as the
file name.
5 MUSIC - Using iTunes™ with your PMA400
The easiest way to transfer music files between a Macintosh®computer and
your PMA400 is to use the Macintosh Finder™ to drag and drop the files to
and from your Macintosh®. Keep in mind that Macintosh®uses the AAC
format natively and that only your MP3, WAV, and WMA files will play on
your Archos device.
However, for Macintosh®users who do want to use the PMA400 with iTunes®, Archos has
developed a special i-Tunes®plug-in. You will find the folder iTunes plug-in in the Archos folder
on the PMA400 as well as on the Archos website. In this folder you will find a plug-in for Mac OS
9.x and another folder for Mac OS 10.x. You will also find a JPEG image illustrating where you
need to copy the plug-in to. Once this is done, iTunes™ will recognize the PMA400 as a ‘Device’.
To make your user experience easy as possible, please keep in mind the following.
1) When you create your Playlists with iTunes®(you can only create Playlists from songs that
have been copied to your PMA400), your Macintosh®will save these Playlists to the root
directory of your PMA400. It will not save them to the PMA400 Music directory. It would be
best to use the PMA400 itself to make Playlists and then save these Playlists to the Music or
some other convenient folder.
2) When you drag and drop MP3 files from your iTunes®library to your PMA400, the i-Tunes®
program will look at the ID3 tag information of the MP3 file, and create a folder on the root of
your PMA400 using the name of the Artist as the folder name. Then it will take the Album
name ID3 tag, and create a subfolder with that album as its name. Finally, it will take the MP3
song itself and place it into that album subfolder. Thus, although it is a clean structure of artists
and albums, i-Tunes®does not follow the PMA400 convention of placing the music into the
Music folder first.

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6 Photo Application
This is the photo viewer application. When you click on this icon in the main screen,
you will be sent directly to the Photo Browser. From here you can search for your
photos. A thumbnail photo of the highlighted file name will be shown on the right.
The file (or folder) just before and just after will have their thumbnail images shown
to the right just above and below the thumbnail of the highlighted file.
Click on the PLAY button and the highlighted file name will be displayed.
Use the LEFT and RIGHT buttons to view the previous or next photo in the folder. Photo
magnification and rotation icons are available in the status bar above the photo.
6.1 Transferring pictures to your PMA400
You can transfer your pictures to your PMA400 by first putting them on your PC and then
connecting the PMA400 to your computer and cutting/pasting your photo files to the Photos
folder of the PMA400 hard drive.
Another possibility is to connect your digital still camera to the USB Host port using the included
short USB Host cable adapter. If your camera follows the Mass Storage Class (MSC) standard for
USB connection, then your camera will show up in the file browser as the folder /Sda1. If you
look in this folder you will see your photos. See the chapter on the file browser for instructions on
how to copy files in the file browser. Attention: Not all digital cameras are MSC type devices.

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7 Video Application
This is the video viewer application. When you click on this icon in the main screen,
you will be sent directly to the Video Browser. Like a music file, you simply
highlight the video file and then click the PLAY button.
The thumbnail images on the right side will show you a frame from the highlighted video file
(centre) as well as a frame from the file above and the file below the highlighted one. Keep in
mind that the PMA400 will only play video files that are encoded in MPEG4 format (see section
8.3 for details). Other files such as .mov, or .mpg, will not automatically be playable.
Select the desired video file and click PLAY. Click on the button (top right) for file info.
To watch your video files on a television,
make sure you have connected your TV
Cradle correctly to your television (see the
TV Cradle Manual) and then hold down on
the LCD/TV button on the top of the unit or
hold down on TV/LCD button on the
Archos remote control for 3 seconds. If you
don’t see a clear color image, you may have
to set your PMA400 to your local television
standard (NTSC or PAL) in the Settings >
TV Out. The screen overlay information
will disappear after a few seconds.
Use the PLAY button to pause/resume the video.
Use the UP/DOWN buttons to control the volume.
Hold down the RIGHT/LEFT buttons to fast forward or fastreverse through the video.
Touch the screen to Hide / Show the overlaid video file information.

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7.1 Playing Video Files from the Internet
The number of encoding and compression schemes currently used to create video files is very
extensive and seems to change on a weekly basis. There are so many standards, formats, and
encryption methods that it is very possible that the video file you download from the Internet will
not play right away on your device. Due to certain “variations”, even when video files are
formatted in “MPEG4” they may not play right away. The PMA400 series can play video files of
type MPEG4 Simple Profile which have an MP3, PCM (standard .wav) or IMA-ADPCM
(compressed .wav) audio sound track. It can play such video files at a maximum size of 720 by
576 pixels (25 frames/second). The PMA400 will not directly play files of type .mov, .mpg,
.mpeg. If you have video files of these other types that you would like to view on your PMA400,
they will have to be converted first. You will have to use the software found in the Archos folder
to re-encode them into the proper MPEG4 format with an MP3, PCM, or IMA-ADPCM sound
track. See the chapter Creating MPEG4 Video Files with your Computer for details.
8 VideoCorder Application
This is the video recorder application. Connect your TV Cradle to your home
entertainment system as shown in the TV Cradle Manual. Once this is done,
you can use the VideoCorder application to make recordings like you do with a
video cassette recorder, either directly, for a fixed amount of time, or scheduled
for when you are away. When you click on this icon, you will go directly to the
pre-recording screen. From this screen you can instruct the PMA400 exactly
how and when you want your video recording to be made.
Manual Recording
If you click on the red Record button on the bottom right of the screen, your recording will start.
Click on the Stop button next to it when you want to stop your recording. You will find your
recorded video in the folder /Video/recordings.
Use the RIGHT and LEFT buttons to adjust the volume level input. You can also drag the control
on the left bottom of the screen. You can see the sound intensity on the VU meters in the center
bottom of the screen. On the top left of the screen, you will see the recording signal type NTSC