Archos

French company Archos manufactures portable electronics products including media players and storage devices. The company was established in 1988 and introduced its first product, the PCMCIA Memory Card for Commodore Amiga in the market in 1992. Since then, the company has been credited with many innovations including the first CD-Rom Drive with Micro Power Management powered by a laptop PC, the first slimline and miniature CD-Rom Drive, and the first hard-drive based MP3/MP4 jukebox player and recorder. Archos also introduced many types of video recorders including portable digital TV receivers coupled with video recorders which were introduced in 2006.

The current product line is divided into various categories, such as Generation 5, Generation 4, AV series, TV and Video recording equipments, accessories and plug-ins. The Generation 5 range or the Gen 5 line comprises the latest portable media players that offer easy navigation and personalisation of the options. These devices have touch-sensitive screens. The Generation 4 or Gen 4 line media players are recognised by their slim, sleek designs and larger screens with 16 million colours. These players can read all standard formats for DVD. PDF documents can also be accessed via these devices. The AV series from Archos are the mobile digital video recorders that offer easy recording from TV, VCR, DVD, player 2, cable box or satellite receiver. The data can then be transferred to a PC. These players can store up to 55,000 songs. There are many accessories manufactured by Archos that can enhance the recoding and playing of DVD and other media.