.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Move over Fabio, it’s the Pavio
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY In this article, Senior Editor James Booth examines the Pavio from DateXX, a new entry into the portable digital theater/media player field. Find out what kind of features the Pavio brings to the table and what makes it stand out. No Fabio required.
.OTHER
Okay, so this article has nothing to do with Fabio, I just capitalized on his name for the rhyme scheme. What this article does have to do with is the Pavio portable digital theater. This nifty little media device will play video (AVI), music (MP3 and WAV), and digital images (JPG), storing them all on a 30GB hard drive.
The neat thing about the Pavio, shown in Figure A, is that not only can you load your own videos on it, you can hook it up to your TV antenna, satellite dish, cable, VCR, and DVD player to record your own videos.
.FIGPAIR A The Pavio personal digital theater not only plays videos, but lets you make your own.
There’s no shortage of personal media players out there, and Palm and Pocket PCs have been doing the same for years, but Pavio has singular features that make it stand out in the crowd.
.BREAK_EMAIL You’ll have to tap here to read the full story and learn what makes the Pavio our favio.
.H1 The specs
The Pavio comes in a bit larger than your average PDA, as the comparison to my Palm LifeDrive shows in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B Pavio is slightly larger than a standard PDA in order to accommodate the 30GB hard drive.
Pavio’s 3.5-inch TFT screen has a resolution of 480×234, is accompanied by internal stereo speakers, a 30GB hard drive, 3.7v rechargeable lithium ion battery, and two media card slots, one for SD (Secure Digital), and one for CF (CompactFlash). In Figure C, you can find see what the display of a letterbox movie looks like on the Pavio.
.FIGPAIR C The Pavio has a pretty good display for the screen size.
Also included in the retail package are all the cables and cords necessary for Pavio’s operation, with the exception of the S-video cable, a carrying case/sleeve, and headphones, plus the docking station and remote you saw back in Figure A. Not too many components use S-video anymore anyway, but it was nice that it was included. Not to leave you in the lurch when it comes to encoding your music and video, the Pavio comes with full versions of Dr. Divx and MusicMatch.
Pavio packs a lot of features and equipment into a handy-sized package, but how does it measure up? Let’s find out.
.H1 The review
I’ll tell you right off the bat, I think the Pavio is an awesome little device. Like most other men, I forewent the instructions when it arrived and dove right in. The controls and interface are rather straightforward and intuitive from the get go.
The Pavio uses a proprietary operating system, but it’s friendly with all the files it’s suppose to be, and is quite easy to navigate with the controls. The interface is composed of icons for movies, pictures, music, voice files, a file manager, TV, and of course settings. Menus can be navigated with the volume dial in addition to the directional pad.
The OS acts pretty much like a file manager, displaying the appropriately available files in each subsection, and their location (HD, SD, or Compact Flash). All you have to do is highlight a file and click the OK button for the fun to begin.
It doesn’t have to be just for fun though, the Pavio can be used for business as well, to transfer files, show a sales video, or a PowerPoint/slide presentation. With the voice recorder, students and others can record vital seminars and lectures, saving that hand-cramping note taking. And for those of you that use media cards in the course of your business, the Pavio can be used as an interim field storage device, saving you from lugging around a laptop when you need to empty out a full card.
.H1 Videos
Bring your videos along when you’re on the go. Who wouldn’t like to take their favorite TV show, movie, or the big game along with them when they have to leave the comfort of the couch? I always make it a point to have a movie, a book or two, and some music, all digital, with me wherever I go.
The Pavio’s docking station can be attached to your TV, VCR, DVD player, cable or satellite connection, or to your local antenna via RF, AV, or S-video cable, whichever gives you the best results. In Figure D, you can find the back of the docking station with all the media connections.
.FIGPAIR D The Pavio’s docking station will accept all standard media connections.
In this manner, you can record whatever your heart desires. The Pavio even has a TV tuner buried inside of it, so the stations you receive can be scanned and programmed in. There aren’t too many locations left that still have analog cable, but if you live in an area that does, you could program those channels in as well.
You won’t be able to program in the channels for your digital cable or satellite service, as those require a converter box or descrambler to function, but you can record the channel you’re watching. I’m not sure how your system works, but with my DISH system I can only record what I’m watching. But if you have a second box, why waste videotape? Let Pavio record that show on the other channel for you.
Pavio has three different qualities in which you can record video files, QVGA at 1 Mbps (megabits/sec), VGA at 2 Mbps, and VGA Fine at 4 Mbps. I recorded a movie that ran just over 2 hrs onto the Pavio at QVGA to ensure the whole thing would fit, and the quality was just fine. According to the spec sheet, you can record 65 hours, 33 hours, and 16 hours of video at the respective qualities. But I think that may be a bit generous. According to my calculations, about the most you can fit on the hard drive is about 20 hours of video recorded at the lowest quality, and that’s with nothing else on the system.
My calculations may be off, but that just-over-two-hour movie ran 1.4GB. The only real way to find out would be to set the device to record and let it go until it was full. At any rate, the Pavio can only record a single file that’s about 620MB, after the file reaches that size Pavio starts a new file. When they’re played back though, Pavio will automatically play them in sequence. The included Dr. Divx will ensure any externally generated files are encoded in an appropriate format and resolution for the Pavio.
When it comes to playing those video files, the specs project about three hours of video play from a charged battery, and I found that to be true. In fact, I think I actually got about three and a half hours from a full charge. So that would give you two movies of short to average length, or one REALLY long one. Those files can also be played back on a TV, a computer if your video card has the appropriate plugs, or a multimedia projector using the included AV cables.
.H1 Audio
The Pavio can be used as a digital voice recorder, saving the files in WAV format, with the ability to play them back. So that’s one more piece of tech gadgetry you can leave behind. The MP3 player in the Pavio acts pretty much like any other MP3 player I’ve used, it plays them. It can play just one file, repeat it, or shuffle play and repeat that. And there’s also a bass and treble control. Specs claim an average of six hours of music play from a single charge. With the device turning off the screen moments after beginning audio play, six hours is certainly believable.
PDA are good for hauling music files around on, but they have limited storage capacity, even with media cards. That is, unless you want to haul around a bunch of cards. A big part of the iPod’s appeal is that it can hold so many songs in one device. Well, so can the Pavio.
DateXX has included MusicMatch for encoding your own music files, and I actually happen to use MusicMatch as my PC jukebox, so I’m quite familiar with how it works. With it, you’ll be ripping all your audio CDs and taking your music with you on the Pavio wherever you go.
.H1 Pictures and presentations
No more carting around yards of wallet photos, the Pavio has you covered. Its image player allows you to view any single image, or play them in a slideshow. If you save your PowerPoint presentations as JPGs, Pavio will also play those as a slideshow for you, giving you control over how long each slide is viewed.
And by connecting the Pavio to a multimedia projector or TV with the AV cable, you can share them with groups instead of lugging along your laptop. And I’ve seen countless presentations go bad because the laptop software isn’t compatible with the projector, or because the cables aren’t compatible. Pavio solves all that by giving you standard AV cables, and if plays it on the Pavio, it goes out the AV port exactly as it’s displayed.
I think I’ve pretty well covered all the features of the Pavio by now. Rounding them out are a headphone jack of course, a USB port, a kick stand so you can prop the device up on a table, tray, book or whatnot and have it at the appropriate angle for viewing.
.H1 Critique
Now, what do I think of the Pavio? I think it’s great! It’s one of the niftiest devices I’ve come across. At no point did I have a ho-hum feeling about it. Not everyone is a gadget hound, but then, not all gadgets are strictly for gadget hounds. It’s true that laptops and PDAs will cover most of the features of the Pavio, but as of now, no PDA can match its storage capacity. And there aren’t too many laptops that can compete with its range of connectivity.
Not everyone feels the need to cart around a laptop, and many people are intimidated by PDAs, or don’t feel the need for a glorified organizer. That’s not to say those same people wouldn’t benefit from the features of the Pavio. Because the Pavio is small enough to fit in a purse or coat pocket, who wouldn’t want to be able to take TV, movies, music, and pictures with them, all in one convenient package? Even the included digital manual was complete and very easy to understand.
I initially thought the $600 price tag was a bit high, especially as compared to the Creative Zen, the iRiver, and Archos devices, Pavio’s closest competitors. But with the exception of one or two of the devices in those product lines, of which Archos has quite a few, the Pavio is about the only one that will record TV. And of the ones that will, I know one of them isn’t even on the market yet.
Pavio falls right in the middle of the price range for these devices. Sure some are cheaper, but they can’t hold a candle to the range of Pavio’s features. And others cost, or will cost, more when they hit the market. Well who wants to pay more for the same options?
What finally made me reevaluate my feelings on the cost of the Pavio is when I realized that not too long ago I paid $500 for a brand new Palm LifeDrive. A device that has 4GB of storage space as opposed to Pavio’s 30GB, and virtually no recording ability (with the exception of its voice recorder). To say nothing of being able to watch TV.
I do have a couple of complaint/suggestions about the Pavio. The biggest one is that none of the applications can be paused and the device turned off without it defaulting back to the home screen when turned on again. It should come back on right where it was when turned off. And it won’t turn off the screen to save power when these apps are paused. These two things really should be added to the device, even if by means of a software patch.
When in the docking station, the device must be connected to the power adapter in order for the TV antenna to work. I think when an antenna is connected to the docking station it should work from either Pavio power, or adapter power, although I agree it would be another battery drain. When hiking, cycling, camping, having a picnic or whatnot, it would be nice to be able watch TV on the Pavio, and external power isn’t always available in these situations. The docking station takes up so little space I could see it being brought along in these situations if the antenna would work.
And finally, the remote; I love the remote. It will let you navigate and control all features and functions of the Pavio remotely, from play and pause, to volume, to channels, to menu navigation. Every aspect of the Pavio can be run from the remote, but the remote only works when the Pavio is in the docking station and connected to external power.
I think it would be nice if the remote worked directly on the Pavio, without the docking station. But I acknowledge that would require an IR port on the Pavio itself, which would end up being just another battery drain. Some people would be willing to accept a little battery drain to have the remote and TV antenna work without external power.
So what’s the verdict? The verdict is a resounding, "Yes!" The Pavio is an awesome device that I’ve completely fallen in love with. It fits so many circumstances for so many people, from one end of the gadget spectrum to the other. I defy any person to not find himself or herself the better for having a Pavio.
This device came so close to getting our perfect score, but there were a couple of things I would like to see improved, so the Pavio from DateXX gets a 4 out of 5, a very strong rating indeed.
.RATING 4
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources.
For more information on the Pavio from DateXX, visit http://www.paviotime.com.
For more information on the Palm LifeDrive, visit http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/lifedrive/
For more information on Dr. Divx, visit http://www.drdivx.com/.
For more information on MusicMatch, visit http://www.musicmatch.com
For more information on Microsoft PowerPoint, visit http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010857971033.aspx.
For more information on DISH Network, visit http://www.dishnetwork.com/.
For more information on the Apple iPod, visit http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipod.html.
For more information on the Creative Zen, visit http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=210&subcategory=211&product=9882.
For more information on the iRiver, visit http://www.iriveramerica.com/.
For more information on Archos players, visit http://www.archos.com/products/fam_photo_video.html?sid=j223y2jsbjjo4jfbokjs3f.
Oh, and for more information on heartthrob Fabio, visit http://www.fabioifc.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
