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At CES I got a chance to sit down with Larry Smith, COO ARCHOS, and talk about his ARCHOS TV+.  To say he was passionate about this device would be a gross understatement; he was downright giddy about it.  Since then, Apple has re-intro’d their Apple TV so I thought I’d get Larry’s response to it.  In short, he still isn’t impressed.

Why?  Well the biggest difference is TV+s ability to be your DVR.  Oh yeah, and a WiFi DVR.  That combination seems to me like a knock out punch, but throw in more memory for the price Apple is charging and you’ve got a compelling value proposition.  Here is is the interview:

Gadgetell:  In your view, how does Apple’s TV’s Take 2 size up to your TV +?

The Archos TV+ does significantly more than Apple TV, so we don’t compare them much ourselves. The Archos TV+ lets you surf, stream, download, record and transfer content. With the TV+ you can surf the Web on your TV from your living room, stream media files from the PC or Mac to the TV (similar to Apple TV), watch streaming YouTube and other online videos on your TV, record content with the DVR function using the built-in TV Program Guide, and transfer any of these recordings to your ARCHOS Generation 5 PMP or any USB device. No other product has packaged this full entertainment experience into one home electronics device. This is what we call a WiFi DVR.

Gadgetell:  Apple has a lot of studios almost begging to get their content their, how can Archos compete with that?
 

We don’t actually agree with this, as some of the studios are very actively looking for alternatives to iTunes. ARCHOS has an interesting content play up its sleeve, which we can’t discuss now. However, we do have the ARCHOS Content Portal available on all of our Generation 5 PMPs that allows wireless downloads of movies from CinemaNow directly to our players. Apple doesn’t allow wireless video downloads today. We’re very focused on our own content and device strategy and feel we’re way ahead of Apple in many areas.

Gadgetell: Sorry, another Apple question, will the ARCHOS player have the ability to play downloads from iTunes?
       

Apple doesn’t allow other services to download content from iTunes. We do support AAC file playback, but only unprotected AAC. Again, this is an Apple issue, not an industry one.

Gadgetell: We spoke briefly about place-shifting and you mentioned we’d see something in the fall.  Will it be in the form of an add on or another product all together?

        We’ll have more news about this in the first half of this year, and it will work with our Generation 5 line. Unfortunately, I can’t get into more detail on this now.

Sounds to me like Archos is kicking IPTV up a notch, throwing in place shifting and a content surprise could help them make a name in the market.  IMaybe a deal with Netflix???  ‘ll be watching very closely.

Read [Gadgetell]