Lyra Jukebox adds video playback to the list
By Mike Langberg
Mercury News
Posted on Thu, Nov. 20, 2003
RCA's new Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox at $399 isn't perfect, but it's the first credible product in what could be a very exciting new category: handheld hard-disk players that display video and photographs on top of providing music.
By now, almost everyone knows about portable hard-disk music players because of Apple Computer's very successful iPod. There's also the Nomad Jukebox line from Creative Labs and the new Dell Digital Jukebox, among others. These players run from $250 to $500, offer hard drives from 10 to 60 gigabytes, and feature small monochrome LCD screens for navigating through a collection of songs.
The Lyra AV Jukebox (www.rca.com), also known as the model RD2780, adds one more crucial ingredient: a 3.5-inch color LCD display replacing the small monochrome screen. Along with a beefed-up processor, this lets the Lyra store and play back up to 80 hours of video programming, or hold a mix of video, music and still pictures.
What's especially impressive is the price. At $399 with a 20-gigabyte hard drive, the Lyra AV Jukebox costs the same as Apple's 20-gigabyte audio-only iPod. RCA shipped the Lyra AV Jukebox to stores about a week ago, and it should start appearing on shelves just before Thanksgiving.
Benefits of iPod
I'll stop here for a moment to genuflect before the Colossus of Cupertino, hoping to spare myself the wrath of demented Apple fanatics. Yes, the iPod is the best designed, slimmest and lightest portable hard-disk player. Yes, the Lyra AV Jukebox is almost 50 percent heavier at 10.5 ounces. Yes, the Lyra AV Jukebox's stated battery life is only four hours, half the iPod's.
But there's no denying the appeal of video; the Lyra AV Jukebox is more like a pocket-size TV where iPod and the others are more like radios.
The potential hasn't been missed by the Ogre of Redmond, Wash. Microsoft last month announced the very awkwardly named ``Windows Mobile Software for Portable Media Centers,'' and promises WMSFPMC will drive a new generation of handheld AV players coming from multiple hardware manufacturers in the second half of 2004.
What's here now is a good start. A silvery rectangle at 5 1/4 inches high by 3 1/4 inches wide by 1 inch deep, the Lyra AV Jukebox can slip into a large pocket. The color screen, measuring 2 7/8 inches wide by 2 1/4 inches high, sits in the middle of the Jukebox face, with two rocker buttons on the right side for navigating on-screen menus.
Plugged into a Windows or Macintosh computer through a USB 2.0 cable, the Jukebox appears to the PC as hard drive -- so you move files back and forth by drag and drop. You can even use the Jukebox to store data files, such as Word documents, that can't be played on the device.
For music, the Jukebox plays songs in the MP3 and WMA formats with a menu that lets you browse by artist, album, track title, genre or year. You can also create custom playlists.
For photographs, the Jukebox displays images stored in the near-universal JPEG format. You can show pictures one at a time, or start a slide show that automatically moves through images at a pace you specify.
For video, the Jukebox plays MPEG4 video clips. If you have clips in that format, you can drag them into the Jukebox.
The Jukebox goes another step beyond the iPod by acting as a recorder for both audio and video. There's a ``line in'' jack on the Jukebox that connects to a cable, included in the box, ending in the familiar yellow video jack and red and white audio jacks.
The cable can plug into any audio source -- such as a home stereo system -- to record music in MP3 format. Or the cable can plug into any video source -- such as cable box, videocassette recorder, DVD player or camcorder -- to record full-motion video with sound. The Jukebox holds 40 hours of video recorded this way; to get 80 hours, you must first prepare compressed video on a computer.
In addition to the headset jack for listening to music, there is also a ``line out'' jack for connecting the Jukebox to a stereo or television -- again with the yellow, red and white plugs -- for playing back audio and video.
I spent several days watching movies, listening to music and looking at pictures stored on the Jukebox, and came away satisfied.
Audio, video quality
Audio quality, as far as I could tell, matched other portable MP3 players I've tested. I'd rate video quality on the small screen as acceptable, rather than outstanding, roughly akin to VHS tape with occasional blotchy black rectangles showing up in dark scenes. Digital pictures looked sharp, although colors were slightly faded.
Overall, though, I wouldn't mind watching a movie on the Jukebox during a long airplane flight; the picture quality is no worse than what you see on many in-flight screens.
The battery life, as with every portable product sold today, is somewhat exaggerated. I got about three hours of playback time, still enough to watch two 90-minute movies.
Where the Jukebox fell short is in the details; the product gives off a strong smell of having been rushed to market.
For starters, there are numerous features that display the message ``will be available in future upgrades'' when you select them. RCA promises a free software upgrade soon that will extend battery life to 12 hours for audio playback, by turning off the power-intensive color screen.
Another failing is the documentation. A slender Quick Start Guide brochure is supplemented by a 37-page User's Guide that's only provided in electronic form on the install CD. Even the User's Guide doesn't explain everything.
One more gripe was the fast-forward/fast-reverse control, which worked erratically. Again, RCA is promising a fix through a software upgrade.
But the biggest frustration for me was getting video into the Jukebox.
Recording directly from a VCR or other video source is straightforward, but time-consuming -- a half-hour TV show takes a half-hour to copy into the Jukebox. You can't transfer Hollywood movies, by the way, if they're protected with the Macrovision anti-copy system.
Converting video
Moving video from the computer was almost impossible because, with no indication from the User's Guide, it turns out the Jukebox only supports one specific format: MPEG4 as an .avi file, which isn't used by most video-editing software. Converting digital home videos on your PC into that format isn't easy or obvious; I had to download a program called AVS VideoConverter (www.avsmedia.com) to get the job done.
All these problems are fixable, however, so I'd suggest holding off a few months if you're interested in buying the Jukebox.
A final note: RCA wasn't first to market with an AV jukebox. A small company called Archos (www.archos.com) launched its AV300 line in June, with the AV320 at $599 providing a 20-gigabyte hard drive and 3.8-inch color screen. I haven't looked at the AV320 because it struck me as too expensive -- you can get a decent laptop computer for just a few hundred dollars more -- and because Archos doesn't have the kind of marketing clout commanded by RCA. But Archos is promising a new generation of AV jukeboxes early next year with improved features, and has already cut the price of the AV320 by $50 to meet the Lyra challenge.
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