The Video MP3 400 does not require any drivers to operate, and will function correctly on any USB-enabled Windows PC, from 98 to XP, and quite possibly well beyond, but users will want to install the provided utilities to get the most out of their multimedia unit.
X-Micro provides a comprehensive set of conversion tools to ensure cross-format compatibility to their units. Three conversion units and one firmware updater are included on the CD, and all are highly recommended.
The AMV Convert Tool will convert any video file into the Video MP3 400’s native file format, the MTV-endorsed AMV file format. While marketing and MTV are pushing AMV primarily as a music video file format, this utility will happily convert anything from feature movies to holiday home clips into AMV-compliant files. No fiddling with screen sizes or bit rates is required: put the file in at one end, and get an AMV out at the other. It’s video conversion made easy, and painless.
A 45-minute video file will take just under 50 minutes to convert on an older Celeron processor, and considerably less on faster CPUs, for a final AMV file of just under 143MBs.
The AMV Player plays AMV files on any Windows PC. It’s functional and fast, though it lacks any kind of video scaling filtering, which means that the native 96*52 pixels look pretty ugly when enlarged beyond their 100% size, calibrated for the MP3 400’s OLED screen.
Voice recording conversion is carried out by the Sound Convert Tool, that will turn any recording made with the unit into a standard (or compressed) WAV file, for playback on any other PC or portable device.
Last, but not least, the MP3 Upgrade Tool is a BIOS flasher that will connect to the device and install firmware updates when they are released from X-Micro’s website.
So, the software is solid and the hardware well thought out – let’s see how well it performs.
Page 01: Introduction
Page 02: The Hardware
Page 03: The Software
Page 04: Performance
Page 05: Conclusions
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