Archos 5 now available at FirstPersonView.co.uk

I've been a fan of Archos products since I first used the AV500 to record FPV flights. The build quality is amazing and the functionality of the AV500 is superb (record in DiVx, USB host, play any movie format, etc).

Unfortunately the AV500 was discontinued a few years ago so I've recently been testing the new Archos 5 product from the latest Archos range. The Archos 5 is billed as an 'Internet Tablet' and has WiFi and the Opera Internet browser built in as well as Flash 9.

You need to buy the 'DVR Snap On' to record analogue video which is a bit of a shame but once you've got that its an excellent choice for recording your FPV adventures in a digital format. You can then easily transfer them to your PC, add a bit of music and stick them on YouTube!

I've found the Archos 5 60gb to be an excellent device with a fabulous screen, excellent touch screen element, brilliant internet browser, flawless movie playback (although Archos charge about £12 more for a downloadable codec to allow you to play all formats), superb recording from a composite video source and very good battery life.

The onscreen keyboard implementation is even pretty decent too - I am writing this blog post on the Archos and I wrote the last one the same way as well.

All in all I am extremely impressed with the Archos 5 60gb.

Website improvement: we now accept Paypal

By implementing Paypal we have given our customers the ability to choose their preferred payment platform and also got around the annoying £500 limit per day per card on NoChex.

If you get to the checkout with over £500 of items in your cart the website will automatically grey out NoChex and direct you to Paypal. You dont need to have a Paypal account to checkout with Paypal either.

Cameras now available in NTSC

I'm pleased to announce that we now stock cameras in both NTSC and PAL versions.

All of the other gear (Goggles, Diversity, etc) work just as well with either NTSC or PAL so there's no need to worry there.

Check it out: www.firstpersonview.co.uk

Website Improvement: Now includes shipping estimator

I'm frequently asked how much shipping will be to a particular country.

The FirstPersonView.co.uk website calculates the shipping cost based on the weight of the item, the destination country and the Royal Mail service chosen but until today it only revealed this information once you'd got to the checkout and entered in quite a few of your details.

Now you can see the shipping price by simply adding the item to the cart and then pressing "Estimate Shipping".

FirstPersonView.co.uk are proud to sponsor the FPV board on rcmf.co.uk

If you frequent the Radio Control Model Flyers forum (RCMF.co.uk) then you may have recently seen a new FPV board and these two graphics appearing on your screens from time to time:


We're proud to sponsor the new board and I hope it will prove to be a popular and useful resource for FPV pilots everywhere. I'll be lurking in there ready to answer any questions that come up about our gear.

First Person View simulator - Found it!

I wrote a few posts ago about my fruitless search for an RC simulator with an FPV mode. RC simulators are doubtless very popular these days and with good reason. I have been searching for an FPV simulator for those same good reasons and I've finally found one!

The simulator is called AeroSIM RC and its fantastic. It offers full FPV mode with an OSD and even head tracking. Of course it also works with your RC Tx through the buddy port like all of the other simulators out there.

I've ordered some SVideo to composite video adaptors to allow me to plug my goggles into my PC and fly FPV from my desk (with my real RC Tx, my head tracker and an OSD on screen)! I can't wait to try this out!

The graphics are based on Google Earth images and AeroSIM comes with a system to create your own scenarios based on your favourite locations, although the process is quite complicated and so far I've been unable to get this to work on Windows Vista.




The graphics aren't at the photo-realistic level that you might have come to expect from programs like Phoenix RC but they're not bad and the physics are just as important in a simulator - for my money the AeroSIM RC simulator is spot on in that respect.

There's a two minute playable demo on the AeroSIM RC website so you can give it a try and make up your own mind.

AeroSIM RC comes with plenty of different aircraft to fly and there are a few game modes to play (fly threw hoops, score points by hitting birds, etc) if you get bored of practising your circuits.

You can also fly the plane from the old fashioned line of sight view or from a chase plane, etc. as well.

The guys behind AeroSIM RC promise to keep building the software and adding new features and updates will be free for life. Sounds great!