Some of the enhancements are:

*Audio Graphic EQ enabled! Choose from 21 unique settings as well as a customizable 5 band graphic equalizer.

*Video Book marking enabled! Bookmark and restore up to 10 separate time-indexed locations from each movie on your Lyra™ AV.

*Smart Tagging and Playlist Creation Enabled! By using the plus and minus keys, songs, photos and videos can be tagged for creation of and adding to "playlists" for each media type.

*Video Indexing Feature Enabled! When the menu button is depressed during Video playback, a NEW video banner is presented with +/- 30 second and +/- 15-minute fast forward and fast rewind (small and large arrows).

*PAL Recording Frame rate Bug has been fixed!

So do yourselves a favor and download this last firmware version and start getting the best out of your Lyra RD2780 A/V Jukeboxes!!

I love it! But it does have problems... (Rating: 4.00)
Review : I have been carrying this unit on my daily 2-hour commute since buying it two weeks ago. I record programs I want to watch on the hard drive of my DVD recorder in my absence, then copy to the lyra. Saves me the cost of recording shows I don't want to keep permanently to DVD's just for portability. Wish the timer recording feature allowed selections of smaller than 1/2 hour increments, though. The video and audio quality are plenty good for me.

But... the fast-foward bug is NOT fixed. I have to reset the unit several times daily. It should have come with an attached reset accessory. Plus the leather cover has to be removed to reach the reset hole - not good planning. Also, the cover's see-through plastic over the display ripples and reflects light so it's sometimes a struggle to have a glare-free picture.

Battery life is not impressive -- under two hours for me so far.

You can't name files using the unit directly, but you can re-name in windows explorer when attached to your PC.

On-line customer support is non-existant. I've sent two inquiries -- one about buying additional accessories and the other reporting the FF bug remaining -- both replies came quickly but basically said they weren't equipped to respond.

The buttons are quirky - and if you don't push in the precise direction, you won't get the result you want.

Despite the problems, I really like this unit and will be keeping it.

I love my Lyra ... :) (Rating: 4.00)
Review : I found the negative reviews to be extremely unhelpful. I recorded a movie from my Tivo onto the Lyra and it plays back perfectly. The sound quality was outstanding. Nice surround effect. The picture quality is fairly good but not outstanding. It's definitely good enough to give friends the wow factor.

Recording from Tivo allows to you to "backup" movies. Of course you can not "backup" copyrighted DVD's from a DVD player. Unless, of course you get a Macrovision- disabled DVD player off the internet. Seriously, with a Macrovision-free DVD player you can backup YOUR DVD's (that you purchased) to the Lyra and have it for long trips. I found that 40 hours is the maximum video hours alloweable when using the "High quality" video setting and the "192 kb/s" - best audo setting. The Matrix Reloaded which was 2h 30min used up 1.10 GB.

My computer with Windows XP, recognized the Lyra instantly as a removable drive when plugged into USB port. Very nice. So you can just drag and drop files into the three main folders-"video, photo, audio."

For the reviewer who said, "there is no signal, unable to record." The video source, (Tivo, dvd player) must be on play or the Lyra will not recognize. If it's on pause it will not see the source.

However, some MPEG (not sure what MPEG format) clips I downloaded fromt the internet was not a "recognized format." Supposedly the Lyra will support "AVI and MPEG4-SP."

MP3 playback is outstanding. Excellent sound quality. And it loaded very rapidly via USB to the Lyra. I wish I had USB 2.0 on my computer because the Lyra does support 2.0.

For those complaining about screen quality- you would have to purchase a laptop with a excellent video card and LARGE battery to have better screen quality. I think the picture is fine considering the size and form factor. Any better will require a heavier larger battery. Ie- buy a laptop and lug that around.

I love my Lyra, considering it's size and price...:)

DONT WAIT, GET IT NOW !!!!! (Rating: 5.00)
Review : The first RCA LYRA portable to incorporate video playback, the palm-sized 20GB RD2780 RCA LYRA Audio/Video Jukebox delivers a complete digital entertainment experience in the palm of the hand. About the size of a small picture frame with a 3.5-inch Thin Film Transistor (TFT) LCD screen, the RCA LYRA Audio Video Jukebox also acts as a computer storage device, compatible with multiple audio and video codecs, and can be easily connected to most standard television sets. Measuring a compact 5.2 x 3.14 x 0.98 inches, the versatile RD2780 can play mp3, mp3PRO and Windows Media Audio files.

"Adding video functionality to the digital audio product line is a natural progression for us as we continually seek ways to expand our consumer base and add value," said Redmond. "The RCA LYRA Audio/Video Jukebox is designed to go beyond the digital enthusiast audience and attract both young consumers and frequent travelers looking for an easily portable entertainment source that will deliver hours of entertainment."

Consumers can watch up to 80 hours of pre-recorded television shows, feature films, or home videos directly on the RD2780. It easily connects to a television set via its composite video output and includes both audio and video recording mode. Since the device is essentially a computer peripheral with a hard drive, the display screen can also be used to organize digital audio song files or other types of stored data, including computer files such as word processing documents and presentations. The RCA LYRA Audio/Video Jukebox is also a portable photo album, since JPEG images can be viewed on the RD2780, by either transferring them directly from the PC using a USB 2.0 high-speed connection or by inserting a Compact Flash memory card. The vast hard drive in the RCA LYRA Audio/Video Jukebox can accommodate up to 100,000 JPEG images.

Using the enclosed MusicMatch management software, users can also organize hundreds of hours of mp3 audio files using ID3 tag song data to display artist, album, song title and genre. Music fans can listen to their collection of mp3 files using one of nine playback modes, including normal play, shuffle and repeat, or by programming their own playlists. While listening to music files, the user can also navigate through the library and "tag" songs he or she would like to hear later, or delete from the device.

Other convenience features include auto resume, which "remembers" the track location and volume setting when the power was shut off, and returns to that same spot when the power is returned. Adding to the overall value of the RD2780 are the included AC/DC adapter, e.clipzä clip-style stereo headphones, an audio/video patch cable, carrying pouch and recharge cradle. The RD2780's car kit provides hours of audio entertainment through a cassette adapter. The RD2760 can play for up to 15 hours with its Lithium Ion rechargeable battery

the rca lyra is perfect for travellers (Rating: 5.00)
Review : The RCA Lyra is so niuce to use, it is very easy and so portable that you can fit it in pretty much any pocket. The RCA Lyra can easily have enoug battery to power a video play back for up to four hours with the new free update which you can download from rca.com and I havent even gone far enough to see when it died when listening to music. Its perfect for travellers who get bored on an annoying trip. the only problem is that it pixelates with dark colors.... but its not that bad !!!!!

2nd thought (Rating: 4.00)
Review : Ok, here is the scoop with this thing: I've had this device for about 6 months. About 3 months ago I wrote a review about how good this is. That is until yesterday I decided to load 2000 more mp3's to the +-900 I already had. Man! Was that a mistake or what? When I try to listen to them now, the A/V Jukebox will froze and takes forever to start. Does anybody else have the same problem? If that situation keeps on going I am afraid that my first rating of 5 is going to be degraded to 3 because it certainly does what it says will do, but it does it wrong!!!!
Note:
Ok guys, I found out the reason why it was freezing: When you make a folder that contains more than 300 mp3's, it takes the device a long time to locate the files. What I had to do was split those folders into smaller ones and that way it takes less time to locate the songs. Of course RCA does not say any of this on their user manual. Shame on them!!

Better than iPOD & Archos - buy this!! (Rating: 4.00)
Review : Got this for my son for his teenage birthday. He wanted an ipod, but they're just so antiquated already. He loves this machine, and all the buds are clamoring over it because he can play movies, funny TV clips, all his favorite music, and show photos. It also can play stored movies and music onto a friend's TV or stereo, or do a slideshow from our camera's CF card. Also comes with a tape adapter to play your music on your car's tape player. The size is still pocket-sized and not too heavy (around 12oz.). The video screen is excellent and shows up much better than the Archos models. Comes with nice earbuds and has great sound quality. A HUGE plus is that it comes with all the accessories you need: case, USB cable, two audio/video in/out cables, self-contained battery, tape player adapter, etc. Has 20Gb memory, and if you go to the yahoogroups user site, you'll see that alot of techhies have upgraded their Lyras to 80Gb without much difficulty.