Review: Neuros OSD Linux Media Recorder

Neuros OSD Linux Media Recorder
Manufacturer: Neuros Technology
Site: Buy from Amazon.com
Price: $229.99


Overview : The Neuros OSD allows you to store and access all your video when, where, and how you want. It connects right to your TV and allows you to record from any video source that uses the familiar red, white and yellow RCA jacks.

With the Neuros OSD, you avoid proprietary lock-in by creating standard format MP4 files that you can play back virtually anywhere (on your TV via the OSD or directly on PCs and portable devices like the iPod™, iPhone™, PSP™ and Blackberry™). Likewise, the Neuros OSD allows you to record directly to whatever storage you want. Typically, this means attaching a USB external hard drive (not included), but recording is also supported over a home network directly to your PC's hard drive, as well as to network attached storage drives and memory cards. Once recorded, you can easily transfer to portables and watch on the go or anywhere.

Specifications :
Video Standard

• Compatible with NTSC, Pal and Secam (input only) standards

Video Recording

• ISO Standard MPEG-4 SP encoding (MP4, ASF)
• QVGA (320x240) @30fps with AAC-LC/MP3/G.726 audio for smartphones, PSP™, iPod™, iPhone™ and PDA’s.
• VGA setting (640x480) @30fps for PC, TV playback.

Video Player

• MPEG-4 SP with MP3 audio, 30fps up to D1 resolution (720x480)
• Quicktime 6
• MPEG-4 AAC-LC stereo
• MP4 format at up to D1 resolution
• H.263 with MP3 audio
• FLV (for Playback of YouTube videos)
• ASF
• AVI (including Divx and Xvid)
• MP4
• WMV (up to QVGA)
• MOV
• MPG
• MPEG

YouTube browser

• Watch YouTube videos on your TV
• Search the entire Youtube library using keywords
• build a list with all your favorite videos

Photo Viewer

• JPEG decoder (baseline up to 32M pixel)
• BMP
• GIF (nonanimated)
• Thumbnail view
• Zoom in/out (2x, 4x)

Audio Player

• Stereo MP3/WMA @ 30-320kbps (CBR & VBR)
• Ogg Vorbis
• FLAC
• WAV
• Stereo MPEG-4 AAC-LC
• G.726

Features

• Schedule (timer) recording
• Customizable slide shows
• One-click record
• IR Blaster to control your set-top box
• Run 3rd party applications

USB Host

• Record to and playback content from any USB mass storage device

Ethernet

• Connect to your network
• Save recordings to network storage
• UPnP support
• Stream Audio/Video from Internet
• Download multimedia content from Internet
• Connect to Windows Networks (Samba client support)

Complete System Includes

• Standard A/V RCA Interface Cables (European units also contain SCART adapters)
• 110-240V AC/DC Power Supply
• Stand
• IR Blaster
• Remote Control
• Abbreviated Users Manual

Dimensions and Weight

• 14 x 14 x 3.2 cm (5.5 x 5.5 x 1.25 inches)
• Weight 230g (8oz)

Upgradeability

• System updates and 3rd party applications available at www.neurostechnology.com/support/
• Automatic built-in software update

Storage Card Compatibility

• Memory Stick: Duo and Pro Duo
• Compact Flash: Type I and Type II
• Microdrives with CF type II interface
• Secure Digital (SD)
• Multi Media Card (MMC)
• USB thumbdrives
• External Hard Drives

Quality/Usability : The Neuros OSD is a fascinating Linux powered piece of hardware. When I first saw images of the Neuros OSD, I thought the device would be fairly big. After receiving the Neuros OSD, I was fooled and tricked. The size is fairly small. The UI is not bad as its basic and to the point.

Setting up the Neuros OSD is as simple as it can get if you know how to hook up electronics such as DVD/VCR, computers or just even your video game consoles. Its pretty much self explanatory. There are even text to help you in case some ports look the same.

Those who have a network setup, hooking the Neuros OSD is fairly easy as well. Simply plug in cat5 cable and OSD will automatically configure itself according to your DHCP server. If you have a static IP, there is a devoted menu setting so you can set this up but may take a little longer to get it running.

Recording Video : OSD allows you to record and schedule recordings. To save your recordings, you'll need either a USB storage device, network or memory card. Unfortunately, there is no harddrive. Would have been nice if one was included.

Pressing the red "RECORD" button on the remote will present you with a menu as to where you would like to record to. Once you have chosen the destination, press the "ENTER" button and the recording will begin.

Scheduling a recording is a nice feature. The OSd a feature called IR Blaster. The IR Blaster changes the channel! For example, you want to schedule the OSD to record your favorite show at 8pm and then record another show at 9pm on a different channel, the IR Blaster will automatically change the channel on your cable box and will record both shows. At the scheduled time, OSD will automatically start recording to whatever destination you chose to save to.

Once finished recording, you can transfer the files to your PSP, iPod or other devices that support the format. The quality is not the greatest and you wont get HD quality, but it is enough to keep you happy.

Video Playback : You can choose playback from different sources such as SD, microdrives, compactflash, thumbdrives, etc. Once you have chosen the file you want to play, Neuros OSD will automatically playback the file. It can playback files such as MP4, WMV, ASF, Quicktime, FLV and many more.

There were some sync issues but this was probably due to the high bitrate. This can be fixed either with a slightly lower bitrate but this can also be due to the lack of memory on the Neuros OSD.

Audio Playback : Neuros OSD not only lets you playback video but it lets you play audio files as well. MP3 was only tested for this review and I did not notice any distortion during audio playback. It can also play back wma, ogg, aac, g.726, wav and flac. You can shuffle songs and build playlists.

Neuros OSD is capable of being a picture viewer by decoding bmp, jpeg and gif (non-animated).

Since the Neuros OSD is open source, there are communities that develop for such devices. So you can add third party applications to the Neuros OSD. Great thing about this is that Neuros listens and works closely with the community to help improve and add features. You can visit Neuros' community whether you're a developer, user or just want to provide feedback simply by going here.

Conclusion : Overall, the Neuros OSD Linux Media Recorder is a great piece of hardware. Some of its biggest features is open source, no DRM, the ability to do what you want to do and being able to save to whatever format you want such as thumb drives, SD, memory cards and even external hard drives! If there is ever a problem or a bug, it can be easily fixed or "squashed" since OSD is open source. The settings allows you to configure how you want to record your files such as such as playback device, resolution, where to save to, framerate, video bitrate, audio format and audio bitrate. The ideas, support are endless with the support of developers and from the community. This is what makes the product great rather than be locked in to the limited functions. However, the price range may scare some people but for a open source devices that lets you use any media format and the ability to playback and ability to schedule record...you cant go wrong.

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