A couple of months ago, Dennis Gray of 101 Uses For Baby Wipes asked me what I, as a father, thought was the best electronic gadget of the past 10 years. I told him that in my opinion, it had to be Tivo with its user-friendly ability to schedule television viewing around one’s life, and not vice versa. Unfortunately, we received our Tivo as a package deal with DirecTV who, in their misguided, infinitely lacking wisdom, decided to cripple Tivo-2-Go, the feature that gives one the ability to move recorded shows off of one’s Tivo and onto one’s computer, thus enabling one to enjoy pre-recorded shows anytime and more importantly, anywhere.

Enter the Neuros OSD, which features the catch phrase, “Free your video.” And that is exactly what it does. In a nutshell, it is a compact video converter, which allows one to move video from point A, where it is immobile, to point B, where it is mobile.

The Basics

The ability of Neuros OSD to liberate your video can be broken down into 3 basic steps…

Step 1: Record anything from DVD players, VCRs, Tivo/DVRs, Satellite/Cable TV, or Camcorders; basically video from any RCA or SVideo source.

Step 2: Store anywhere on USB external drives, networked PCs, networked attached storage, portables (iPod, iPhone, Sony PSP, MP4 players), or memory cards (SD, MS, MMC, CF).

Step 3: Play everywhere on TV, PC/Laptop, iPod/iPhone, PSP, Smartphones, or MP4 players.

The Set-up

The ‘OSD’ in Neuros OSD stands for ‘open source development,’ which means that its continued development is the result of a worldwide collaboration of program developers and designers. I’ll admit that this is one of my first forays into Open Source and I feel a little bit like a hacker, however you do not have to have hacker kung fu to use the Neuros OSD.

In the box you will find everything you need to make set-up a snap. The instructions claim that it is as easy as connecting a VCR… I found it easier. First, I took the unit and connected the 110-240V AC/DC power supply (supplied). Next, I connected the unit’s input to my Tivo using standard A/V RCA cables (supplied), and then its output to my television, again using standard A/V RCA cables (supplied). In other words I spliced the Tivo to television connection and inserted the Neuros OSD. You can also connect the video source via SVideo in (not supplied). After all of the connections were made, all I had to do was turn on the unit, turn on my television, use the supplied remote control to navigate through the on-screen menus, attach a storage device, in my case I chose to use a 4 Gb USB thumb drive, and I was good to go. In addition to this, I could have attached an IR Blaster (supplied), which would have allowed the unit to control my Tivo or other video sourcer.

Because this is an Open Source product, and its abilities are constantly being expanded and fine-tuned, it has an Ethernet connection to allow for automatically updating the firmware. So I plugged that into my Apple Airport Express, which I use to stream music to my stereo system. Also included in the box was a CompactFlash Card, which the unit uses to store its firmware updates. Just insert it in the CF card slot and leave it there.

The Experience

After I turned the unit on, I went through the customary process of setting up the time and date and then I ran the software update to get the latest firmware, all of this was done surprisingly without a hitch. Next I tried recording something, and that’s when things got a little wonky. Because this product is constantly being tweaked and updated, the instructions in the box are very lacking. To solve this, Neuros invites you to go to their website to get the latest user manual. However, I am a brave soul (read “self confident”) and a guy (read “lazy”), so I ventured off without heeding Neuros’s suggestion to download the manual. It didn’t take me long to figure things out, and before I knew it I was recording the Season Finale for Lost in order to view it back on my iPod Classic. The on-screen menus were a bit clunky, and the user interface takes a bit of getting used to, however, since this is in ongoing development, I’m sure things will be further fine-tuned in the future.

Now it should be pointed out that the Neuros OSD doesn’t simply transfer files from one source to another; it is a converter, and in this case it converts the video output from one source to another, and thus it performs in real time. So if you are converting a one-hour program, it will take one hour to complete this task. Of course this begs the comment, well if you are going to do that, you might as well watch it then and there. However the Neuros OSD has timer capabilities, so before I go to bed at night, I set-up the Neuros OSD to record my Tivo for one hour, start the playback on the Tivo, hit the record button on the Neuros OSD, and head off to bed. When I wake the next morning, I eject the thumb drive, plug it into my computer and transfer the recorded file over to my iPod. Since the file has already been formatted for playback on my iPod, there are no further steps. A typical file size is 400 Mb for 30 minutes, 800 Mb for an hour, and so on. The Neuros is also capable of formatting for playback on all of the devices listed above.

The playback on my iPod looks great and I am quite pleased with the final result. On my standard TV it looks better than a VCR tape and approaches DVD quality. However, this is by no means a high definition product. It is designed and ideal for mobility and therefore for mobile products. Right now, max resolution is 640x480 at 30 frames per second (fps), however more resolution options will be available in future upgrades.

Now we only have one television in our house, and we Tivo a lot of the boys’ favorite shows, which they like to watch over and over and over again. So with the Neuros OSD, I am able to transfer their shows to their iPod Nanos, where they can repeatedly view their programs and thus free up the family television. They think this is really cool, I think this makes this product worth its weight in gold.

The Extras

The Neuros OSD is a video player capable of playing back;
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 format
ASF, AVI (including Divx and Xvid), MP4, WMV (up to QVGA) MOV, MPG, MPEG, FLV_extensions

A picture view capable of viewing:
JPEG (baseline up to 32 M pixel), BMP, GIF (nonanimated)
With thumbnail view and zoom in/out (2x, 4x)

An audio player capable of playing back:
Stereo MP3/WMA @ 30-320kbps (CBR & VBR)
Ogg Vorbis
FLAC
WAV
Stereo MPEG-4 ACC-LC
G.726

And when the Neuros OSD is connected to the internet, it is capable of connecting to and playing back YouTube videos on one’s television.

Finally, the Neuros OSD is packaged with a serial cable for those advanced users. Because this is an Open Source product, Neuros invites you to hack it and make it better. They solicit user input to further develop and advance the product. It is stuff like this that excites me because who knows what some kid surviving the winter in Nome, AK may come up with to get this product really hopping.

The Downside

The on-screen menus are a bit clunky, but that’s to be expected with an open source product. If you want sleek and refined, then you get an Apple product. If you want something with open possibilities, then you go open source.

The other draw back is the price, which at a MSRP of $179.99 seems a bit steep, however I did state it was worth its weight in gold… So at a unit weight of 230 grams and a gold price of $27.98/gram the calculated price tag is $6,435.40, which makes the MSRP come out to be quite a steal. That said, shop around and you can find it online for around $159.99.

Overall impression

The Neuros OSD does exactly what it advertises, and the results are better than expected. However, I am still a bit smitten over sleekness, therefore I’ll give the Neuros OSD 7 out of 8 Dancing Elephants.

Parting thoughts

Yesterday I stopped by a big box store to take advantage of a sale on 8 Gb USB 2.0 thumb drives… Yep, I’m banking on the Neuros OSD’s future potential.