The Edge of I-Hacked

The Neuros OSD is getting a lot of press lately and is being touted as a device that can not only easily convert your television and satellite programs along with your favorite movies to a digital format that is completely DRM free, but play them back as well acting as your home media hub.

Now the thing that separates this device from others (besides not slathering its output in DRM) is that the hardware/firmware is mostly open-source and has a growing development community. With an open device and encouragement from the vendor, anyone can develop apps and features leading to a creative future for the Neuros OSD. As you are aware companies very rarely encourage custom development, much less document the process to do so.

As of the time of the publishing of this review, the Neuros OSD can be had around $230 (A bit less if you do some deal hunting). Check the Neuros website for authorized retailers.

–Full review after the jump

Opening the Neuros OSD seemed a bit reminiscent of an Apple experience. A quality box with an interesting magnet closure, tightly packed documentation when removed led to the revealation of the unit itself. The OSD device is a sleek gently curved black device, that is small enough (14 x 14 x 3.2 cm (5.5 x 5.5 x 1.25 inches)) to easily hide unnoticed in your component rack.

That being said, there would be no reason to hide the device. I personally felt that the device was aesthetically pleasing; Small curved design with a piano black finish. I hate to use the Apple analogy twice, but the appearance of the device reminded me of something that might have come from Cupertino.

The unit works by placing itself inline between your media output device (cable/sat/dvd player) and your television taking full advantage of the so called "analog hole". It uses either "standard" mini-plug to composite RCA cables or S-Video to connect to these devices. I found it a bit frustrating that the included "standard" cables were only 4′ making a longer run difficult. In a future version I would like to see standard RCA Composite plugs used. (yes I know that mini-composite is a standard) This would also allow you to use higher quality cables if you would like.

Once connected the Neuros gives you the ability to record and convert the passing video stream to MP4 and even comes pre configured to output to popular resolutions for devices such as iPod and PSP. In fact you can simply connect these devices to the USB port and the OSD can write directly to those devices. (*Apparently apple has changed the way iPod updates, so do so with caution)

The Neuros OSD does not have any internal storage of its own, however it can accept most of the common cards: SD, MMC, MS (Pro and Pro Duo), CF, and microdrives. It is also compatible with most USB Hardrives and Thumbdrives. What I found to be the best feature of this device is its native networking support via its included LAN port. Simply connect a ethernet cable and the device configures itself via DHCP, and can scan for SMB shares to write to. I found it easy to record directly to a samba share on my ubuntu linux NAS.

The OSD interface setup is simplistic using a scrolling list with center-line selection, and is where the comparisons to Apple cease. I found the interface to have an out-dated feel, having no animation or "WOW" factor. If I were to select one area that needs a lot of improvement it would be the interface. Don’t get me wrong, it is efficient, easy to understand and navigate. But after you have just spent $230 on a device you would want to show it off, or at least show the family how to use it. Perhaps I have just been spoiled with the core-animation and beautiful on screen effects that the PVR market has moved to. I do believe that the engineers of the OSD understood this, because you really don’t have to use the interface much, and in general your interaction with it is short when beginning a recording.

In my testing I connected the Neuros OSD my Dish Network receiver and television using the supplied composite cables. Simply pressing the record button on the supplied OSD remote brought up a video overlay allowing me to set the format (TV, SmartPhone, iPod, PSP, etc) and storage location. Since I had previously connecting a network cable I was able to browse my internal network to find a location on my NAS.

The OSD works on a 1:1 relationship, meaning that it records/converts the video as it plays in real time so if you want to convert a 30 minute DVD, it will take the entire 30 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of output (highest quality selected) and audio stayed in sync when when played back. Understandably it showed some signs of compression artifacts and quality degradation (I used a 56" television for tests), but not as much as I expected.

When viewed on a smaller screen (I tested both PSP and iPod) the output looks beautiful. The engineers have done a lot of homework when it comes to writing to these devices. As mentioned earlier, you can connect the devices via usb, however I simply removed my PSP’s memory card and it wrote directly to the correct path in order to see the video on the PSP (You PSP owners know what I am talking about)

During my testing a new firmware was released, and I found the update process incredibly well thought-out and easy. The OSD can automatically check for updates, or (as in my case) be forced to check manually. The update file was downloaded and then installed without any interaction needed by the user. I might note that while the update was being applied the device played a game of pong against itself — and yet in the end I managed to win.. Got a grin from me.

As previously mentioned, the main draw to this device isn’t necessarily what it is today, but what it could become in the future. By opening the codebase up to the community, the possibilities of new features are endless. There have already been important feature adds by the community including bug fixes and the ability to browse and watch youtube videos right off the OSD. If you are interested in developing for the OSD I suggest you join the Neuros Community Forums and definitely read the developer writeup posted at linuxlookup.com.

Over all I had a pleasant experience with the Neuros OSD and would recommend this product to someone who is technical, and has a need to convert video media to a DRM free format. I really liked the work that was done to ensure the device output the right format and file paths for many devices. I look forward to seeing what improvements are created and implemented from the open source community.

PROs:

• Easy to use platform to convert movies, television, VCR/Camcorder camcorder tapes, and DVR recordings to a very portable (mp4) format.
• Quality of mp4 video was well above my expectations.
• Multiple local storage options, pretty much supports all memory cards, plus USB hard drives and thumbdrives.
• Has the ability to scan for and use network shares to both store to and play from.
• OpenSource platform enables home users & hardware hackers to build their own features and contribute back to the community.
• Ability to perform firmware updates automatically over the included lan interface.
• Can connect PSPs, iPods, and Smartphones directly using the usb interface.
• Remote much improved over previous versions

CONs

• User interface is very basic, doesn’t "WOW".
• Uses mini-composite cables. I would really like to use higher quality cables.
• High price point