Neuros OSD Media Center (6011000) | 
 enlarge | Brand: NEUROS
Category: CE
List Price: $239.99
Buy New: $144.88
You Save: $95.11 (40%)
New (12) Used (3) from $115.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 1950
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Modem: N/A
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 10.5 x 4
Warranty: Unknown
MPN: 6011000
Model: 6011000
UPC: 180106601100
EAN: 0180106601100
ASIN: B000HXGIHE
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Digitally store any video content--DVDs, VHS tapes, home videos, and more | | • | Get rid of bulky, disorganized cases and put your video at your fingertips | | • | Enjoy at home or transfer to a portable device (laptop, iPod, iPod Touch, PSP, iPhone, Smartphones) for on-the-go entertainment | | • | Digitize and share your home movies with your friends and family | | • | Free downloadable upgrades |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Neuros OSD connects to your TV or home theater system and allows you to archive all of your DVDs and video content.
Plug the Neuros OSD into your TV, connect your DVD Player or VCR, and hit play. Your movie will be safely and legally transferred into a digital library! It works with home movies too. Just plug your video camera into the OSD, push play, and your memories are digitized.
With the Neuros OSD, you can store hundreds of hours of video in one location (like an external hard drive), get rid of those bulky cases, put an end to DVD damage, and instantly access any of your videos with the push of a button on a remote. You can even transfer your video content to a portable device (video iPod, PSP, mobile phone, etc.) to watch on the go, or email your home movies to friends and family. Specifications MPEG4 Video Recording -. MP4 Record from any video source (TV Cable box, Satellite Receiver Box, PVR or DVR like TiVo, DVD, VCR, Camcorder, Video Game Consoles, etc. ) with RCA composite or S-Video cables (S-Video cable not included) Video Playback at up to DVD-resolution - MPEG-4, ASF, AVI, DivX, Xvid, MOV, FLV (YouTube Video) Audio Playback - MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis , FLAC , WAV , Stereo MPEG-4 AAC-LC , G.726 Photo Viewer - JPEG, BMP, GIF USB Host to use with USB Thumbdrives and external hard drives Flash Memory slots for Compact Flash (CF) , Secured Digital (SD), Multimedia Cards (MMC), Memory Stick Pro and Pro Duo Ethernet connection for Networking
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| Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...
 Good company - not good enough product January 4, 2009
As a company, I like Neuros. I purchased one of their earlier products, an MP3 player, and was moderately satisfied, though I eventually bought an iPod that offered more value for the same money. The Neuros MP3 player was long ago put on the shelf - the iPod is still in daily use.
Neuros tries to do the right things. They try to deliver products that are on the leading edge. They incorporate Open Source software so that talented users can extend the product's capabilities. Their customer support is typically, though not always, top-notch.
The Neuros OSD, however, is not ready as a consumer product. Geeks may like it because it is Open Source and does lend itself to experimentation.
However, it is intended to be a video recorder - and it fails at that task.
I bought it because I have a hundred or so videotapes that I want to digitize. I have other tools available, such as the Plextor PX-TV402U, a 4 year old converter. I was hoping to use the OSD's one-piece design as a reasonably inexpensive substitute that would not tie up a computer for the conversion.
The bottom-line, of course, is the results of the digitizing process - and the Neuros OSD simply doesn't deliver adequate results. Certainly you don't get the near-DVD quality they promise in their marketing materials, even from a DVD. At best, I'd say the Neuros OSD delivers video quality on a par with poor Hi8.
In my serious tests, I recorded a show that had been recorded to TiVo and a commercial VHS tape. According to Neuros, the type of recording it does - from the output ports of the player - is legal even for copyrighted material. I rely on their claim.
The TiVo program was chosen because it offered a wide dynamic range, running from pure white shirts to nearly pitch black areas of the cathedral the performance took place in. There were also bright hues such as red, pink, blue and other colors. A good test for any conversion process. This was a professional production, by the way, so the lighting was well-done and balanced.
I converted on the Neuros both to a 150x SD card and a 250GB hard drive. Neither result was satisfactory. There was an extremely high level of digital noise which made viewing unpleasant. Colors and contrast were muted, with everything being affected by a gray overcast. There was very heavy artifacting. When a pianist on the well-lit stage moved their head, it looked like the special effect from a bad sci-fi movie as the head dissolved into a bunch of pixellated blocks.
I'll be trying to upload an image that demonstrates, I hope, the poor resolution and graying out of the image.
I tested three recording three VHS tapes, each chosen for its dynamic range. The results of all three tests were the same: lots of noise, lots of artifacting, inadequate contrast and brightness. In one test, where the title credits were pure white on black, the titles in the converted copy were ragged, fuzzy and streaked with noise. Not at all good.
All these tests were conducted at the highest possible quality settings of the OSD. But the resulting quality is simply poor and difficult to watch. I doubt that I would be willing to sit through a 90 minute movie recorded with the OSD.
In comparison, the Plextor PX-TV402U produced results very close to the original source material, but it did involve tying up a computer in the process.
The quality - or lack thereof - in the converted results are the important issue and should be enough to kill any interest in the Neuros OSD. Ease of use is, at least in my case, non-existent.
The first unit I received would not record to a USB hard drive. Neuros technical support drove me up a wall more or less insisting it was the fault of the FAT32 formatting program I used. I make my living as a technology expert, testifying as an expert witness. FAT32 is an absolute, unforgiving standard: a drive is either formatted FAT32 or it isn't. The idea that a formatting program was responsible for the USB drive not working was ludicrous, but always being opened to learning something new (and, apparently, wasting my time), I tried their recommended substitute. It crashed upon launch on two different computers and I never was able to format a drive using. I did format the drive using three different formatting programs, all of which are used by professionals (including me) and verified that all three drives were properly formatted as FAT32. None of them worked with the OSD.
Neuros sent me another unit and, unsurprisingly, all three FAT32 drives mounted without difficulty. So much for the theory of Neuros tech support. However, on the replacement unit, the S-video output didn't work. It produced only monochrome. As a result, all of my tests on both the Neuros and the Plextor used for comparison were composite video. Doesn't really matter, since the composite video output is so awful, that you know that S-Video isn't going to be much better.
My replacement unit also had an annoying vertical roll when first powered up.
You control the Neuros with menus on the TV screen and an infrared remote. The remote receiver on the Neuros has a very limited acceptance angle and it is very frustrating to continually have to hunt for the right position. If you were a foot or two away from this unit and facing it straight on, this might not be a problem - but anything else is.
The User Interface is relatively crude, but usable - sort of. The response to the remote is very, very slow. Irritatingly slow. And the remote I had was touchy. It appeared, many times, to send a command several times, thus making it difficult to control the Neuros. Also, doing simple things like stopping a recording were inordinately difficult because of a combination of poor User Interface and the goofy remote control.
In all, I spent most of three days trying to get the Neuros OSD to perform as specified. I also spent good chunks of three more days on the replacement. In retrospect, even though I am a tinkerer, who enjoys new gadgets. I recognize I shouldn't have spent more than 15 minutes on this unit. I should have immediately made a recording, looked at the poor quality of the recording and recognized that things weren't going to get any better.
It pains me to write this negative review of the Neuros OSD. The company gives the impression of really trying to do the right thing. And their customer support is usually very friendly and helpful, though it wasn't in part of this case.
But the truth is that the Neuros OSD simply isn't up to its intended task. Digital output is very poor - all the other difficulties with the unit simply make it more undesirable.
There is no way in good conscience that I can recommend the Neuros OSD. That said, I wish the company well and will continue to consider any new products they offer. One of these days there is a good chance that Neuros or an outfit like them will put out a truly great product. This one, the OSD, is simply not it.
Jerry
 It has its issues December 21, 2008
I bought this device primarily to encode VHS tapes to digital video files. Even though it supports doing this, I found that trying to record to USB devices is nearly impossible (and after doing some research, I found out that this is a very common complaint.) Recording to a network share/server seems to work. Apparently the USB port only supports v1.x! The other thing it badly needs is a wireless NIC, especially with the problem above. I'm still giving it 3 stars because devices that run open source software (e.g. Linux) are very cool due to all the free mods you can get.
 Horrible DO NOT BUY THIS PLEASE December 20, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Big on promises, none delivered. The most use part of this product is the cardboard box that can be used to ship it back. I am very tech capable and I knowledgeable. The USB port is useless. NO USB drives will work on this thing so you can only record on SD cards which aren't big enough to record on the best setting, but if you get a bigger SDHC card you have to use an adapter which goes into the useless USB port. See the constant circle of frustration. All storage has to be formatted with FAT32 but even if you do, it still wont work. It will hang up and stop recording constantly and in only 2 days of ownership has locked up and frozen 5 times. Please do not buy this, tell everyone. Save your money and buy the DVDs this thing is a waste of time, money, patience, sanity, USB drives, space, air, chips, plastic and cardboard. Oh but the batteries for the remote were the only things that worked.
 Good product but OS is slow November 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Using this product is very easy. I was able to show my children how to use it to transfer old VHS tapes to digital in just a few minutes. Easy to make good quality digital transfers. However the menu is slow. When you press a button it may take a few seconds before you get a response and you may have to press the button a couple of times before it processes it. With patience, it can be a good tool.
Very Disapponted! October 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased the OSD after my Neuros Recorder 2 stopped working. I had the same problems with both OSDs. I'm getting ready to send back the 2nd one soon. There was a vertical line going from the top of the picture to the bottom that ran across the screen from left to right. It that shows on the recording. My Recorder 2 had this problem too, but you could tweak the input cable to get the line to disappear. No such luck with the OSD. I tried to play an MPEG on the OSD from both an SD card and a USB thumb drive. On both OSDs I got sound, but a black screen on play back.
I had high hopes for the OSD. I was very excited about the ability to play back MPEGs! The Recorder 2 can not do that. Alas, it seems I have to wait until the product matures.
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