About a year ago, we reviewed the first version of the Neuros MPEG4 Video Recorder. This device, and now the newer version, the MPEG-4 Recorder 2, are easy-to-use analog-to-digital recorders, so that you can capture video from or audio from sources such as a VCR, DVD player, camcorder, casette player, and so on. The new Recorder 2 has been released with some updates and enhancements to the original product and a slightly different focus. How does it stack up to the original? Does it resolve some of the outstanding issues? Read on to find out!
INTRODUCTION
The original MPEG-4 recorder was designed to record video from an analog source for PDAs and your PC. It’s still available, but at a lower price than when it first came out. The big focus for this new product appears to be support for the iPod and Sony PSP. So what’s changed? First – they’ve increased all of the bitrates. Super Fine mode, for example, is now up to 2mbps. In another interesting change, obviously in support of the PSP, they’ve removed the SD/MMC card slot and put a Sony Memory Stick DUO/PRO slot in it’s place. In my evaluation unit they included an SD to CF sleeve so you can use SD cards in the CF slot.
WHAT’S HOT
(all imagese link to higher resolution)
The box is similar to the original recorder with a nice big sticker mentioning the iPod and the PSP.
There’s a lot of things in the box including the device, remote, cables, software disk,power supply, and the manual.
All the things you need to record video are included except your input source, output destination, and the storage card. You get the device (with CF and Memory Stick slots), 2 sets of mini A/V to RCA (composite) cables, a remote control unit, and an AC power adapter.
SETUP
Setting up the device involves plugging it in (power), plugging in one set of the A/V cords to the source for your video (your cable box, DVD player, VCR, or other video/audio source) and plugging in the other set to your output device (usually, your television). The cables to do this are included, but only composite video cables are included (video, audio-left, audio-right). There are no options for S-video, component video, or any of the optical methods. Once the cables are connected, you need to insert a memory card into either the CF slot, or the Memory Stick DUO slot. Use the power button on the remote control to power up the device. If you see the green LED on the front face of the device, you should be good to go!
Here is another view of the device and remote control.
This product offers a lot of features at a reasonable price point. Although it’s primarily an analog-to-digital recorder, it will also playback a variety of digital content including MPEG-4 (with MP3 audio or AAC-LC stereo) at 30fps, DivX 3.11/4.x/5.x (up to D1 resolution); Quicktime 6. It will act as a photo viewer for JPEG files, BMP files, and GIF (non-animated) – even allowing you to zoom in up to 4x. It will also function as an audio player with the ability to play MP3 and WMA files as well as AAC files (all non-DRM encoded).
PRODUCT FEATURES
The Recorder 2 now comes with a bigger, more advanced remote control than it’s predecessor including directional arrows (missing from the first version of the recorder).
As a recorder, it has all the standard capabilities you’d find on any VCR deck including timer-based recording (auto on/off). It will record in MPEG-4 format (using AAC-LC audio) at 30fps. It can record at 320 by 240 pixels (for handhelds), 368 by 208 16:9 WQVGA for PSP, and 640 by 480 (For television playback). It can record at a rate of 384Kbps, for small file size up to 2mbps for higher quality (but larger file size). AAC-LC audio is always recorded at 128kbps (what Apple uses on the iTunes Music Store, roughly equivalent to 192K rate for MP3 files).
The back side of the device showing the power jack, and the mini A/V Out and A/V In connections.
Recording capacity varies dependent on quality chosen. For example, using a 1GB storage card in what they call "Economic" mode, you’ll get about 250 minutes of video. In "Super Fine" mode that drops to 60 minutes of video. Additionally, one of our original concerns was a lack of auto-stop for recording. There is now a timer record function with programmable start/stop times.
The recorder also has a switch on the remote (and in the setup menu) to choose between NTSC output and PAL output.
The front side of the device showing the CF slot and the Memory Stick Duo/Duo Pro slots as well as the IR port.
Lastly the firmware on this product is now upgradeable. You simply use your computer to copy the update file (BIN file) to a CF card ), Memory Stick Duo, or even an SD/MMC (if you have the adapter), making sure you copied it to the root level, not a folder, put it into the Recorder, and choose the UPGRADE option (part of the SETUP menu) and the upgrade should commence automatically. It’s fairly simple and you can do it regardless of whether you have a PC or Macintosh computer.
Although the recorder is a nice compact and convenient way to record analog video, there were a couple of things that could use improvement. Read on to learn about them…
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Accompanying the recorder is a small black and white manual that does an adequate job of explaining the functions of the device. I found answers to all my questions in the manual. Let’s start with the display. I found the display to be a bit cluttered and it looked a lot like an old DOS program. The icons were, for the most part, non-intuitive to me (others may disagree). Operation of moving from menu-to-menu wasn’t nearly as smooth as I would have liked. I had to keep referring to the manual to understand how to perform some simple functions like changing the recording settings (like resolution and quality), which, by the way, are only found once you enter the recording menu/mode. The file handling especially looked more like a DOS program as well, rather than a stand-alone recorder. Although I haven’t spent any real time with the original Recorder, our review makes it appear that the original Recorder may have had a simpler, menu-driven layout. This menu looks like they tried to drive everything from one main screen and that screen is hard to follow at first. Having said all that, over time, I did find myself adjusting to it’s way of working and the experience became more and more acceptable. I found myself a bit disappointed in the remote control as well. It was certainly more advanced and functional than the one that came with the original Recorder product, incorporating directional arrows (that only work in some places on the menus), but, like the video display, it’s cluttered and things are not in any kind of intuitive arrangement. The arrow keys are toward the right of the control, rather than in the center, for example. At first, I had a lot of trouble getting the remote to work reliably. Before I could get it to work reliably, I had to remove the battery twice and replace it to keep it functioning. It may be that part of the protective plastic was stuck in there rather than coming out when pulled to activate the battery. It got better over time, but I was still uncomfortable with the feel of the button press. When I would move the recorder around, I would hear buzzing and crackling coming through my television speakers. The mini A/V connectiors were slightly loose. It was fine as long as I didn’t move the device too much, but it served as a reminder that this was not a high-end device. Additionally, it doesn’t pass any kind of signal through to your television unless you are in preview mode. So, in general, you probably won’t want to leave it inline in your A/V system. In general, video output was pretty good, but still suffers from the limitations imposed by the use of composite video – namely the picture is a little grainy (basically VCR quality) and not at true HD quality (see m4v00004.mp4). Even at Super Fine (which is only available in TV-VGA resolution), there’s a little bit of graininess to the images. It’s fine and functional if your final destination is a handheld device, but may not be as acceptable if your intention is to regularly display it on your HD television or computer monitor. I also would have preferred to have more input options. At this price point it may be unreasonable to expect optical input, but an S-Video option or a component video option would be excellent additions and help improve video quality a little bit. It would also be nice to see a version of the recorder that combined the software and features of both versions of the Recorder and adds digital input features (S/PDIF, DV). It would have to be at a higher cost and with additional storage requirements, but it would round out the Recorder product lineup nicely. Lastly, I could find no way to adjust the audio. I found the recordings produced were a little quieter than I would like and really needed a little amplification (see m4v00004.mp4). type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
Although I’d like to see improvements in the interfaces (screen and remote control), the product performs as advertised and is available at a fair and reasonable price. It’s small and convenient and its ability to record directly to a storage card without requiring a computer sets it apart from many of its competitors. I think it offers excellent support for the formats used in the PSP and the iPod. I do recommend it as a quick and dirty way to get a recording job done, especially if your source is a VCR or the destination is your iPod, PSP, or PDA, but understand that the limited video input (composite) will limit the final picture quality (no HD quality output).
HELP SUPPORT
BUGS AND WISHES
While all of the primary functions worked as expected, there were a few things that bothered me as I used the recorder:
PURCHASING
PROS
Newly added support for iPod and PSP
including AAC audio file support
Easily upgradeable firmware
Small and convenient
CONS
Cluttered and poorly laid out remote control
Cluttered display and non-intuitive menus
Still no way to attach a hard disk
(but CF microdrives now work)
Value
Ease
of Use 
Features
Overall
OVERALL IMPRESSION
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