QJ Review: Neuros Video Recorder.

For some people it was the promise of PS2 caliber games on the go that got them to take the PSP plunge, for others all they needed to know was that it was a portable PlayStation, personally the multimedia features of the PSP played a huge part in warranting its exotic price tag. Sure it was a sexy piece of kit that played the latest games, but I love me some movies and television, and the idea of a portable device that allowed me to watch all my favorite shows and movies on the go was rather attractive. Some say the PSP failed on this promise, me, I think Sony failed the PSP. The problem wasn’t that the PSP was incapable of playing back high resolution full motion video, it was that Sony schtupped it with the UMD proprietary disk format, saddled it with an aboninable and arcane naming convention required to play video, and gut punched users by not providing a simple way to get video to the darn thing.

You could say the functionality of the Neuros Video Recorder should have been built into the PSP, though I don’t know if that was a viable option given cost and size constraints. You could also say the Neuros Video Recorder should have been built by Sony, I don’t know about that either, (can you say DRM conflict of interest?). The bottom line is that the NVR is here, and if you don’t feel inclined to go through the entire review to find out what it is and what it does, you can stop here knowing that it’s a quality product that does what it promises to do and does it damn well at that.

If however you’d like to know more (and what informed consumer wouldn’t?) I urge you to read the entire review to get the big picture.

For some people it was the promise of PS2 caliber games on the go that got them to take the PSP plunge, for others all they needed to know was that it was a portable PlayStation, personally the multimedia features of the PSP played a huge part in warranting its exotic price tag. Sure it was a sexy piece of kit that played the latest games, but I love me some movies and television, and the idea of a portable device that allowed me to watch all my favorite shows and movies on the go was rather attractive. Some say the PSP failed on this promise, me, I think Sony failed the PSP. The problem wasn’t that the PSP was incapable of playing back high resolution full motion video, it was that Sony schtupped it with the UMD proprietary disk format, saddled it with an abominable and arcane naming convention required to play video, and gut punched users by not providing a simple way to get video to the darn thing.

You could say the functionality of the Neuros Video Recorder should have been built into the PSP, though I don’t know if that was a viable option given cost and size constraints. You could also say the Neuros Video Recorder should have been built by Sony, I don’t know about that either, (can you say DRM conflict of interest?). The bottom line is that the NVR is here, and if you don’t feel inclined to go through the entire review to find out what it is and what it does, you can stop here knowing that it’s a quality product that does what it promises to do and does it damn well at that.

If however you’d like to know more (and what informed consumer wouldn’t?) I urge you to read the entire review to get the big picture.

What is it, and um… what does it do?

Quite simply it’s a VCR for your PSP. You can record video from pretty much any source that has a composite output, straight to memory stick. And yes, since most videogame consoles have composite outputs you’ll be able to record your gameplay videos and cool intro movies as well. The NVR actually supports a large variety of flash storage devices including compact flash cards, Memory Stick Duo and the PSP’s very own Memory Stick Pro Duo (using the adapter usually supplied with the purchase of said pro duo card).

However, the NVR also does quite a bit more than just let you put video content on your PSP, it also allows you to view photos and listen to music, you can even watch video on iPods, most smartphones, laptops, PDA’s and pocket PC’s… all of which are unfortunately out of the scope of this humble little review (we’re concentrating on it’s PSP specific functionality here).

Another cool function of the NVR is that it’s not just a recorder but also functions as a playback device. Say for instance you downloaded a cool new game trailer from dl.qj.net (PLUG!) you could then watch the video directly from the NVR on your big screen telly (that’s British Speak for television see?).

The NVR supports playback of DivX (hell yes!), ASF and AVI formats at up to D1 video resolution, which is pretty close to DVD quality video. I don’t know about you guys but that last function is definitely pretty darn exciting.

Is it easy to use?

That’s pretty much what seals the deal isn’t it? Even if the device could do all those cool things mentioned above, if it wasn’t easy to use, it probably wouldn’t be worth your hassle. I’ve used a variety of different tools to get video to my PSP, from the excellent PSP Video 9 to Sony’s own highly constricted PSP Media Manager. The problem is that there was always an intermediary step that required me to either convert video or fiddle with obscure naming conventions, or learn about bit rates, frames per second and aspect ratios, or in the case of PSP Media Manager, simply limited the kinds of video formats I could put on my PSP. The NVR is far and away not only the most flexible (in terms of recording input and video playback) it’s also the easiest of the bunch to use.

Setting up the NVR is a snap, all you need to do is plug it into a power outlet, set up your video input and video output, set it to the right TV channel and you’re pretty much good to go, just hit the little red button on the handy, dandy remote and you’re recording.

Technical details are made easy by the NVR’s simple and easy to navigate on screen menu, with categories for Video, Music, Pictures, Recording and a File Manager. In a sense it’s kind of like navigating the PSP’s XMB menu interface, so if you can do that, you should be set for this.

What’s the build quality like?

The NVR is probably a lot smaller than you might imagine. It’s often pictured next to a quarter to give a sense of the things minute scale. If you’re like me and you don’t have much room left in your entertainment center,  then don’t fret, the NVR only takes up about the same amount of space as a pocket Bible… if the Bible was missing the books of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John… and maybe most of Revelations as well (specifically that cool bit with the prostitute riding the multi-headed lion).

It doesn’t feel flimsy either, it’s black plastic with the word “Neuros” printed on the top in light grey, and it’s fairly inconspicuous in its design. If there’s one thing that feels like it might have drawn the short stick in the units construction, it’s probably the remote. It doesn’t feel quite as sturdy as I’d like, maybe it’s just because it’s ultra thin, but I feel like it should have more heft to it, this might of course just be personal taste.

So what’s the video quality like?

That depends on two things really, first is of course the quality of the signal you’re recording, and second would be the quality at which you wish to record the video.

Choosing a lower quality resolution will allow you to record more video, but of course it won’t look as good during playback. You’ll want to take into account what sort of programming you’re recording as well. Saturday morning cartoons (not that I watch them, hehe) more often than not can be recorded at 15fps without much of a downside. If you’re recording from a cable box, or even better a DVD, you can choose from a number of preset options for maximum clarity, Economic, Normal, Fine and Super Fine.

Personally I’m a scrooge when it comes to storage space and I found the Economic setting to be adequate for most of my needs (which usually involve chuckling to myself over episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and The Golden Girls). That said if you require fine detail, the NVR can certainly deliver with it’s uh… “Fine” setting. Something closer to the quality found in UMD’s is also capable by selecting the “Superfine” setting. With the fine and superfine settings however, is unfortunately where things might get a little squiggly. You see, Neuros has only recently discovered that the PSP is in fact capable of playing back the “Fine” and “Superfine” recorded videos (thanks to a recent PSP firmware upgrade that removed this contraint).

These higher resolution videos are stored in an iPod/PDA folder on the memory stick that the PSP does not natively recognise. To get them to play back on the PSP you’ll have to manually copy the files from that location and place them in the PSP’s 101MNV01 video folder. That’s it, that’s probably about as complex as the NVR gets. It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that Neuros plans to fix this issue by releasing a fix for it in a future firmware upgrade, yup, the NVR’s firmware is upgradeable, so you can expect constant refinement and updates.

So recording video is a snap, but that’s not to say if you want to go into the technical side of things, selecting from various resolutions and FPS’s you can’t, the NVR2 does allow for a decent amount of choice when it comes to selecting the fidelity of your recording, just don’t expect the kinds of bells and whistles you’d get with say, PSP Video 9.

But hey, why take my word on image quality when you can see for yourselves?

How much video can I squeeze onto my memory card?

Naturally that would depend on how big your card is, these days it’s pretty easy to find a 1gig card for about $30, and you can get a 2GB card for about $100 I believe. It also depends on what resolution you’re recording your video, basically the lower the resolution, the more video you can fit on the card. Here’s a simple breakdown: You can fit roughly four hours of video on a 1GB stick on the economy setting at 320×240 and 30fps. The same 1GB card will hold a little over an hour of video at the highest quality recording setting of Superfine.

So is it worth it?

Well that depends entirely on you, and I can’t answer that question in fairness. The NVR retails for $129.99, whether you think that’s a deal or not depends on how much use you get out of the device. You’ll have to ask yourself what you want from your PSP ultimately, if you don’t watch video on your PSP and have no desire to, then buying one of these would be a waste. However, if you’re even remotely interested in getting the most out of the PSP by harnessing its multimedia capabilities, then yeah, it’s definitely worth it. 

The NVR has kind of breathed new life into my PSP, I don’t even remember the last time I watched video on the thing, now however, it’s as easy as setting the timer on the recorder and letting it do the rest. If you’ve got an iPod as well, or a smartphone or a PDA, then getting this is pretty much a no-brainer as it’s compatible with all those devices.

What about that pesky Digital Rights Management (DRM) stuff, is this thing even legal?

The short answer is yes, the NVR is legal, and no, you don’t need to worry about DRM’s with this product. Think of the device as a VCR or an MP3 player. You can use either of those for nefarious purposes, but that’s not what their made for. Ultimately, you can lead a horse to a gun, but you can’t make it pull the trigger… or something like that. If you’d like to know exactly where Neuros stands on the matter, get the word straight from the horses mouth by checking out their article on your digital rights… no more horse related analogies, I promise.

Enough, where can I get one?

Well, you can order them direct from the Neuros product homepage here, or you could pick ’em up from Amazon and get free shipping. But then…

Do you want one… for free?

Well that’s it pretty much, a hearty thumbs up from the QJ Labs. The Neuros Video Recorder 2 is a great product and one I’d easily recommend to anyone who’s looking for an easy, efficient and hassle free way to get video on their PSP. I have to say that in my dealings with them the guys at Neuros have been open and honest about their product, and confident too, which is always a good sign. In fact, they insisted that you guys to be ultimate judge of their product, they’d like to give a Neuros Video Recorder unit to one talented QJ reader.

Notice I said “talented” instead of “lucky”? That’s because you’re going to have to work for it (well, not too hard, so don’t worry, it’ll be something easy and fun). We’ll be announcing the deets of the contest tomorrow, Friday the 15th, so stay tuned guys!

As always, please feel free to comment below, if you’ve got one of these, let us and others know what you think of it, the dudes at Neuros assured me that they listen to the PSP community and are always looking for new ways to improve their products, especially since the NVR2 runs on upgradeable firmware.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to record an episode of The Golden Girls, Blanche’s sister is visiting in this episode and she needs a kidney to save her life.