Neuros Launches MPEG-4 Recorder Set-top Box

Neuros Audio will soon have to change its name, given the pending release of its MPEG-4 set-top recorder/player box.

With out Neuros HD MP3 player review in progress, this seemed to be a great mix of news to cover. Neuros, certainly an innovator in the digital audio industry with their ’swappable backpack’ players and open sourced systems, has taken a jump now into the digital video space.

The new Neuros MPEG-4 Recorder could probably use a cooler name, but it paints the basic picture of the device. The unit is tiny box at under 5oz and measuring a mere 4.6″ x 3.4″ 0.7″ in size. Yet in that tiny frame it packs a lot of power! Its main claim to fame is full MPEG-4 realtime recording off of any standard analog source (TV, VCR, camcorder, etc.), with no need for a PC, working like an old-style VCR in many ways. It packs a mini IR remote control, so you can sit back on the couch and enjoy.

The catch? Well it isn’t the price: at around $130 US, it’s pretty darn cheap! The real catch is that, given the minute size of the unit, it was built to record and play off of digital memory cards rather than a hard disk. Specifically, the unit sports both a CF and an SD slot right up front. Now, given that a 1GB CF card is less than $70, and 1GB SD card under $90, and Neuros claims Fine-recording level just fits an hour of audio+video in 512MB, it could be an awesome addition to the digital home. And given its size, you can also take it with you anywhere you go. Additionally, the prices on 4GB microdrives is still dropping, now under $180 – and that’s a ton of storage for the unit.

But, Neuros didn’t stop there. The Neuros MPEG-4 Recorder is also a full-featured player box as well! Given the SD/CF slots, it’s no surprise that they include a full photo viewer function, to go from camera to the big screen, a full MP3/AAC audio player, and given it’s a video recorder they also have MPEG-4, ASF, and DivX video playback. Pretty neat little unit!

To increase the value further, the Neuros MPEG-4 Recorder ships with Ulead® Video ToolBox™ 2 Home Edition software, which allows you to edit video files or convert their format – great for moving high-quality recordings down to portable device size, like for PDAs. And, with a built-in USB2.0 port, the device does allow you to direct-connect up to a computer for transferring files to/from the device – I assume it’ll look like a standard memory card reader/writer at that point.

We look forward to getting our hands on one! Read on for the full press release.