Neuros MPEG-4 Video Recorder review

A number of mobile devices are capable of playing video files: PDAs, Video iPods and Sony's PSP being the most common. However, recording the video you want and transferring it to the device is not straightforward.

Usually you will need a PC TV capture card, then you'll have to convert the video to a format and resolution that your device understands, and finally you have to transfer it to the device itself. But that is an awful lot of hassle just to watch EastEnders on the 08.35 to King's Cross.

Plug and play

The Neuros MPEG-4 Video Recorder takes a lot of pain out of the procedure. With support for Sony's Memory Stick, the Neuros is specifically designed to appeal to PSP owners. It takes a video signal from a composite video input, encodes it to MPEG-4 that is playable on the PSP and then stores it directly to the Memory Stick. Simply plug the Memory Stick into your PSP and play your TV recording.

Video quality is not excellent - nowhere near that of Sony's own UMD movie discs - but it's good enough for watching your TV favourites. You can choose from a number of resolutions, with widescreen 368 x 208 being most suitable for the PSP. An hour of TV at this resolution took up 376MB of storage space though, so you'll need a big Memory Stick.

The only other card type supported is Compact Flash, limiting its usefulness to users of other devices. We'd like to have seen support for the more common SD and MMC formats as well. There's no USB output on this device either, so a memory card is an essential.

Connecting the device to your video source can be a hassle. It has no TV tuner, so you'll need a Freeview box or DVD player to record video from. The Neuros also has a video output that must be connected to your TV so so that you can navigate the basic menu system with the supplied mini remote control.

Given that there's free software available online that will convert pre-recorded video to Sony PSP format (Pocket DivX Encoder), the Neuros seems overpriced for what it offers, although its PC-less operation is undeniably useful.