I wanted to get set up where I could easily record and digitize video, so I purchased a Neuros Recorder-2 this week from Buy.com. The Recorder-2 is a tiny MPEG-4 recorder which records video straight to a CompactFlash (CF) card. Its the size of a deck of cards and it is awesome.
Its designed to snarf video from any composite video source. This means it has no TV tuner in itself. However, hook it up to your VCR, satellite TV receiver, or video camera and it will compress anything its fed to an MPEG4 file silently and professionally. You can choose resolutions from 176×144 at 15 frames per second (fps) to above-VHS-quality 640×480 at 30fps. It records sound in 128Kbps mp3 stereo, too.
I tested it at 320×240 and 15fps and it said my 1GB CF card would hold over 500 minutes of video. That’s over eight hours! Larger CF cards can of course hold even more video.
When you’re not using the Recorder-2 to record, it can display your JPEG or BMP photos on your TV, even as a slideshow. It can also play your mp3 or WMV music collection.
I’m already dreaming up cool uses for it, such as:
- recording my sometimes-poor nights of sleep.
- Filming my neighborhood’s intersection during the day to see who comes and goes.
- Recording my driving. Or biking, for that matter, with a “helmetcam.” It only needs 5v DC.
- Creating my own Google Street View-type video map of the city.
- Checking up on the local ripoff oil change place when it claims to do maintenance on my car.
- Whenever I finally do launch a weather balloon, the Recorder-2 can record the breathtaking trip.
At a price of only $85 ($105 for the Plus version which adds an SD slot) its an amazing deal! And that’s a price that allows it to be considered for “dangerous” missions from which it might not return.
Look for some interesting video from me in the future as I put this thing to the test.