Neuros Technology Forums

    I'm about to return my OSD Gamma ( really Alpha quality ) because it has no tuner and is pretty worthless to me ( wanted a VCR replacement ) without one.  Does anyone know of a small, inexpensive, standalone Cable TV tuner?

    If so, how does the OSD control it.  I saw at http://www.neurostechnology.com/store/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=DigitalInnovationsCatalog&product%5Fid=6011000&keyword=osd&searchcat=products&cookie%5Ftest=1 that it's supposed to be able to control cable boxes via a serial cable connection.  What's the IR cable and IR out port for?  I originally thought that was so the OSD could send signals to a tuner or VCR or cable box etc., and control it.

    Yep, smaller than that.  Preferably as small as the OSD or smaller.

    I'm not going to be doing anything with tapes.  I'm using the VCR tuner right now for testing the OSD ( it's still useless as of the latest firmware as it can't access any storage media reliably, can't record as a result, can't play, etc. ).  However, it's on it's not so healthy and I wouldn't be surprised if it ceases to function at any time.

    Anyone know of any small, inexpensive cable tuners?

    My Gamma unit came in.  Id does play back without any extra device despite the wording of the OSD website causing me to question that.

    However, I should've payed more attention to what it can record from "cable box" not "cable".  It has no tuner and thus can't really record anything without an "extra" device.  In my case I'll have to keep the VCR I was hoping to replace with the OSD.

    The main page at http://neurostechnology.com states "Record Live TV and Movies from any video source".  I was shocked it didn't have a tuner and given that absence the previous statement is quite misleading.

    That's good to know.  I had read the page at the URL you provided and just looked at it again.  I don't see anything about playback other than under the "With the Neuros OSD and almost any handheld" section.  The "and almost any handheld" part is what made me wonder if the Neuros OSD just provides recording and you have to have something else like a handheld for playback.


Jason
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    I've read all the specs I could find on the web and haven't yet determined if the OSD does playback itself or requires a separate device.  Does it playback?

    What I am actually looking for is basically a VCR that doesn't use tape.  I just want to be able to record my TV shows to hard drive ( or other large storage ) and play them back.  I do realize the OSD is currently Beta/Gamma and don't mind tweaking it.  Reminds me a lot of the OpenWRT project ( http://openwrt.org ) and I really like playing with that.

    Is the OSD designed for my intended purpose?  If not, any suggestions for the "extra device" needed to play back to TV or other products that are designed for my intended purpose?
    I also don't want to have a noisy computer in my living room, don't want to pay a subscription service fee like with TiVo and strongly prefer opensource and linux based products.


Thanks,

Jason Joines
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