http://www.osnews.com/story/12568/The_Linux_Twist_of_the_Neuros_442 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:41:11 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?57488 http://osnews.com/thread?57488 The black mp3 (shown on the left) at the link is VERY ugly; imho of course. It makes me appreciate my ipod more. Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57506 http://osnews.com/thread?57506 Neuros 442:
What about support for USB charging?
audio-only battery life?
audio equalizer?

(it's linux based and don't support Ogg Vorbis? [I know it's hard to support somethings because of the DSP, but most of advanced players can support the format these days...) Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JrezIN) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57508 http://osnews.com/thread?57508 The screen is very bright but it has a low viewing angle and it's "slow" (you can see the interlacing lines when playing back video).

It's not slow, it is displaying interlace video on a progressive display with no ability to deinterlace the video. Either it has no deinterlacing capability, or your video material was encoded without deinterlacing it. Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57513 http://osnews.com/thread?57513 >What about support for USB charging?

No

>audio-only battery life?

About 7 hours. Not great. The device is primarily a video one.

>audio equalizer?

Yes.

>it's linux based and don't support Ogg Vorbis?

You misunderstood. The Linux ROM is not released yet. Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57518 http://osnews.com/thread?57518 I highly dispute the fact that ALL the videos I tried (coming from many different sources and encoders) are to blame. Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57527 http://osnews.com/thread?57527 Thanks for clearing up! Mon, 07 Nov 2005 21:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JrezIN) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57553 http://osnews.com/thread?57553 Can't say anything for these products, but I own a 20GB Neuros II, and I must say that thing is fantastic, supports just about EVERY audio format you can think of, open source firmware, built in Line In, built in RF port, built in FM Transmitter/Reciver. It's just fantastic. Mon, 07 Nov 2005 22:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57642 http://osnews.com/thread?57642 Is this the only device of its kind that's (going to be) Linux-based? Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JohnMG) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57651 http://osnews.com/thread?57651 No, there is one more. And I am going to review it next week. :-)


That device is based on uClinux and that is not a broadly known fact (LinuxDevices.com never reported on it for example). I found out about it myself when snooping around in its firmware files after I used a hex editor with them (hehe...). I contacted its manufacturer to ask about it, and indeed, last night they replied, it's based on uClinux with kernel 2.4.19.


If you can't wait until Monday for the details, email me. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57679 http://osnews.com/thread?57679 Neuros are currently working on their next generation developer hardware, which will be the basis for a later hardware revision of the 442 and also the Neuros III. It's notable for being designed to provide _much_ higher audio quality than most DAPs, using high-end Burr Brown ADC and DAC and providing a true line-level output (as well as an amplified headphone output) and also SP/DIF digital out. Nice stuff. The 442 doesn't excite me much (even in the second version), but I can't wait to replace my Neuros I with a III... Tue, 08 Nov 2005 04:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57680 http://osnews.com/thread?57680 > I found out about it myself when snooping around in its
> firmware files after I used a hex editor with them
> (hehe...).

Heh. Nice. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 04:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JohnMG) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57719 http://osnews.com/thread?57719 Open source, community friendly, geek oriented, but... Why is there always so little support for Ogg-Vorbis?

The Rio Karma plays them quite nicely. iriver has a couple of players that support Ogg, but that's about it. I almost bought the old Neuros but ended up ppicking up the Karma, because Ogg support was not very clear.

A shame, really. I think Neuros are doing a great job, and with Rio recently gone... Tsk. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 06:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gonzalo) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57722 http://osnews.com/thread?57722 i just wished those things had support for flac and musepack and so on.
or at least as plugin. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 07:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PipoDeClown) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57729 http://osnews.com/thread?57729 Format support is just a question of the firmware; the newer firmware will support many open formats, I think they've said. It's certainly a goal of the project. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 07:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57774 http://osnews.com/thread?57774 I believe JetAudio makes a number of ogg players as well.

Neuros would do well to heed this criteria: Linux-based or not, I would never consider their products unless they support open codecs. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57782 http://osnews.com/thread?57782 I bought a Neuros 2 audio player from them about a year ago. It shipped late by a week or two, and they sent my shipping notice to me via e-mail about a week after it arrived at my door. Nice.

I figured it would be a great audio player since you could buy expandable hard drives for it. Now go to their web site. The audio computer is hardly mentioned at all! And forget about buying upgraded storage. This month they apparently completely discontinued sales! I found my unit to have far less battery life than claimed. The damn unit crashes while going through the menus quite often. I can honestly say that the Neuros audio computer is expensive crap.

I have had nothing but disappointment from my Neuros purchase. I think anyone would be crazy to buy any of their products. They'll probably sell you a marginal piece of hardware (the Neuros audio computer feels cheap) that crashes constantly, then drop support, or more likely go out of business, a little more than a year later. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57800 http://osnews.com/thread?57800 >>I almost bought the old Neuros but ended up ppicking up the Karma, because Ogg support was not very clear.

That's very odd to hear you say that. Ogg Vorbis has been fully supported by the Neuros I and Neuros II for more than 2 years. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 14:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nxg125) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57827 http://osnews.com/thread?57827 That puts ogg support just after I bought the Karma, I guess. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 16:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gonzalo) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57831 http://osnews.com/thread?57831 I'm looking to replace my Neuros I with something too. Will the Neuros III have the same form factor as Neuros I? Tue, 08 Nov 2005 16:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elvstone) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57861 http://osnews.com/thread?57861 Did you try calling for support? Neuros has a great tech support department who are good about fixing units with problems. What firmware version does it have? Early versions were a little unstable but I've never seen it crash in normal operation with a 2.1x or later firmware, so if you got a unit with earlier, you could try upgrading (the firmware updates are on the website). You can upgrade the storage yourself - you only need a Torx screwdriver to open it, and it takes a perfectly standard 2.5" IDE hard disk (that's why it's so big). I upgraded mine from 20GB to 30GB, it was easy and works fine. Just open it up, disconnect the ribbon cable, connect it to the new drive, and close up again. Easy as pie. You can also buy upgraded backpacks and stuff from this site which specialises in Neuros updates: http://www.cool4u2view.com/Neuros.html . Finally, not to sound churlish, but if you'd done a little research before purchasing one you would surely have found out they were near end of life; it's been widely discussed on the Neuros forums. I knew they were stopping selling the original Neuros two or three months ago, it was hardly a secret. It's been around several years now and is badly outdated, they want to focus on the recorder, 442 and the Neuros III (when it comes out) now. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 19:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?57863 http://osnews.com/thread?57863 AFAIK, no - it's planned to be rather smaller and won't be modular (it'll be all one unit, no 'brain' and 'backpack'). Tue, 08 Nov 2005 19:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?58078 http://osnews.com/thread?58078 Johan Abadie (jabadie@neurosaudio.com) to Neuros-beta

All-

We just received a firmware upgrade for the 442 (1.2.4). It will add a Timer Recording feature, Pause Recording and has a shuffle option. I tested it last night and it worked fine, but we want to make sure you guys test it too before we release it. Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?58081 http://osnews.com/thread?58081 Yep. Found their developers wiki. Seems like it will be a sweet device. Thanks. Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elvstone) Comments