Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2 fast way to decode video?

[ddrueckhammer]

I just read the new Wired magazine and saw this product:

http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/pr...&keyword=psp&searchcat=products&cookie_test=1

featured in the "Wired Tools" cool gadgets section. It looks to be a hardware decoder used to translate video recorded from a TV or DVR into MPEG 4. Unfortunatly, the output is USB 2.0 so it can't be connected directly to an iPod. Does anyone know if it would be faster than Handbreak, FFMPEGX or other software decoders to use this kind of hardware decoder to re-encode your videos?

I really would like to see Apple start selling higher quality video on the ITMS and offer some optional accessory like this to re-encode the video into the correct format for the iPod.

Finally, nobody knows of any way to jury-rig this thing to work with an iPod directly do they? I am aware of the iPod to iPod connection they have been trying to get to work for a couple of years with iPodLinux project using a SendStation PocketDock. http://ipodlinux.org/Applications Since that hasn't worked well yet I doubt there is a way to get this to work directly with an iPod "sans computer".

 

[madmaxmedia]

These products typically encode at real time, so you can watch the output on your Mac as it gets transferred. I have a Plextor PVR which does the same thing.

Keep in mind that all these necessarily use 1-pass recording, which is not efficient as 2-pass. But if your bitrate is high enough then quality will be good. Also, with a hardware encoder of course you are not taxing your Mac at all.

These units typically require some software or driver, so connecting directly to an iPod seems very unlikely.