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I just wanted to tell you all a story about a fantastic company. That company is Neuros Technology.

Long long ago, when Neuros first released the OSD, Joe Born, the man behind Neuros, arranged to get me a review unit. I received the unit, reviewed it and “saw that it was good”. Things were a bit premature in those days, but there was some real promise there. Most importantly, the networking bits were still not working just right, but were in the works. Knowing this, I shelved the unit thinking I would re-review this as soon as the next major firmware revision came out for it. As things happen, it sat on the shelf for over a year 🙂

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I contacted Joe again to see if we might be able to get a unit and some literature from him for a giveaway at the OLF 2008. Joe agreed and sent one right out (told ya these guys are great). A couple days before the fest, I finally had a spare minute and figured that I ought to dig mine out and play with it a little so I could accurately field questions, etc. I dug it out and followed the very nicely layed out directions on the Neuros website for doing the 6 firmware revisions I had to do (told you I had it shelved for a while) and I started to play with it. Doing the upgrades was actually pretty neat because I got a 40 minute demo of how much the UI and utilities had changed since I first looked at it.

Once the upgrades were done I set out to give it the run through. I am amazed with the changes that have been done. The menu system is good looking and easy to navigate, there are lots of interesting features that have been added, and every video format I had available digitally to try, worked without a problem and looked good on my tv too. I was absolutely ecstatic. This thing is brilliant… That is until I tried the networking.
After digging for some appropriate length cables, I decided to plug in the network and see what was what. To my surprise, each time I did so, within a few seconds, the OSD would reset itself. If I left the network cable plugged in for the reboot, it would continuously power cycle itself. If I unplugged the network cable from the OSD, all was fine again. I tried new cables and different hubs and switches all with the same result. I was stymied and decided to send out an email.

I sent an email to Joe, telling him I knew I should speak to someone in support, but I wondered if I could sneak a quick question by him. I told him of my troubles and awaited a response, thinking I would get one sometime while I was at OLF. To my surprise, I got a response back within a few minutes. Joe had also piggybacked the question to his technical staff, who responded that that sounds like a problem they had early on with the units and they had to be retooled at the factory. When I responded asking if there was a trace or bad component I could replace here (my soldering skills may be rusty but they are still there), or if I was just out of luck, Joe said not to worry, they would just send me another one. Hot Diggety! I figured that even if I had to live with no network connection, the unit was still pretty cool, but they were going to send me a replacement! Within 1 day, I even had a UPS tracking number. How’s that for service!

Well, today the new OSD came via UPS. it is every bit as fun as the old one to use, even more because this one connects to my network and lets me watch all my videos without hesitation or problem. Apple TV, eat your heart out.

As for Joe Born and Neuros, I have NEVER had customer service like that in my life. There isn’t even a point of reference to compare them to. Obviously you just can’t go wrong dealing with Neuros and their products. Buy them, you’ll like them. And tell them Linc from TLLTS sent ya.