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I’ve had this device for about 5 months now, primarily bought for recording stuff off of sky+ onto both my Nokia N95 and PSP. Initially I had the same problem as previously mentioned, the interference at the bottom of psp recordings. I also found that when recording to my Nokia the resolutions of 340×240 wouldn’t work either, it had to be recorded in pretty poor 177x?? resolution. So initially I would have rated the v mate 2 stars. However, last week a new firmware update was released on the sandisk site and both the PSP and Nokia work great now. The interface is greatly improved also. Now it really is a top notch little gadget. Very easy to use and setup, simply pop your memory card into it, select your recording format and press record. You can now set pre-defined recording times or if you want use the ir emitter to schedule recordings through your sky box. It actually works!
Rating: 5 / 5

Good – it’s about £100 cheaper than anything else I could find that allowed me to easily convert old videos to mp4, record TV in a PSP friendly format, and generally replace my old video recorder with a digital equivalent. It’s also very small, easy to set up and allows instant recording as well as scheduled recording. Finally, it accepts many different memory cards and even acts as a memory card reader.

Bad – the remote takes a lot of getting used to. The buttons are clunky and it requires very careful aiming at the main box to work. The sound is also often very poor on the recordings. It’s difficult to describe but there is often a faint whining noise in the background.

Ugly – I was hoping for better quality video. It’s usable for what I need but I think it is slightly worse than the quality of my old video recorder. At times, pixelation is even noticeably on my PSP screen and can often be seen on the telly. Don’t expect recorded video to be as clear as the original satellite reception. It’s also a bit of a shame that you can’t record to an external usb hard drive, only the memory cards.

In summary, I’m happy with the results and functionality for the price. I have now archived my old videos and have a replacement for the VCR for recording the odd TV show. However, if I was to have another chance, I think I would pay the extra and go for the Neuros OSD hoping that the picture quality would be much better.

Rating: 3 / 5

I brought this for recording regular tv prog to watch on my PSP, and this it does simply and easly. works well for mobile phones as well.
Rating: 4 / 5