Fun as it is for some, digital piracy can almost certainly be credited as the driving force behind the creation of one of the nastiest and restrictive technologies of the past few years: digital rights management (DRM). While its intended goal is to protect rights’ holders, it has done so at the expense of the consumers; it limits one’s abilities to do as you please with the media you pay for and even when properly implemented (which is pretty much an oxymoron), still manages to annoy everyone, except maybe record labels and movie studios.

Neuros Technology’s NeurosOSD tries to do its part to give you back the freedom DRM takes from you. It’s a mini digital VCR that takes any video (and audio, of course) input and formats it so that it can be played back in a number of devices, like the PSP, the video iPod and many other such DRM-schackled gadgets. What’s perhaps even more interesting is that its operating software is open source (based on Linux), which means that anyone with programming knowledge can “hack” it, and extend its capabilities. As a matter of fact, Neuros encourages this and has even created a dedicated website on this initiative.

The way the NeurosOSD works is very simple: you connect your A/V source at the back, you insert your storage medium (which can be a SD, MS, MMC, CF Card or USB Flash drive) and start recording. It encodes to MPEG-4. It’s also able to decode (and thus playback on your TV) from pretty much any file type. You can connect it on a network, so streaming your content from your PC to your TV is even possible. Hell, even a remote control is included.

The device costs $230 and is available from their online store now.