An included FireWire cable bridges the two devices no separate power supply is required. A high-definition version called EyeTV 500 sells for $349, with the same deal for a refurbished unit, recording better-than-DVD-quality video that can be scaled down for DVD burning or portable viewing.Ĭonnecting either recorder to your Mac couldn’t be much easier. When attached to your existing home television antenna, cable line, or composite/S-Video output device, it can record over-the-air or cable TV broadcasts at or below DVD-quality resolution. The standard-definition TV recorder is called EyeTV 200 ($329), sold for less ($199) if you’re willing to take a refurbished unit. The boxes feature realtime MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoders, the former format ideally suited to recording your own DVDs, the latter presumably superior for iPods and other MPEG-4-compliant devices. You can buy the software separately at the prices specified above, or get it with the purchase of a hardware encoding box. Like a number of other software packages on the market, including the popular Windows program SageTV, the program EyeTV 2 provides TiVo-like live TV playback, pause and rewind functionality, a complete channel guide with show-by-show text tags, and a system for scheduling recordings. But most recorders don’t make it easy for users to create iPod-ready video files, and they don’t uniformly do a good a job of recording or eliminating commercials as they could.Įlgato’s EyeTV – a combination of software and hardware – eliminates some of the difficulty generally associated with creating iPod-ready videos. There’s similarly no doubt that video recorders are going to be less expensive over the long-term, and today’s options offer users the prospect of higher-quality video, as well as less “transfer time.” Once the recording’s finished, you have it without the need to wait for today’s episode to be posted online tomorrow, or downloaded. Of course, they have the potential to be even better, and less expensive. Right now, our feeling is that both alternatives have their benefits – downloads are especially great for shows that aren’t on the air any more, and they’re generally commercial-free and convenient. Such financial considerations led us to ask this question: is your money better spent on multiple $2 downloads or a $50-350 television recording solution? ![]() At $2 per skit, users of VCRs and TiVos save over $20 every time they record one episode of SNL, broadcast for free over the public airwaves. And if you’re paying for downloads, the numbers will quickly begin to add up. The biggest problem with Apple’s video-ready iPods today is content: unless you’re willing to pay $2 per TV episode, Saturday Night Live skit, or music video to the iTunes Music Store, it’s not easy to bring TV programs or movies onto these devices. On June 23, 2006, after having an opportunity to evaluate several competing options in this category, we added a flat B-level rating to this previously unrated program. We were impressed enough by the software to present Elgato with one of our Best of Show awards, and now we’ve had a chance to give the program a more thorough examination. At the Macworld Expo in early January 2006, Elgato Systems unveiled EyeTV 2 ($79, introductory price $49), the second version of its television recording software for Macintosh computers.
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