EyeTV HD, helping TV lovers’ dreams come true
Last week, Elgato announced a new TV tuner/DVR solution for the Mac. It is called the EyeTV HD and pulls 720P HD cable content right from your set-top box. The device was born out of the need to get television shows and movies out of the living room and on to the multitude of devices people are using to get their daily fix.
I am in the process of working up a formal review to be posted on my Boston Tech Gear column, but I wanted to share some of my initial thoughts about the device. To start, I have yet to come across a more streamlined way to move content from cable box to computer. Total setup time is less than 15-minutes, and that includes cable connecting, IR blaster placement, and software installation. Once the device is fired up, all it takes the click of the mouse to schedule a recording.
Recording TV shows to a computer is nothing new, we Mac-wielding television enthusiasts have been doing it since the days of the Performa 638cd. What is new is what happens after the show has been recorded. By way of a simple preference selection or click of a button, the EyeTV software will automate the conversion of the raw H264 HD footage into the iPod, iPhone, and iPad friendly .m4v format. One-half hour of HD content morphs from a 3GB file into 1GB for the iPad and 250MB for the iPhone. The file is then automatically added into iTunes. Very cool.
I will get more into the specifics in my official review, but after a few days of use I am beginning to see some serious advantages to using a computer-powered DVR such as this. For anyone that regularly views movies and shows on their iPhone or iPad, this device could definitely make life a little bit easier. However, without giving too much more away, it isn’t all puppy dogs and rainbows (is that even a real saying?). You need a Core2Duo Mac for the EyeTV HD to really be happy. Also, that Mac needs to be within a few feet of a cable box, which is not all that common. But, for those serious about their television, these are small prices to pay.
Head over to my column at Examiner next week (June 1, 2010) to read the full review.
4 comments
That photo is too funny. Showoff.
Yeah, the performa was a good computer. Ahhhh those were the days.
[...] know. It has been a while since my last post. The schedule has been packed to the brim and now even more so with my recent move into a full-time [...]
(also emailed this to bostontechgear)
Louis,
I read your review of EyeTV HD on Amazon.com and because you seem like a guy who knows what he’s doing, I was wondering if you could help me. I bought this product a few months ago at an Apple store, and am only getting around to installing it now.
My husband and I (who are not very tech savvy) hit an immediate roadblock — the cable box only has one set of red/green/blue connectors which, of course, are connected to our TV.
We called Elgato and they said we needed to buy a splitter, but that if we use a splitter only one receiving end of the splitter will be HD — so we have to choose between our TV having HD or our EyeTV recordings being in HD.
This just doesn’t seem logical to me. Do people who use this product not connect their cable boxes to their TVs, or do they switch the wires in and out all the time? What am I missing?
It seems like the Apple sales rep (or the Elgato box) should’ve indicated that we needed a particular generation of cable box to get the full use of the product. I am hoping there is some logical explanation, such as that we simply need a new generation of cable box with more connectors, and I just need to ask our cable provider (Comcast) to provide it…
Any light you can shed on this would be most appreciated!!
Hi! I sent you an email with my thoughts. Let me know if for some reason you don’t get it.
Louis
You must log in to post a comment.