By Alice Hill Ok, I'll admit that I am still secretly interested in the Mac Mini. Here's an interesting external box called EvolutionTV that turns a Mac into a PVR via a USB connection. (again - note the use of USB and not FireWire.)
It includes MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and DivX hardware compression, and is priced at $280, which seems incredibly steep to me. EyeTV is the only other known product for the Mac that does it, and it costs closer to $400. An external device frees up your processor, but then again, so does a TiVo. Source: PVR Blog
Don't you *ever* do any homework? I have an Elgato eyetv 200 firewire that I paid $244 for last summer.
I've had several software upgrades and I can capture coax / S-Video and composite inputs in several data formats and can export to:
Export formats: • for Email • for Web • for iMovie® • for iDVD® • for DVD Studio Pro® • for Toast • MPEG-Program Stream • MPEG-Elementary Streams • DV Stream (4:3) • DV Stream (16:9) • QuickTime Movie • AVI • MPEG-4 3G
go see for yourself: http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=support_documentation
Their site *full boat* price is $299.
Their editing software makes cutting commercials as easy as mark start and end and cut.
Did I mention support for HDTV & PAL with direct support for iDVD-HD?
Sound encoding supports DOLBY DIGITAL EX, 5.1 and THX..
If you have a digital HDTV cable - well, there are no limits (and, no hardware support for the broadcast flag).
EvolutionTV doesn't come close. A Mac mini, timbuktu, Toast, WIFI and Eyetv makes a "headless" small footprint PVR and, coupled with an Airport and your stereo (using a fiber-optic connecctor) you also have a very nice stereo jukebox with Itunes.
Read, write & play DVDs, record live, play signals from simple stereo through THX and all sub $800 for the package?
EyeTV costs over $300 these days. The Export formats are pretty much useless. I don't want to spend hours capturing and then exporting to another format. I want to record to my drive and be able to use the movies now.
Capturing in one format to export it to another is something that you can do with QT Pro.
What seems to be the real beauty of EvolutionTV is the ability to capture *DIRECTLY* in MPEG-4, DivX and MPEG-2. You simply won't spend three hours to export your movie to MPEG-4. The file is there and ready to be used.
Regarding HDTV, you can connect a digital receiver to EvolutionTV as well (or so the manufacturer's information says).
By Alice Hill