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The devices, my friend.... the devices. I even said devices. Name one device that implements both USB and Thunderbolt over a USB-C port.

Ruling out all Apple devices? Well let's start with the obvious PC ones: laptops, desktops. There's also Thunderbolt docks. How about Thunderbolt 3 monitors?

. Please, try not to be pedantic and point out that a computer is technically a device; you know precisely what I'm getting at.

Now that I've shown you that you're wrong are you going to change the meaning of the word "devices"?

Barring that, maybe Apple should look at the design of their old PowerBook Duo. A thin laptop, but stick it in a docking station, and you gain a lot more ports.

There are docks for the new MacBooks, just not made by Apple. A quick Google search found me several different companies that make them, a few examples:
https://hengedocks.com/
https://www.landingzone.net/
https://www.elgato.com/en/thun...
http://zenboxx.com/
http://www.belkin.com/us/F4U08...

If you want a dock with a "decent" GPU then there are a number of combinations of PCIe cages and GPUs to choose from. That's getting into an odd place though since few people would go through the expense of getting a laptop and a dock with GPU, gigabit Ethernet, and all the other stuff you listed and not simply buy a desktop computer to host all that hardware.

I have to wonder if you have your head stuck in the 1990s. People aren't limited to one computer by cost, space, or company policy like they used to. Your 1990s thinking shows especially with your demand for a removable battery. Just why would you want to remove the battery? I remember those battery chargers for laptops that could charge four batteries at a time, those haven't been a thing in a long time. People will now just buy an off the shelf universal battery that has a USB power output port.

I also believe that your definition of a "dock" is so narrow that you lost what a dock was supposed to do for you. My brother wanted a "dock" for his laptop so he could plug in dual displays, Ethernet, printer, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. There's all kinds of USB "docks" that will do that. It's not a box that one would slide their laptop into like a PowerBook Duo but it'd be a box with all the stuff you listed attached which can be connected to the laptop with a single cable. One would then also have to plug in the power cable too but, "OH NOES!! Not another cable!" is not how one should respond to that. You should respond with awe in the large number of choices in docks available, from so many different vendors, and at such low prices.

I've got a Mac Mini pluggued to my HDTV with 3 tv tuners hooked to it. It runs EyeTV from Elgato, I pay about 20$/year to get the program list automatically. The tuners are hooked up to an antenna in the hattic. The thing can record 3 shows at once. The software lets be watch recorded shows and live TV on my iPad/iPhone if I whish so. The media library is also shared to my other computers in the house. I've been using the setup for years and it's a joy to use.

Fortunately in my case HDHomeRun coupled with EyeTV (bought as a bundle when I picked them up) solves the OTA issue. The rest is via Netflix mail or, rarely, streaming. Streaming quality is bad enough that I'll wait for a disk to ship in most cases, YMMV.

Yep, 113. There are quite a few religious channels that I never watch. Likewise there's channels in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Farsi that I'd never watch.

Thankfully EyeTV 3 lets me filter the channel listing, so when I call up the Guide it only shows info for the 33 channels I'm likely to watch.

Get a FreeSat package, put up the dish and cabling, and ditch the receiver, and get an Elgato Netstream Sat from http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/tuner/netstreamsat/product1.en.html

It'll do all the tuning, and basically takes a LNB on the input, and a network switch as the output. You pick your channels from the M3U playlist, and it does the rest - like magic. Works with MythTV, XBMC, VLC, etc. Fabulous kit

If she used a Macbook she could be using this: http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/ThunderboltSSD.html

or

This: http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?region=en-global&m=192&rsn1=40&rsn3=47&statistic=pegasus

Either way you get amazing disk performance with a laptop. I edit hundreds of hours of video on mine.

You seem quite ignorant about the iPad, so why are you commenting on it?

For one thing, the HDHomeRun Prime is a network based cable streaming device, and actually, Elgato produces an EyeTV app specifically for it. They also produce an EyeTV app for their other products that allows streaming, and there's also products like Slingbox.

Second, yes, of course Hulu and Netflix work on iPad. Both require subscriptions, but they stream video just fine. There are also apps from several major networks including ABC, HBO, CNN and others that allow you to stream their content.

In related news, the popular mac television watching/recording/streaming software EyeTV got a temporary update (Build 6152) with an anti-Vuvuzela filter built in for those that want it. See it in action here: http://downloads2.elgato.com/elgatonews/EyeTVWithVuvuzelaFilter.mov Pretty cool!

Tactics like this are exactly why I prefer systems like MythTV for windows and EyeTV for Mac. Heck, I can much more easily expand my storage space and install commercial skipping scripts with those, so I'll just roll my own PVR.

For sources, you can get clear QAM service on most cable systems, including broadcast digital HDTV. And there's things like Boxee, Hulu, Miro and of course, bittorrent.

The Haupage encoder comes with EyeTV lite EyeTV's own products come with the full version. Lite Users can upgrade for $50.

Yes, a macbook air. They aren't that much, are very light, have a bright screen that she can see. Then get something like the EyeTV hybrid for TV...

You can buy them refurb to save money. You'll also save yourself a lot of support time buying a mac, if it's a little more than she can afford then chip in. After all, she is your grandmother!

Not just Microsoft.
These guys make TV tuners for Macs. They too have the same problem which they have acknowledged.

Am referring to this
This is used to tune into over-air channels and makes a Mac into a TV / media Center.
And yes, it HAS issues with DTV transition.
Am NOT talking about Apple TV. That's a different product for a different market.
Connecting this to your Apple TV or even directly to a Mac is possible.
The point is they too have issues with DTV transition. Not just Microsoft.

Am referring to this
This is used to tune into over-air channels and makes a Mac into a TV / media Center.
And yes, it HAS issues with DTV transition.
Am NOT talking about Apple TV. That's a different product for a different market.
Connecting this to your Apple TV or even directly to a Mac is possible.
The point is they too have issues with DTV transition. Not just Microsoft.

I did my research and found a TV tuner that would work under Linux so that I could run MythTV. How many tuner cards work with OSX?

Many TV tuners are supported on the Mac, so if you do you research well, you could probably find one that works on Mac, Windows and Linux, and maybe even Linux on non i386 hardware
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/software/EyeTV3/product3.en.html

Webcam drivers are bit irrelevant on the Mac, considered that Apple bundle WebCams with many of their hardware nowadays. But anyway:
http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/cameras/index.php
http://www.ioxperts.com/devices/supportedvideo.html

I stopped reading halfway through. Its a troll. I could say Windows isn't ready for the desktop because there are no CLI utilities or scripting languages built in.

Windows has PowerShell. It has some features which I have never heard of on Linux (but I'd like to be proven wrong): the pipeline support typed objects and not just text streams that Unix tools spend their time parsing; powershell allows full access to the DotNET api.

If you want to do something in batch like resize and auto-rotate a bunch of digital camera pictures you need to search for and download a program that does exactly what you want and hopefully not get a virus.

You could use Powershell and jhead to accomplish the same thing on Windows. (Or even cygwin!) Or use jhead on MacOS X :)

Or you use powershell, access the DotNet image framework, even create a CmdLet encapsulating the hard nifty tricky details...

Yes, DirecTV's HR-20 series does exactly that - OTA digital channel DVR, supported. I used to have a high-def TiVo, and I have to go only by memory, but I thought it could, as well. From what I understand, this isn't too uncommon now, and I believe that Dish offers a similar box.

Further, I can only speak for the Mac world (my HTPC is a Mac mini), but check this out:
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/hybrid09/product2.en.html

At the current price points and inconvenience factors, the market for PC/mac TV Tuners is probably close to saturated. To sell PC tuners, one has to either a) be satisfied with the meager increase in market as the saturation curve approaches its asymptote, or b) find a new market. Option a) is a loser. So that leaves b).

If Tivo can leverage their trademark familiarity -and- create an easy-to-install product, then they might be able to attract a new market segment and make some real money. Furthermore, it will attract new people to their subscription model, the market for which surely has become indistinguishable from its asymptote for some time now.

One could easily speculate also that Tivo is testing the waters for moving away from set top boxes and towards PC peripherals, or even integrated TV-ready PC/encoder systems.

As for the "TV on computers is unnecessary/threatening/diluting/eye-strainin" arguments, they're hard to support. I put EyeTV on the 24" iMac in our lounge area off the kitchen, and now no one watches anything in the media room on the big 42" TV with surround sound anymore, except the occasional DVD. The 24" display is fine for the size of the room it's in, and time shifting, rewind-and-review, and commercial editing make TV so much more watchable that a TV+Tuner+DVD just doesn't cut it. I haven't watched a commercial in months, except for one or two that caught my eye ("whoa - boobs!") as I was 30-second-skipping past them.

And we watch very very little content produced for the web. Except for a few programs like Democracy Now, it's all major network broadcasts and MPAA DVDs. We use Miro to torrent programs that we fail to record for some reason, or that our cable provider doesn't carry (they've been moving channels from clear QAM analog to digital only, and I *refuse* to lease a set top box). Web video is still far too poor quality to be watchable for long, and we have too little free time to tolerate much amateur content.

I'm gonna go drop $500 on a nice DVD+HD recorder for the media room to make it useful again, until I can afford to upgrade to the 1040p TV + Mac Mini + EyeTV combo. I've seen it done, and it looks great. If Tivo had a competitively-priced product that I could easily add on to a new 1040p TV that gave me complete freedom to shift, edit and skip content, without DRM restrictions, then I'd certainly consider it alongside EyeTV and MythTV.

Except that there are no tuner cards for Mac.

Except that you are hopelessly misinformed. See here.

Sigh.

:|

Many such people want it to have TV tuner capabilities...

Indeed. See here. No "slot" required.

:|

For those using Macs, Elgato has the EyeTV Hybrid, which is probably the exact same thing but bundled with their EyeTV software.

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/hybrid/product1.en.html If you have a Mac this one will do nicely, and for only $150.

It's about as stupid as the HDTV plan, which since I cannot record HDTV without buying illegal hardware, I'm not buying either.

Uh, you're wrong?

I'm not sure if any of current products from the same vendor support QAM, but the eyetv 500 tuner from a couple of years ago works great with a Mac.

On CableCard:

The problem with CableCard is that it's more inconvenient that the damn STB's. I'd rather have a separate box that I can move myself than have a card that a Cable Company installer has to come out and set up anytime I want to use it in a different device. It only screws things up. Not to mention the reduced functionality: STBs give you On Demand and interactive program guides. But the existing CableCard solutions will only give one-way communication, so you don't get those features. Vista, for all of its self-proclaimed greatness will only work with the one-way version.

The funny thing is, a lot of the point of CableCard is for these PVR's. Vista made such a big deal over CableCard support, since now you could finally record your HD programming that you already pay so much for, instead of just the OTA stuff. But woops -- you can't really record it (But we tricked into into buying a bunch of hardware for that purpose, didn't we!). It's insane. So far, you can only use CableCard with certified products like Media Center; Several high-end companies have sprung up selling high-end Media Center PC's, with a lot of the focus on the Cable Card support, so you spend several thousand dollars to be able to record any of the HD cable programming you paid for. And now, after you've jumped through the hoops and bought the "certified, hassle-free, and legal" solution, they still block you from doing what you paid for. And for what? To prevent piracy? Yeah right, all of those shows you can't record will still be available via bittorrent. Congratulations to the content providers, Cable Labs, and Microsoft. You just scammed the honest people in the name of fighting piracy, while completely losing the battle with the people who don't pay you anyway.

Now on MythTV:

The only hardware that really needs to be standardized is the tuner. And some tuners are supported remarkably easily. Hauppage cards are known for being a great fit with MythTV. I know mine works pretty easily. Also, check out the pcHDTV card for HD, which is made specifically for Linux, and is also supported very well under MythTV. And if you want something that's really easy to set up, try out the HDHomeRun. It's a simple network box that just streams the unencrypted OTA HD signal over Ethernet. MythTV knows all about it, so all you have to do to set it up is tell Myth that's what you're using, and type in the IP address. Also, there's two tuners, so it's a great deal.

It's not hard to find out which hardware is well-supported in MythTV. I've only heard good things about those three devices. You don't need a whole standardized platform. Just find a tuner that works well.

Oh, and the problem with the AppleTV box is that it's not a tuner so by itself, it's nothing like a TIVO. Saying that "the platform is cheap at least" isn't really true, since it's $300 just to stream content from your PC to your TV. It won't get any of the content for you, unless you buy it off the iTunes store, which still costs money for each show you get. You can pair it with something like EyeTV for a little more complete DVR experience, and that would probably work pretty well. But on its own, Apple hasn't made a DVR solution. I would bet they don't plan on doing it any time soon, either.

For the several years I've been using an el gato http://www.elgato.com/eyeTV HTDV gizmo to record over-the-air HD content to disk, and then (lacking any means of directly driving the Hitachi HDTV from the server) burning the programs to DVD for playback on the better screen via the set-top DVD player. Packing HD content onto a standard DVD is a learning experience in itself, as it's all to easy to put more bandwidth into the DVD than the player will handle, with subsequent artifacts and other nonsense.

So when the AppleTV was announced, I leaped at it, and have been getting accustomed to the device over the past few weeks. My goal has been (and is) to use the server in the next room as a media server, streaming content to the Apple TV for playback on the Hitachi plasma HDTV. In this, my intent has been to put DVDs and recorded broadcast content on the server, taking advantage of the rapid decline in cost of hard drives.

I've had most success using Handbrake to rip DVDs to bits-on-a-disk in MP4 form, then using VisualHub to fine-tune the conversion to AppleTV format, transcoding to H.264 and 1280x720, 24 fps for DVDs. For broadcast content, I go directly from eyeTV to an AppleTV-compatible format (960x540, 29.97 fps, single-pass H.264). The AppleTV-formatted content is then added to iTunes and streamed to the AppleTV via 802.11n wifi. I find that streaming gives me better results than syncing, especially if the content has longer playback times. In all cases, I maintain the max playback bandwidth at close to 5 Mbps, the published limits of the AppleTV.

The reason I go for the 960x540 format for broadcast content is that it's gonna end up that way anyhow, due to the content provider's (that would be the studio, not Apple) inclusion of the ICT http://broadcastengineering.com/mag/broadcasting_c pr_redefined/(Image Constraint Tag) in the video stream, so that higher-resolution video thusly tagged gets knocked back to 960x540. If you just let QuickTime do the conversion via their AppleTV menu choice in QuickTime Pro, you also get the bandwidth throttled back to 4 Mbps.

The end result is that the viewing experience is very close to set-top DVD playback, but less than over-the-air HDTV. All in all, a "good enough" experience, especially for only $320 (including the HDMI-to-HDMI cabling).

In my initial testing of the device, I predicted that there would be a chasm between two groups of users -- those who love the AppleTV, and see it as a significant advance in bringing computer-controlled TVs into the living room, vs those who see it as an abject failure. The difference between these two camps is largely one born out of expectations. The people who hate it wanted effortless 1080p quality video, a built-in DVD player and HD receiver, and were shocked to discover that it actually was a little less than Steve Jobs pitched it to be, instead of a lot more. Maybe a second- or third-generation model will come closer to their dreams, but if so, it will be because the studios have loosened up in what they will permit such a device to do, and because the internet providers have boosted the available bandwidth to permit downloading of multi-gigabyte files in a reasonable time (hint: an hour of HD MPEG2 video takes around 5 GB to store on the hard drive).

Today's limitations on what can be done with connecting the internet to HDTV are constrained mostly by the available bandwidth and the studios' restrictions on how much fidelity they allow in downloaded content. When the Xbox HD content-via-the-web becomes available, I expect that it will be similarly hobbled.

So long as you don't have over-the-top expectations, y

Check with Elgato Systems.

See if their eyeTV hybrid works on AppleTV.

Check with Elgato Systems.

See if their eyeTV hybrid works on AppleTV.

Already trademarked as the eye TV, I understand. I believe that this is the product that holds that trademark: http://www.elgato.com/

I would have snapped up an "HD iTivo" in a second but that's not what it is.

This looks like a nice tuner for a Mac mini, since it's so tiny.

At least one compact tuner is the Elgato EyeTV hybrid. Use that with a Mac mini, and you have a great DVR that does OTA HD as well as standard def TV - and all of the video recorded is DRM free, transcode away or burd to DVD or do whatever.

New sound "card" for Mac mini? Yes: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/firewave /

New TV tuners for Mac mini? Yes: http://www.elgato.com/

Additional USB ports for Mac mini? Yes: Any one of a thousand USB hubs on the market.

Okay, the graphics are not upgradeable, but please show me the PC video card that will fit in your "equivalent" PC with the MIni's form factor.

New TV tuners for Mac mini? Yes: http://www.elgato.com/

Hmmm... those TV tuners appear to be pretty much identical to Hauppauge devices. I presume they licensed the rights off Hauppauge, rebranded them slightly, and sold them for a premium with Mac drivers and software - wonder how much money they make from it? (The Hauppauge versions don't have drivers for the Mac - well, not officially, anyway.)

New sound "card" for Mac mini? Yes: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/firewave /
New TV tuners for Mac mini? Yes: http://www.elgato.com/
Additional USB ports for Mac mini? Yes: Any one of a thousand USB hubs on the market.
Okay, the graphics are not upgradeable, but please show me the PC video card that will fit in your "equivalent" PC with the MIni's form factor.

These days watching TV means watching ads.

Not at all. There's no reason to watch ads on TV other than laziness. And it's inefficient laziness, since the few hours you invest in learning about alternatives will save you far more time in not listening to blathering marketroids.

Think EyeTV, not ITV. :)

Yes, you have to get your content into iTunes. That doesn't mean you have to buy any content from the iTunes store.
I'm thinking of getting an AppleTV and an EyeTV product (in my case a EyeTV Hybrid) instead of spending $800 on an HD TiVo. The EyeTV will act as a DVR (except for the "live tv" features), saving my recordings into iTunes for viewing on the AppleTV. Also, I hear that you can rip DVDs and add them to iTunes also (just like any other video file).

Currently, I have two media rooms - one casual family room and one home theatre room. The casual family room has a re-purposed iMac RevA running EyeTV and a TV Tuner/Encoder box, using a 1TB RAID1 array for storage of recorded analog cable programming, pira-ahem downloaded content, and ripped DVDs. EyeTV can be coaxed into encoding programming for our iPod with Video. Audio out is connected to a stereo Receiver which drives zone music thruout the house, so instead of a monster 400-disc CD changer, we just rip the CDs and use iTunes. When it's not in use, we tuck away the wireless keyboard and mouse, and the iPhoto library screensaver runs.

Since the iMac was a hand-me-down, it was all rather inexpensive (except for the 1TB array) and it all works wonderfully as an attractive media-agnostic (and copyright-agnostic) PVR and central media center... except for one problem: I can't share content with my home theatre setup.

The home theatre room has just a VCR, DVD player and A/V amplifier. I need an inexpensive box that can access the 1TB drive and playback content on a composite or S-video output. It needs to be capable of full access to EyeTV libraries, Mac filesystem libraries, and iTunes libraries over a wireless network.

Currently the only way I can see to do this is put a Mac Mini running EyeTV in the theatre room and use the TV as a monitor. But the cost of a Mini and the clumsiness of using a TV as its only display are both discouraging factors.

I'm not holding my breath for Apple's "iTV" to fill this gap. The Sling press release does not mention EyeTV at all. But considering how well the G5 iMac serves as a PVR at the end of its life, a new Intel Mac Mini would do a smashing job... except for the need for a) yet another monitor, or b) an upgrade to an HDTV with a mac video interface.

Why would anyone over the age of 25, that doesn't have children, and already has a mac, need (or even want?) an Xbox 360?

No children, over 25, already owns a mac - that's a relatively tiny market. In fact, I know of only two (including myself). But let's assume I'm wrong, for the moment. Those types are also the kind who have already purchased Tivos, or they're the type who have already toiled away at their 1337 HTPC / MythTV boxes. Typically, they've already filled the niche that Apple has been too lazy to fill for the last 5 years.

Apple has a long uphill battle creating a system as seamless as Tivo.

The other problem is FrontRow eating into the ITV's market: why would people spend $300 on a "dumb" ITV box when they can spend $600 on a much more capable Mac Mini HTPC that also serves as a "dumb" FrontRow box at the touch of a remote? There are some technophobes in your defined market, but a lot of those "childless professionals" are technically inclined, and like flexibility. A number of people have already created a comunnity around this, and there are products like DistantDVD and EyeTV that make the Mac Mini even more fully-featured.

It won't be called iTV because it's too similar to Elgato's EyeTV product.

Oh, you need a TV Tuner?

Why would you need a card slot for such a thing?

-jcr

Using a Mac with a TV tuner is amazingly easy. The Eye TV Hybrid is so small, it'd be no trouble at all to bring it along and use even with a laptop. It is about the size of two fingers held together. The included software is very easy to setup and use, making a Mac into an excellent TV/PVR.

Used with a 24" iMac, you'll get native 1920*1080 (full 1080i resolution), something that very few of the $4000 plasma televisions offer. A recent Apple Event included mention of the upcoming iTV (name subject to change, $269 IIRC) that will allow streaming video wirelessly to the living room for that bigger screen. Think of it as Airport Express for video/audio, with a remote control path back to the server. I think we'll see Apple making a big push into video around the time 10.5 ships.

Unfortunately, I looked at Elgato's site after I posted the link, and the "old style" breakout boxes are all gone in favor of that crappy USB dongle one.

Perhaps you're having difficulty with their odd Web site design? They seem to be selling 250, 310, 410, 610, as well as the USB dongles. The 250 is available directly from their store if that is what you're interested in. Here is a link.

Here you go.

Even the original Mac Minis are fast enough to handle MPEG2 decoding required for the EyeTV 500 (in software, since the Minis don't have a good video card). Pair it with a projector for a "cheap" HDTV (only $2000 for as-big-as-your-wall vs. $2500 for a wussy little 42").

A bunch of the replies pointed me to the EyeTV, which is what I would buy with a Mac Mini: http://www.elgato.com/. I rarely watch sports, but when I do, it's almost always from channels that I can get over the air. (I do my patriotic duty and usually watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.) Besides, how long do you think it'll be until most sports can be streamed over the internet?

there are a few people that make the interface hardware. http://www.elgato.com/ has been at it for a while. i just saw on a few weeks ago that is the same footprint as a Mac Mini and has the TV tunercard as well as AV in/out. it hooks to the Mini via USB2 or firewire (i think USB2 actually?). sorry i forget the details, but if i remember right it is made by a 3rd party, and support is provided by the people at El Gato (it runs their software). i don't see it on their website though..... hmmmm

My key question: will the movies and updated TV shows have closed captioning? Under iTMS6 they do not. Likewise, the current iPod doesn't support closed captioning either.

On a related note, will iTunes allow importing of content from EyeTV, VIDEO_TS folders (guessing no due to Front Row), or ripping of DVDs? EyeTV integrates with FrontRow, but will it work with this new iTV box? I can rip my CDs already, can I now rip my DVDs?

In offering the iMac in a 24" version it didn't just get a bigger screen. It got more pixels. It is 1920*1200, making it able to natively show 1920*1080 (1080i) HDTV at full detail, something most $4000 plasma televisions don't do. They're almost all only supporting 720p natively (720 pixels tall).

Perhaps it is no coincidence that El Gato Systems set the second week of September as the ship date for their Eye TV Hybrid which allows recent Macs to watch, record and play NTSC (analog) and HDTV (off air ATSC and IIRC, Clear-QAM Cable). The combination of the Eye-TV Hybrid or the earlier Eye TV 500 (digital only) and an iMac makes a great platform for HDTV. I expect that Steve will demo the two together. I've used an Eye-TV 500 on a 20" iMac. Good program material is stunning even with some detail being lost to scaling down for the 1680 pixel width of the screen. Getting the full detail and PVR functionality on a 24" iMac will be even better.

A relative near a major US city is getting about 20 digital program channels off-air (free), not counting a bunch of foreign-language and religious offerings. Those in remote areas won't be so lucky. But there are those BT downloads, and perhaps Steve will offer us a few more things from iTMS...

In offering the iMac in a 24" version it didn't just get a bigger screen. It got more pixels. It is 1920*1200, making it able to natively show 1920*1080 (1080i) HDTV at full detail, something most $4000 plasma televisions don't do. They're almost all only supporting 720p natively (720 pixels tall).

Perhaps it is no coincidence that El Gato Systems set the second week of September as the ship date for their Eye TV Hybrid which allows recent Macs to watch, record and play NTSC (analog) and HDTV (off air ATSC and IIRC, Clear-QAM Cable). The combination of the Eye-TV Hybrid or the earlier Eye TV 500 (digital only) and an iMac makes a great platform for HDTV. I expect that Steve will demo the two together. I've used an Eye-TV 500 on a 20" iMac. Good program material is stunning even with some detail being lost to scaling down for the 1680 pixel width of the screen. Getting the full detail and PVR functionality on a 24" iMac will be even better.

A relative near a major US city is getting about 20 digital program channels off-air (free), not counting a bunch of foreign-language and religious offerings. Those in remote areas won't be so lucky. But there are those BT downloads, and perhaps Steve will offer us a few more things from iTMS...