HDTV Comes to the Mac

konfoo writes "Elgato just announced the availability of their FireWire DTV ATSC receiver (ATSC is the USA standard for digital and high definition television), EyeTV 500, at a price of around $350. It can be used in tandem with TitanTV to get EPG data and pick shows to record. Now Mac owners too can view and record those hidef broadcasts. On a sidenote, lets hope that the broadcast flag and other efforts don't squelch cool new products such as this." We reviewed the original EyeTV USB a year and a half ago. Since then, their product line has expanded, with all other models sporting FireWire, and covering a variety of analog and digital TV sources.

Comments

scriptability

[OmniVector]

I talked to some of the elgato people at the WWDC booth about eyetv. My favorite thing about this system is it easily scriptable via apple script, and all the hdtv files are just straight mpeg2 (easily accessible). I hope with Tiger they support automator and give metadata based on tv show recordings.. Will make tv recording that much easier.

g5 only

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Mac owners too can view and record those hidef broadcasts.

Only if the mac owner owns a powermac g5 because its the only mac that can play back 1920x1080 mpeg2 files.

Re:g5 only

[Rand310]

No, not just a G5, but a Dual Processor G5 in order to view full screen HD records. Though it scales for us without such beautiful machines (thick wallets).

I'd really like to know how useful this box is. I'd love to watch TV on my Mac, but I'm not even sure how many "over-the-air" channels I have anymore, much less HD channels...

oh well

Apple provides free HDTV recording tools at ADC

[jeffehobbs]

...as outlined in this excellent hint right here from MacOSXHints.com.

This presupposes you can get the hardware HDTV box from your cable company, but that's usually only a nominal fee (+$10 a month).

~jeff

HDTV Mac OS X for Australia

[darmou]

Here is the dvb driver/viewer for Mac OS X in Australia.

http://www.defyne.org/dvb/

Daryl