We've covered the Elgato EyeTV 205 before, but now the Mac video peripherals company has pushed out a substantial revision, the EyeTV 250 Plus, which adds over-the-air HDTV capability. The Plus model is in many ways like the EyeTV Hybrid, and requires a beefy Dual G5 or Intel machine to decode the HDTV stream, but like the older 250 also includes a hardware encoder for digitizing analog sources (e.g. video tapes, etc.). In addition to the included EyeTV PVR software the the 250 Plus ships with Roxio Toast 8 Basic to allow you to burn recordings to disk.The EyeTV 250 Plus is $199.95 and is available now.
[via MacMerc]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-23-2007 @ 9:06PM
Alan said...
Does anyone know of a comparison of all the devices that ElGato makes? It's a little confusing trying to figure out what they offer, especially with the (vague) differentiation between North American and European models.
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8-23-2007 @ 10:26PM
Paul K. said...
Well, this link on the Elgato website might be able to help you out.
http://www.elgato.com/matrix/index.php
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8-23-2007 @ 10:57PM
JeffDM said...
I ended up buying a refurbished EyeTV 200 so I can record from my satellite, and it has a built-in MPEG-4 encoder, saving me a lot of drive space and processing power. I like the fact that the 200 uses Firewire too, my USB ports are used heavily enough, thanks. I think it's unfortunate that Elgato discontinued the hardware MPEG-4 encoder. I don't even want to consider using a 250+ and a Turbo.264 to do the same job.
The EyeTV Hybrid can record analog, but it's always sketchy and the Hybrid gets hot when recording analog. The longer the recording is, the more likely it's going to crash, I've gotten as bad as a hard crash every two days, I have to pull the power on the Mac. Hybrid does fine with digital reception though, which is odd.
The only down side of the 200 is that it doesn't behave properly either when the computer goes to sleep or wakes up, so the computer has to always be on.
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8-24-2007 @ 12:25AM
VH said...
Did you mean the EyeTV 250, not the EyeTV 205?
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8-24-2007 @ 3:04AM
Macroy said...
Just to clarify, if I buy this, I can just plug it in and it will receive OTA HDTV? Or do I need an antenna?
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8-24-2007 @ 10:07AM
Goreged Bushed said...
I got the 500 for my overpriced usb2less imac. And it will freeze my computer if I am running Safari, but work pretty good outside that. Any OTA unit will need antenna.
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8-24-2007 @ 1:26PM
Paul said...
Elgato is getting closer to a sale from me. I'm still holding out until they make one of these with dual tuners (they have one for people who live overseas, but not one for US TV).
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8-24-2007 @ 1:29PM
Paul said...
Macroy: You need to buy an antenna.
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8-24-2007 @ 5:00PM
ryan said...
@Paul@Macroy
An antenna is required, but if it is anything like the hybrid, it will come with it.
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8-24-2007 @ 6:12PM
Dave said...
Hi,
I'm looking for something where I can plug one end into the Mac, the other into the coax from the cable, and watch some TV on the Mac. HD would be nice but not necessary, and I don't need PVR capability as I have an HD DVR upstairs.
Can anyone recommend something? I'm baffled by all the different options out there.
Thanks,
Dave
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8-24-2007 @ 9:29PM
Jeff said...
I'm very interested in this, but it looks like you can't have both OTA HD plugged in and your cable at the same time. There seems to be only one coax on the back of this.
Can anyone confirm this or deny it?
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11-05-2007 @ 11:41AM
Hank Grahsl said...
I am using a macbook,and a apple cinema 20" dispay with a eyetv 250 plus. What should I expect for picture quality at maximum Size or Full Screen.
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