Elgato's EyeTV Hybrid has long been the standout among the Mac options for HD television tuners, in large part because it comes with the excellent EyeTV software for program guide info, scheduling and recording. This week, the product gets an overhaul with refreshed hardware (including an FM radio tuner) and the new 3.1 version of the application with a bundled copy of Toast Basic for DVD burning; the combo is impressive. The revised software swaps out the TitanTV electronic program guide source for the more detailed (and, after the first free year, $20 paid-subscription) TV Guide data. The new EyeTV Hybrid is immediately available in the USA and Canada for US $149.95 and works on Mac OS X 10.4.11 and higher; decoding HD content requires an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. EyeTV 3.1 will be released as a free update for existing owners in the coming weeks.

Update: Several commenters noted that earlier versions of the hardware allowed for decoding HD content with a Core Duo (as distinct from Core 2 Duo) processor, and questioned whether anything had changed. Per the specifications page for the new unit, a Core 2 Duo chip is indeed required for 720p or 1080i content.

EyeTV's hardware has always packed some impressive functionality into a small USB dongle; however, the previous units (designed and built by OEMs like Pinnacle and Hauppauge for bundling with the EyeTV app) didn't always shine when it came to holding onto weak HDTV signals, and recordings were sometimes plagued with dropouts and jitter when used with borderline-adequate antennas. The new hardware design has been insourced to EyeTV's team and custom-built with a focus on improving signal handling; the results are pretty good.

In my preliminary testing with the new unit I got much better signal on some stations that had previously been on the fringe, and the picture is still crystal-clear (HD sporting events on a 24" iMac screen are a revelation). The only annoying quirk I saw in the EyeTV 3.1 app was a propensity for the video aspect ratio to flop between 16x9 and 4x3 as commercials or other standard-ratio content interrupted a widescreen program. Other than that, it works quite well, even with a $12 pair of Radio Shack rabbit ears.

The new TV Guide program info is quite a bit more detailed than the Titan TV or over-the-air ATSC listings, with full cast and capsule review data available. EyeTV now allows for a 'season pass' preset that will capture all episodes of a particular program, and parental controls are now implemented to allow responsible adults some control over the viewing and recording habits of the household. Recording a show is still just as easy, although you need to maintain a Titan TV account to do remote scheduling; the iPhone and iPod conversion and WiFi sharing capabilities remain as before, and can be supercharged via the turbo.264 outboard compression dongle. As always, be sure to keep plenty of hard drive space available if you want to maintain a library of HD recordings.

We'll be stopping by Elgato's booth at Macworld Expo this week for a video tour of EyeTV 3.1; if you're at the show, you can catch them at booth #2126. See the gallery below for some views of the new hardware and software.

Yesterday, I was reading through our sister site TV Squad and saw this post about Broadcast Flags that prevent PCs from recording shows. Broadcast flags, which are signals sent in a digital TV data stream, indicate whether shows should or should not be recorded by third party equipment such as PVRs. Curious, I shot off an email to Nick Freeman of Elgato to see whether my Mac-based EyeTV would block flagged recordings.

Turns out that my Macintosh is a libertarian. I can continue recording any shows I receive. Phew.

Not only did Nick get right back to me, he put up this handy info page about Elgato's position on broadcast flags: EyeTV doesn't restrict recording. EyeTV (and Elgato's software in general) ignores voluntary DRM, the kind that asks you to shoot yourself in your own foot if you don't mind thankyouverymuch.

I was blissfully ignorant of these flags until yesterday. In a world of product placement and in-screen logos, does it really make sense to keep people away from watching your shows? It's not as though I don't get the concept -- a return to appointment television where people go to the bathroom during commercial breaks instead of fast forwarding -- but it just struck me as so incredibly brain-dead in its execution.

What a pity that Microsoft chose to support this silliness with Media Center. And bravo to Elgato for deciding not to. What kinds of voluntary DRM can you think up? Let us know in the comments. Mine is broadcast-approved earplugs. Stick them in whenever you encounter sounds that might be copyright.

While we wait for Apple to cram a TV tuner or cable card into the Apple TV (don't hold your breath-- seriously), El Gato continues to pump out some nice hardware/software tools for watching the tube on your Mac. One thing that caught my eye: you can start distributing recorded live video around your house 30 seconds or so after the EyeTV starts recording a show. I remember when we had to rig some VLC nonsense together to get livestreaming on a remote machine with the old EyeTV. Oh, and they've apparently added something very similar to the Season Pass feature on Tivo, which is quite cool.

Check out a nice demo after the jump.

Until recently turning your Mac into a PVR has generally meant using Elgato's EyeTV (our coverage) with hardware from Elgato or a related vendor. Now, however, AMD is getting in the Mac PVR game with the ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB for Mac (say that three times fast!). The Wonder 650 has dual tuner that can receive free over-the-air ATSC high-definition content as well as standard definition NTSC content from cable or antenna. With the two tuners you can "watch analog TV while recording digital TV at the same time" (I take it that this means you can't record one HD stream while watching a different one).

In addition to the 650 itself (which includes hardware based MPEG-2 compression) the package includes ATI's tvPORTAL for Mac software. Much like EyeTV this allows you to watch and pause live video as well as set up timed recordings with a programming guide.

The ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo should be available by the end of the month for $149.

[via 123Macmini]

TUAW readers are no-doubt aware of EyeTV, the app from Elgato Systems that enables you to record TV via your Mac (with a compatible tuner). Last month's EyeTV 2.5 upgrade was a neat boost that allowed folks to use their recorded content on the newest handheld devices, but today's 2.5.1 update now make EyeTV fully compatible with Leopard.

So what's added? In short: Leopard features galore. Spaces support (so that TV shows can follow you, whichever Space you swap to), QuickLook for your recordings, and the ability to browse the EyeTV Archive folder bundle with CoverFlow. Perhaps the crowning feature, however, is the integration of iChat Theater playback for your video files, along with playback controls and the ability to add your own commentary over the playback. Become your own broadcast hub!

The EyeTV update is a free download for registered customers from the Elgato website. The 50 MB patch can also be downloaded and installed from within the EyeTV application.

As we posted last week, Elgato's new EyeTV 2.5 upgrade (free to existing customers) offers WiFi video streaming. Today I finally had the opportunity to sit down and put the update to the test: to see how it worked and to see where the new technology could take me. I found that this update turned my Mac Mini into a free, low-rent slingbox. I can now bring my home TiFaux with me on the road, just by tuning in using my iPhone, iPod touch or laptop.

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]

We previously mentioned a hacked together, rudimentary Mac interface for the HDHomeRun and expressed hope for EyeTV support. Well, our wish has been granted as Elgato has announced the HDHomeRun for the Mac. The HDHomeRun is a nifty little device that features two over-the-air / Clear QAM HD tuners which decode HDTV signals and send them out over ethernet. The video can then be watched on any Mac on the network with the EyeTV software. Since there are two tuners, you can watch or record two different channels at the same time.

The EyeTV package includes the HDHomeRun as well two EyeTV licenses for $199.95.

[via MacMinute]

We've repeatedly covered the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid USB television tuner. This is an excellent little device that many of us here at TUAW own and use. On the Windows side, however, USB tuners from Hauppauge are very popular, and now Elgato has made their EyeTV software compatible with three USB tuners from Hauppauge: the Win TV Nova-T, Win TV HVR 900 and Win TV NOVA-TD. So if you already have a Hauppauge tuner you'll just need to purchase the EyeTV PVR software for €59.99 (~$80) to use it with your Mac.

In fact, this is not terribly surprising. If you run the Apple System Profiler with the EyeTV Hybrid plugged in you'll see that it is a Win TV HVR 980 under the hood, so to speak. Nonetheless, more Mac hardware support is pretty much always a good thing in my book.

[via MacNN]

Elgato's new EyeTV 2.4 update is now available for download. This new update brings the Apple TV export feature we've all been waiting for. You can now record High Def shows using your HDTV-compatible EyeTV tuner and export them to iTunes using Apple TV high quality settings. Version 2.4 also adds Apple Spotlight support, IR Blaster support, and a new ScreenCapture menu item as well as a number of bug fixes.

Wednesday means it is Ask TUAW time! This week we'll look at questions about Arabic support in Mail.app, playing a Wii on a Mac, Digital Color Calibration, problems copying from Firefox and much more. As always, please leave your own comments, and ask more questions for next week either in the comments to this post or using the tip form. Now let's dive right in!

While we eagerly await the living room convergence that the now-shipping Apple TV will bring, it's not too soon to start building up that library of HDTV media. I recently got an eyeTV Hybrid unit from Elgato (that's Spanish for "the cat," you know) and have been merrily hauling down those airborne bits of yummy video goodness. There are a few caveats to note with the eyeHybrid, but if you want to watch digital broadcast HDTV (ATSC) on your recent-vintage Mac, this is a great way to do it. Even for analog video input, it's relatively affordable at $150. There's also a suspiciously similar unit from Pinnacle, featuring the 'lite' version of the eyeTV software, announced last week for $130.

Before you consider the Hybrid, there's a basic question to be answered: how's your over-the-air TV signal? If you normally watch cable or satellite, you might not even know which standard and high-def broadcast channels are covering your house. In my locale (Brooklyn, NY) I've got pretty good OTA signal for the networks and independent channels, with the unfortunate exception of PBS. To check your location, hop over to http://antennaweb.org and give them your address for a detailed map and antenna recommendations. We'll wait...

If you can't get HD via the airwaves, cable subscribers with Firewire-equipped set-top boxes do have another DIY option for recording unencrypted HD programming (the broadcast networks, basically) -- the Apple Firewire SDK. Check out this post for a brief how-to, and this macosxhints thread for more; it's not a supported solution but it may be worth a try. There's even an all-in-one tool under development (iRecord). None of these approaches, however, will let you watch live HDTV on your Mac like the Hybrid does.

More on the EyeTV setup after the jump.

Somebody we know around these parts has posted a nice tutorial over at MacDevCenter on how to use VLC to stream live HDTV from an EyeTV compatible tuner to other Macs around your house. This way if you set up a Mac media center computer to record HDTV, you can shoot that content to other Macs (or even, perish the thought, Windows PCs, since VLC is cross-platform).

The same basic methodology should allow you to stream already downloaded/recorded programs as well. Since VLC has a web-based remote, you can even control it from the client computer as well. There are many good non-obvious tips here, particularly Erica's way of exposing the MPEG transport stream, so if you're interested in a Mac based HDTV system, check it out.

Looks like Miglia isn't the only kid on the block with a picture-in-picture TV tuner for the Mac anymore, as Elgato has released the EyeTV Diversity, offering powerful DTT reception, picture-in-picture viewing and the ability to record one channel while you watch another. DTT, for those who might be scratching their heads, stands for Digital Terrestrial Television, a new digital broadcasting standard adopted mostly by European and Asian countries, allowing for more better channels and content to be served over traditional broadcasting systems (i.e. - from what little I know about DTT from the Wikipedia entry and Elgato's product page, this product doesn't really have North Americans in its demographic, for now).

Nevertheless, judging from its size and feature list, the EyeTV Diversity is packing quite a punch, and it's available now from Elgato for 149,95 Euros.

Thanks Todd

TV on a Mac is a foreign concept to most people, but EyeTV hopes to change that with the introduction of the minuscule (just a bit larger than an iPod Shuffle) EyeTV Hybrid USB TV tuner. Capable of receiving both digital (S-Video via an adapter) and analog (using the built-in coax plug or the included composite adapter) signals, the Hybrid can pick up regular run-of-the-mill standard standard definition TV, as well as up to 1080p HDTV over-the-air programming (if you have either a dual G5 or Core Duo). With that delicious combination of input options, I can hook up both my Xbox OR digital cable to my PowerBook, sit back, and relax. The EyeTV Hybrid goes for an extremely affordable $150.

[via OhGizmo!]