I have the occasional Mac envy. Recently I have been eyeing the new Mac Mini, thinking it would make a cool HTPC. The problem with it is that there is no tuner built into it. Of course, you can always get an external tuner.
Elgato’s Eye TV 250 is the big fish in the Mac tuner world. EyeTV 250 Plus delivers free over-the-air digital TV to your Mac in 720p or 1080i HDTV (MPEG-2) and other digital television standards, as well as conventional analog TV via standard cable or antenna. From their website:
EyeTV 250 Plus records digital television in one quality setting, Lossless. The ATSC digital stream is recorded unaltered, and so you’re getting full quality HDTV content as encoded by the broadcaster. EyeTV supports closed captioning and Dolby® Digital sound.
Right now the only way to get HD content on Mac is through an ATSC tuner. Remember, Macs do not have HDCP built into the operating system like Microsoft’s Vista. This means no HD-DVD or Blu-ray for now. Plus, iTunes does not offer HD content. Forget about digital cable tuners and CableCards.
I use an ASTC tuner on my Windows XP machine right now and really enjoy it. Maybe it is time I take the plunge and buy a Mac mini. EyeTV 250 Plus is available immediately for $199 at the Apple Store, as well as through resellers.
(via ehomeupgrade)
Tue, Aug 21, 2007
Uncategorized