[maxx9photo]

Hello,

I live in small dorm kinna room and just don't have anymore space for tv so my PB became my only entertaiment center. But I really miss watching TV live so my question is, is eyeTv really let you watch a direct TV show from cable, satellite,etc? and can record any show? do I have to subscribe for their service? or just with any cable or satellite service? thanks and I'm sorry if this has been asked before as I just know about this stuff.

[Hydra]

Originally posted by maxx9photo:
Hello,

I live in small dorm kinna room and just don't have anymore space for tv so my PB became my only entertaiment center. But I really miss watching TV live so my question is, is eyeTv really let you watch a direct TV show from cable, satellite,etc? and can record any show? do I have to subscribe for their service? or just with any cable or satellite service? thanks and I'm sorry if this has been asked before as I just know about this stuff.

I have the eyeTV 500 which is the HDTV version for broadcast HDTV but the software and concept is all the same. The eyeTV 200 is the cable version I believe and I like the software it comes with. Your Mac will in effect become a TiVo-like device when hooked up to a cable line, I think analog cable only, digital may need a cable box to decode. Titantv.com is the TV listing service used by elgato's products but it is free. You can sign up right now and check it out if you want and use the same account once you get the eyetv. It is like TVguide.com but you can schedule a recording of a show by just clicking on the listing and the eyeTV software does all the rest. It all works very well. Watching live TV is the same as with a TiVo as you can pause, go back and then go right back to live.

The video can be stored on your Mac as a native DV stream which takes up much space or you can even use the built in eyeTV software to compress it or export it to another format and even burn to DVD using iDVD or something like it.

-Jerry C.

[joe]

Originally posted by maxx9photo:
...so my question is, is eyeTv really let you watch a direct TV show from cable, satellite,etc? and can record any show? do I have to subscribe for their service? or just with any cable or satellite service? thanks and I'm sorry if this has been asked before as I just know about this stuff.

My EyeTV200 (analog cable version) is a blast! I'm watching now in a window while I'm reading the forums. To answer your questions:
- yes. Easy setup too, it auto-finds all the cable channels.
- yes. Plus you can do 1-click scheduled recordings from the Titan web site!
- no. TitanTV is free. You have to register tho.

About the only caveat is to have it in an air-conditioned room. Mine locked up on me a few times during the summer. I'm not sure if that's changed with more recent models. I pre-ordered mine when the EyeTV200 was announced.

[SSharon]

I have the older Eye-TV USB model and love it. I also got it while in a dorm and even after many hours of use it doesn't get hot. The usb model doesn't have the same resolution of course but the software is pretty much the same and elgato has the best software. The only reason I haven't upgraded to a firewire version is the 650mb/hour is perfect for me since the image quality isn't that bad. I think the new eye-tv's come with remotes but if you do get the old one like mine take a look at the ATI Remote wonder remote control. It also has great software/drivers, is RF comes preprogrammed for eye-tv control and at $30 is a deal to me.