[Dgysy]

Is there a TV card available for the Mac?

I was at a friend who has a PC and he has a Hauppage TV card, and is able to watch TV on his monitor while working.

[spiky_dog]

I'm also interested in this. A preliminary search turned up the ATI Xclaim TV (which is only a piggyback card for Xclaim VR cards, which are hopelessly out of date) and this thread on Usenet: <a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=3853CE9D.E044B1AA%40jps.net&rnum=2&pre v=/groups%3Fq%3DMac%2BTV%2Btuner%2Bcards%26ie%3DISO-8859-1%26hl%3Den%26btnG%3DGoogl" target="_blank">http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=3853CE9D.E044B1AA%40jps.net&rnum=2&pre v=/groups%3Fq%3DMac%2BTV%2Btuner%2Bcards%26ie%3DISO-8859-1%26hl%3Den%26btnG%3DGoogl</a> e%2BSearch

[spiky_dog]

That link is hopelessly mangled. Oh well. Anyways, the cards that it mentions (ixMicro/IMS) are not an option any more since ixMicro has since gone out of business.

The Hauppauge device actually lists Mac compatibility: <a href="http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=EX10637&cat=mac" target="_blank">its page at MacWarehouse</a>. Furthermore, OS X software seems to be <a href="http://www.eskapelabs.com/osx.html" target="_blank">in beta testing</a>.

Here is the <a href="http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=951534" target="_blank">MacMall page</a> for the MyTV device, and the corresponding <a href="http://www.clubmac.com/clubmac/shop/detail.asp?dpno=860875" target="_blank">ClubMac</a> page (this for the more capable MyTV/fm unit, which has a FM tuner as you may have guessed).

<small>[ 07-13-2002, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: spiky_dog ]</small>

[Ken_F2]

The TV solutions just plain stink on the Mac; most of those solutions that did exist under OS9 are unsupported under OSX. Apple has said that their platform is a "digital hub," so I expect we will see a TV-like product within the next six months to a year.

On a PC, there are HDTV PCI boards for $200 to $300. You can watch a HDTV broadcast or movie from over-the-air or cable in a window on your desktop (or full screen) while you work. They support Dolby Digital 5.1 output, so you can connect them to your hometheater system as well. It really is quite cool, and this is something Apple needs to offer/support.

[cmoney]

Eye TV!

At MWNY next week El Gato will unveil Eye TV, a full OS X-based PVR solution, including scheduling of TV recording via the web. This product is a hardware unit with coax cable hookup (and composite video and stereo audio) that connects via USB and software to control it. (That's a definite minus as it means lower video quality, but it does mean it's cheaper.)

Read Jim Heid's review at his site: <a href="http://www.macintoshdigitalhub.com/reviews/eyetv/index.html" target="_blank">Macintosh Digital Hub</a>.

He makes it sound like it works pretty well. It lets you pick a show via a web site (titantv.com) and then automatically record it to your hard drive. It records at two rates, the lower quality is 1 hour for 650MB, the higher quality, about twice the resolution and twice the size. The lower quality is compatible with VCD and can be written to VCD via Toast and played on most current DVD players.

It all costs $199 and I'll definitely pick it up, if only to supplement my older TiVo. (I'm getting tired of paying $12.95 a month for that sucker. They went and increased the subscription rate from $9.95 then added advertising that you can't turn off!)