[Freeman]

Hi, does anyone come across any hardware which able the iMac to become a TV and to record the program went you are away from the computer?

Freeman

[Euphrates]

There are some PCI cards that act as TV tuners, but since iMacs don't have PCI slots, I'm not really sure if you could do that. Maybe there's some option other than PCI cards, but I haven't heard of any...

[edit: grammar][/LIST]
[ 07-27-2001: Message edited by: Euphrates ]

[neutrino23]

There are at least two options.

Formac Studio Pro is a video digitizer which includes a TV tuner. It connects and gets power via Firewire. It gets good reviews. I have one myselft. Works good on a Pismo 500 and iMac DV 400. I haven't seen any option for having it work as a VCR and make unattended recordings. I checked the dictionary but the Studio Pro's software does not even have AppleScript words that would let you schedule the recording via AppleScript. I think they have this feature for some of their other products so it might appear in the future. They are working on an OS X version.

You should be aware that digital video chews up a lot of HD space. In DV mode it takes 200MB / minute. Motion JPEG drops that down to something like 50MB / minute while sacrificing quality.

Another product (name is something like Eskape Labs) makes a similar box which runs on USB. It looked OK in their booth at MWSF but I went for the higher speed FW bus.

I'm sure there are other similar products if you search around.