After a long investigation on this kind of devises, I took the plunged and bought the ConverteX for Mac. It is everything I expected and maybe a bit more.
I was looking mainly at two devices, the EyeTV200 and the ConverteX for Mac.
I bought the ConverteX since it had almost the same features as the EyeTV200 and it was about $100 bucks less. This is a little review that I would like to share about my impressions with this little gadget.
The setup I have is a 12�PB G4 1.33GHz 768MB RAM 80GB, I am also using an external 17� LCD and the ConvertX is plugged into a USB2.0/FireWire Hub.
To start with setup: dead easy. I used the setup assistance on the help menu after installing the EyeTV software into my hard drive. You know, just follow the steps and you are all good. It even helps you setup an account with TitanTV.
After the software was installed and setup, the just plugged in the box to the outlet thru the power brick (which is not that big to my surprise) then to the UBS port on my Hub, and finally I had to run a huge ass coaxial cable from the living room to what I like to call my �office� (i.e my room). (Now, you might ask why watch TV on my room instead of my living room, well I live with 4 other guys, there fore this gadget lets me watch TV in my room and I get to pick the channel!) Back to the subject, I also have a VCR on my room, which I hooked up thru the front video and audio ports of the ConvertX. That way I can watch and record my old VCR (VHS) tapes that I had on my computer and maybe burn a DVD of them.
Well, after all this setting up time, I was glad that the little thing works like a charm! The video quality is pretty good, even in full screen. The software form El Gato is �award winning� very nice interface, intuitive, easy to use�just what one would expect from a well written Mac app to every single detail, such as still having the TV program playing on the dock when the TV window is minimized on it.. It is also, what I like to call �accommodating�, it lets you setup various preferences to your desire. The sound synchronization with the video is flawless so far, keyboard shortcuts and also very intuitive and great for channel surfing. I love also the fact that I can name the channels and instead of being channel 52 it says MTV 52. The TitanTV.com is a great solution for me, since I hate that TV Guide channel and waiting for the channel listing to go by. TitanTV lets me view the listing the way I want, and lets me select my favorite TV shows and schedule them for recording. Which it another great feature that works great! Just look at the TV listing, choose a show you would like to record, click on the record icon on the show and boom! All set to record! It is important to mention that one can watch a recorded show while recording another. However one can NOT record one show while watching another channel, like you do on a VCR.
A couple of other pet peeves I have, is the 3-4 second delay while changing the channel, this makes channel surfing slower, and a tad annoying. I was also a bit surprised that there is not a function to remove commercials, you have to do it manually on the video editing (which is easy to use) but the task is tedious. I remember that on the first TiVo, one could remove or skip commercials, since it could detect that delay they have between them. A feature I like but will not be able to use to frequently, is the fact the software would wake up or turn on the computer to record a show. However my setup, with a PowerBook is not limited to this, but it would mean that the PB would have to be plugged in to the outlet and I am just not a big fan of leaving my PB plugged in for long times if I am on there, or I am not using the PB. That is why I think a desktop computer would work better for this.
I have yet to try the DVD making from my recordings, but I bet it should not be hard and a humongous .pdf manual comes on the CD I just haven�t had time to read it all.
All in all, this is one of the most exiting gadgets one can get for their Mac. If you are looking into getting one of these, there is a $30 mail rebate, and the best price-reliable web seller I found was newegg.com (No affiliation with this entity on my behalf).
Any questions feel free to ask.
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