EFF's Review of Elgato's EyeTV 500

The EFF (who is doing a bang up job fighting the FCC's Broadcast Flag ruling that is set to come down this July) is starting to review all the HDTV recording software they can find. One of the problems with the broadcast flag is that your ability to record, store, and  edit HDTV streams on your computer will be greatly restrained if not made illegal outright come this July.

Today they posted a review of Elgato's EyeTV 500, a HDTV solution for the mac. The downsides are that you need a really fast mac to record and display recordings (they have a 500Mb, 5 minute demo file you can try your system out on), but they did show you can tape a movie off over-the-air HDTV and edit it freely (something outlawed in six month's time). The upsides are the EyeTV 500's simple install and operation that seems very mac-like.

The EFF's also working on install guides and packages for getting HDTV recording in MythTV, which I can't wait to see.