EvolutionTV - Another Mac PVR
It looks like the EyeTV is going to get a run for its money. Miglia has announced EvolutionTV, another box to turn your Mac into a PVR.
It features onboard MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and DivX hardware compression so your Mac can spend its processor cycles on more noble causes, like curing diseases. [While I haven't used the product, I hope that they quote this post in their marketing materials to make allusions that their product somehow cures diseases.]
The EvolutionTV has coax, composite and S-video in; USB out. Yes, it is odd that they chose USB over Firewire for a Mac product. It also supports NTSC and PAL, for our European friends. I can't find any size information on the site, which is important if you're planning to duct tape it to the back of your plasma TV next to your Mac Mini.
No HD support and no word on the software other than a mention the fact that it is inside the box. At $280 it's $20 cheaper than the EyeTV 200 and it ships March 15th. That's pretty soon, hopefully they'll replace their rendered picture with a picture of the actual product by then.
(Via Engadget.)
Yeah - but I'm cheap. Seems like someone just needs to port the Linux PPC bttv driver for PCI capture cards to Mac OS, and give us access to $40 software capture cards. Heck, if you've paid the premium to move from a Mac Mini/eMac/iMac to something with PCI slots, it would probably be nice to save some money on your TV interface. Besides, with dual G5 processors, why, exactly, do you need a hardware encoder? Granted, the digital TV interfaces are nice.
Posted by: Harold Lee | March 02, 2005 at 12:17 PM
"Besides, with dual G5 processors, why, exactly, do you need a hardware encoder?"
You don't absolutely "need" it, however it does make life a lot easier by essentially taking the "load" off of your processor thus enabling you to do other tasks while you are recording television. Imho, hardware encoding is a much better route than software encoding. There's just a whole lot less you have to worry about.
Posted by: w00master | March 02, 2005 at 01:43 PM
http://home.arcor.de/a.thiede/
http://xtv.sourceforge.net/
Hi, Harold. You should check out these sites.
Posted by: Michael M. | March 02, 2005 at 02:10 PM
Apple has also chosen USB over Firewire.
When 10.4 ships with lil'Mac then I'm getting one -- PVR prices will also be coming down in 2005-2006. Then I'll get cable or satellite and tear down my UHF-VHF roof antenna!
; )
www.techdictionary.com
Posted by: krag | March 02, 2005 at 06:53 PM
No mention on their website if this records HDTV programs, as does the EyeTV 500 ...
Posted by: NewsReader | March 03, 2005 at 03:37 PM
Plextor ConvertX PVR for the Mac
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/TV402UMac.htm
The PX-TV402U allows you to connect to a satellite TV, cable TV or broadcast TV signal and record programs to your Mac. You can then watch the video from the Mac or burn it to DVD for playback on a DVD player. You can also connect a camcorder, VCR or DVD player to record home videos to the Mac.
Posted by: Ernest | March 09, 2005 at 11:44 AM