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I purchased with the intent of using in my new Mac Mini. Based on how common this issue appears to be I will opt to return my tuner. Only a 3 days in and I am receiving an error telling me"The EyeTV Hybrid device will not operate because it is connected to a USB 1.1 port". One quick Google search and I found the article below. It's really too bad. When it works it works very well.[.].
Produces nice TV output on my screen. I agree I did my research before purchasing this product. The TV guide also works fine and I was even able to record shows. But still I am very happy with this product. Its small and hardly visible behind my iMac. Only down side I observed is that its gets a little hot when left connected to the system for too long. Except that everything is fine.
The software has a cable or satellite sytle program guide that makes finding your favorite show on any channel simple and only one click away. If you're looking at buying the Pinnnacle TV tuner for Mac, make a better investment and buy the Elgato EyeTV. This item was a great buy. Recording a show or a series is also be done with a click or two. Pinnacle tuner comes with EyeTV Lite, the Elgato tuner comes with EyeTV hybrid. The USB extention cable is great if you want to tuck away the tuner stick or just don't want it sticking out the back of your desktop. Another cool feature, you can use the mini remote that comes with your iMac. The Elgato EyeTV tuner is an over all great product and very user friendly.
I use it to watch HDTV on my 22" computer monitor, and it's not even and HD LCD but still looks great. And since the camcorder is mono out and the cable is L/R you'll have to set your audio in your video editing program to be mono so it doesn't come out on just the right side. I haven't A/Bed products to compare quality or features but this is definitely what I needed. I was excited to see the price of this, but there is NO hint whatsoever that this is the 2007 edition besides that fact that there is a date for when the product was first listed. But there's a new 2008 edition that Amazon does not mention, the remote is lame and unresponsive, the editing features on EyeTV are horrible. Works great but the cable on that comes with the EyeTV Hybrid is a female, and so is the camcorder, therefore you DO need you own male to male RCA if you are not using and Svideo cable (which a lot of old 8mm/hi8 camcorders do not have).
I also used to to record old 8mm tapes from my camcorder.
Would be cool if I had dual monitors.
It does the job and EyeTV is cool, but the menus aren't very intuitive, and neither is the remote since there are 4 colored and unlabeled buttons and I still forget which is which.
There is a newer one than this which has better Clear QAM support and is the 2008 edition, but other than that this product is still great.
I could've probably gotten a mono to stereo L/R cable but it did fine for me.I either didn't to all of my research or Elgato just fluffs up the features and makes it sound amazing, when in fact it's pretty basic.
Good for someone who doesn't watch too much TV and is always using a computer or wants to set up a computer as their "media center".
I also live in a studio so my computer is in the same room that I sleep in, easy to lay down and put on something to watch on my computer.
The remote is very unresponsive when you are only a couple feet back and not in the direct line of sight of the Hybrid device.All in all, probably the best out there for what it does, seems like a lot of people are satisfied with it, especially for $100.
If you need it to record from an external source, definitely cool, but if thats ALL you need, I'd rather go for a Canopus ADVC.
I've never used another type of product like this so I can't really compare. I am very pleased with my purchase of the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid. That being said, all the other versions that work with macs seemed to be more expensive.The only thing that I had a problem with is the editing aspect of the software. I liked everything about it. It's extremely easy to set up and record. It's very awkward and hard to use. However, you can export the video files to be used in various editing programs so it doesn't really matter that the EyeTV editing sucks.
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