Elgato EyeTV Hybrid (NTSC)

by Elgato

• Box Content - EyeTV 3 digital TV recorder software(CD-ROM), EyeTV Hybrid analog/digital TV receiver, USB ext cable
• Watch and timeshift live television on your Mac. Record and subscribe to TV series.
• Receive over-the-air HDTV and analog TV. Rewind, fast forward, and pause digital TV
• Browse EyeTV menus in Full Screen mode
• Record hours of your favorite TV shows directly on your hard drive and edit out unwanted content

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 0.5 x 3.5 inches ; 4.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000HNJ6U0
• Item model number: 10020415
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (109 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,585 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 15, 2006

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

From the Manufacturer

Watch, Record, Edit, Enjoy
EyeTV Hybrid is powered by award-winning EyeTV 2 software:

• Watch analog as well as free over-the-air digital TV on your Mac.
• Browse EyeTV menus in Full Screen mode.
• Record hours of your favorite TV shows directly on your hard drive and edit out unwanted content.
• Find TV shows using the built-in program guide (USA only).
• Export clips and entire episodes to your video-capable iPod.
• Connect game consoles and enjoy virtually no latency game play.

It’s the ideal solution for someone who wants both an analog and digital TV solution for the Mac in one small USB stick.

Special Features

Two-In-One TV for Your Mac
EyeTV Hybrid does the work of two EyeTV hardware products for the price of one. It delivers free over-the-air digital TV to your Mac via antenna, as well as analog TV via antenna and standard cable. In "Analog Mode", EyeTV Hybrid enables you to watch analog TV (NTSC) on your Mac via antenna and standard cable. EyeTV Hybrid also comes with a break-out cable for composite video and S-Video; use it to connect a set top box to receive premium channels, digital cable or satellite (in standard definition). Do you plan to use EyeTV Hybrid with a Dual PowerPC G5 or an Intel Core Duo processor? Then enjoy watching 720p or 1080i HDTV (MPEG-2) in addition to the other digital television standards.

Made for the Mac With its classic matte aluminum finish and surprisingly small size for such a versatile product, the EyeTV Hybrid is a perfect complement to the Mac. It features a USB 2.0 interface for the streaming of superior quality, uncompressed TV content to your Mac. It is USB powered and therefore requires no external power supply, and contains a full-size coaxial plug.

Connect Game Consoles to Your Mac Connect your game console and enjoy an excellent live play experience--EyeTV Hybrid’s uncompressed analog video signals appear on the screen with virtually no latency.

Navigate with an Apple Remote Tired of remote controls scattered around the living room? So are we. If your Mac came with an Apple Remote, you can use it to navigate EyeTV’s Full Screen Menu. The Full Screen Menu will certainly work with an EyeTV IR remote control as well.

Superb Quality Digital TV Recordings EyeTV Hybrid records digital TV in one quality setting, Lossless. The digital stream is recorded unaltered, and so you’re getting full quality digital content as encoded by the broadcaster. EyeTV supports multilingual programming and Dolby Digital sound. Analog TV can be recorded via EyeTV 2’s software encoder, and the quality depends on the Mac’s processor power.

Product Description

The EyeTV Hybrid is the ideal solution for someone who wants both an analog and digital TV solution for the Mac in one small USB stick. With its classic matte aluminum finish and surprisingly small size for such a versatile product, the EyeTV Hybrid is a perfect complement to the Mac. It features a USB 2.0 interface for the streaming of superior quality, uncompressed TV content to your Mac. It is USB powered and therefore requires no external power supply, and contains a full-size coaxial plug. EyeTV Hybrid works with an Apple Remote. The EyeTV hardware delivers free over-the-air digital TV to your Mac via antenna, as well as analog TV via antenna and standard cable. EyeTV Hybrid also comes with a breakout cable for composite video and S-Video, enabling you to connect a set top box for premium channels, digital cable or satellite. Connect your game console and enjoy an excellent live play experience. EyeTV Hybrid's uncompressed analog video signals appear on the screen with zero latency. EyeTV Hybrid records digital TV in one quality setting, Lossless. The digital stream is recorded unaltered and so you're getting full quality digital content as encoded by the broadcaster. EyeTV supports multilingual programming and Dolby Digital sound. Analog TV can be recorded via EyeTV 2's software encoder, and the quality depends on the Mac's processor power. Find TV shows using the built-in program guide (USA only) Export clips and entire episodes to your video-capable iPod Connect game consoles and enjoy zero latency game play EyeTV Hybrid System Requirements - Macintosh with a PowerPC G4, G5 or Intel Core processor, 256 MB of physical RAM (512 MB recommended), a built-in USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X v10.4 or later, Internet connection required to download Program Guide data

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

158 of 166 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars EyeTV Hybrid October 12, 2006

By D. Petrun

I couldn't wait for this product to get off back-order status from Amazon so I went to Elgato's web-site and purchased it directly from the manufacturer (for more $). I could not believe my eyes when I saw the extreme clarity of the digital picture! It was noticeably better than the analog signal AND with the digital side you have control of the contents just like a TiVo (meaning, you can back-up several seconds or pause or go all the way back to the beginning). You lose the TiVo characteristics on the analog side (unless you record the show) but it is still acceptable to use if the station doesn't come in digital form at your location. The hard drive space will quickly become an issue if you record several hour long TV episodes per week. An hour long show will eat up about 7 - 8 GB's on average but this can be cut down 4.5 - 5 GB once you edit out the 16 minutes or so of commercials.

I have the MacBook Pro 2.0 Ghz Core Duo w/100 GB 7200 RPM hard drive and the 256 MB video card. When I plug into my 30" ACD I have a beautiful HD picture of any TV show I wish. The Elgato TV software works wonderful with the Front Row mini remote control, although, with a great deal of menu jumping, it is fully compatible with all functions just like a full size TV remote.

The TitanUSA web-site gives complete TV listings and downloads these updates to your hard drive for viewing on your Elgato TV software via menu like listings similar to TV Guide. Just clicking on the little red ball next to the listing is all you have to do to record that particular show. You can then edit the listing so that it records this show every week. Works just as well as my TiVo except... excuse me, NO EXCEPTION! It works BETTER than my TiVo because it records in HD! My old TiVo can't do that and the new ones can but you have to pay TiVo monthly subscriptions now because they don't have any more lifetime service contracts.

The available formats that you can convert your recorded content to is truly amazing. It will even allow conversion to your video iPod automatically or you can use Toast to archive your shows to DVD or CD.

One caveat I must mention: This small USB powered TV tuner thumb size device runs very HOT! Mine stopped working after only 3 weeks of occaisional use. The company is sending me a replacement but I would still recommend this product to any Mac user! It is that good! Hey, I might buy another just to have one on spare in case the first one craps out again. I'll not entertain another TiVo purchase with computer products like these available.

Oh yea, to those PC users out there; I was a Microsoft user since the DOS days (for 20+ years) and I switched to a Mac and never looked back! No more spyware and virus downloads or blue screens of death! Mac OS X is so much better than Microsoft could ever hope to be and Apple's next Leopard update will make Microsoft's Vista users enviously wanting to switch. This may be just my opinion, but it is a solid one.

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great mini HDTV receiver! January 17, 2007

By M. Wong

Amazon Verified Purchase

I just managed to get this a few days ago and have been using it since. I own a Macbook Pro core duo and I thought it would be perfect to complete it as an entertainment system in my room. It's practically the size of an ipod mini, but double the thickness. First I tested the analog channels, all of the channels were choppy and had poor reception. I live 25 miles from the broadcast stations in NYC..the day my HDTV antenna finally arrived, I plugged it in and to my surprise after an auto-scan I was able to receive 28 free over the air HDTV signals! The quality is simply amazing and with my antenna next to the window I'm able to receive quality tv shows without much/any problems.

Before I got the eyetv hybrid. I had a tough debate, either it was Elgato Eyetv hybrid or Miglia hd tvmini...which I'll add both are excellent products. After doing the research, the choice was simple, here is the rundown:

Eyetv hybrid functionalities and bundles accessories:

1) receive basic analog tv signals (slated to be obselete by 2009 in USA)

2) receive free over the air HDTV signals in USA and parts of Europe(freeview)

3) comes with tuner, remote, usb extender, video cable, eyetv software

Positive: Can watch VCR, play console games, etc. through video cable on your MAC.

Negative: Antenna not included, cannot decode unencrypted digital cable signals from box (QAM. However it can decode regular analog cable signals from the box through video cable.

Miglia hd tvmini:

1) receive free over the air HDTV signals (USA ONLY)

2) comes with decent hdtv antenna, remote, tuner.

Positives:

CAN decode (QAM) digital cable signals from box.

Negative:

cant recieve analog signals, receives USA HDTV ONLY.

Slightly pricier than the Eyetv hybrid.

has no video cable, so cant use it for any other appliances like consoles/VCR.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Proprietary interfaces, directly works only with El Gato's software August 27, 2007

By Bruce Carlson

Amazon Verified Purchase

The video input quality is pretty decent (as long as you set the Preference for Max. Don't even think about the other options, you'll get artifacts all over any motion.) I have no problem with the quality of what their software records.

But, I was expecting that EyeTV would be compatible with other Mac software that deals with video, such as iMovie and iChat Video. Nope. iMovie and iChat don't see it as an input device for either video or audio. It's not DV input to the Mac. It works with El Gato's own propietary software, and only that software. So, either you like the way El Gato's software works, or you don't use EyeTV. No choices. (And I have to hope that El Gato will be updating their software to keep up with future Apple software releases, so I don't end up with a useless dongle with Leopard is released.)

The format of El Gato's software's recordings is likewise proprietary, so if you want to move something to the Mac's iTunes and Front Row software, you have to go through a time-consuming export process. (El Gato does, however, provide software to export to a lot of useful formats, including for iTunes and iPod and Toast.)

El Gato's playback software does work reasonably with the Apple Remote. A minor annoyance is the El Gato playback software doesn't conform to the usual keyboard control keys used by the Mac's Quicktime, iTunes and VLC. (Would it have been so hard for command-3 to fit the video window to the screen, or command-F to be full screen like everything else?)