Customer Reviews

Elgato Eyetv 250 Digital TV Recorder for Mac 10020251

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just got mine yesterday and I'm totally amazed by it. Just as iTunes and the iPod are a seamless experience, EyeTV 250, the EyeTV 2 software, and TitanTV are equally seamless. Unfortunately I haven't bought Toast yet to see what the quality is when you transfer to DVD and watch your recordings on a big screen.

It's not quite perfect, but definitely worth the money. I particularly love that I don't notice any lag whatsoever from my computer while I'm watching or recording shows. In fact, I can switch freely between other applications with EyeTV running in the background as if it's not drawing any system resources at all. Very impressive.

I also love the control the software gives you over the channels. You can fine tune the channel frequency for the best possible signal (which you don't have to do because the software will automatically detect your available channels). You can add or remove channels from the channel lineup so that if you really hate the home shopping network (raises hand) you don't have to flick past it.

The software combined with the included remote really adds flexibility to the experience as you sit at your computer and control everything with your mouse, or you can control it all from the couch with the remote. When changing channels there is an excellent large channel number and show title displayed across the bottom of the window clearly visible from several feet way on the couch. Well done.

My gripes, though minimal are mainly with the limitations on transferring the content. I was really dissapointed to learn that I also have to buy Toast 7 (a $70 program) to be able to burn recorded shows to DVD, I can't just use iMovie, or a program of my choice.

Also, when using this to play video games, you should be aware that the frame rate and refresh rate of your screen is really going to affect the experience. If you have an older monitor like I do, you get kind of a blurry experience when playing fast moving games.

Also, the incessant ominous blue light on the front of the box it completely annoying! I had to cut out a peice of cardboard to cover it because it's so insanely bright. That's a minor gripe though.

Overall, great product, made excellent with the purchase of additional software (Toast 7). Very happy with it. I would recommend you research which EyeTV device is best for you needs though, because it will depend on what your TV source is (ie. satellite requires one EyeTV box, while analog cable works fine with this one.)

I would recommend the Eyetv 250 only if you are interested in the game mode. I purchased the eyetv 250, but it always jumbled up or dropped letters in the closed captioning. Fortunately elgato customer support was good and they took the product back and gave me a full refund, even though i hadn't purchased it directly from them. It might have been a problem with only my unit though. But even if you disregard that as a unique issue, a big problem with eyetv 250 is that it records only in mpeg 2 format (mpeg 1 is available but it's quality is too low). Mpeg 2 takes up too much hard disc space for your daily record/view/delete purposes. Trust me, at best quality setting, mpeg 2 format will fill your hard disc faster than you want - 2.7 GB per hour! Practically this comes to 3GB per one hour show if you factor in the extra two minutes it normally record before and after a scheduled recording.

I would strongly suggest users to go for the miglia tvmax instead. It costs the same as eyetv 250, and does hardware encoding in mpeg 2, mpeg 4 and divx formats. And it even uses the same software (eyetv 2) as the eyetv 250. Mpeg 4 or divx take up almost half the hard disc space with the same quality. Also exporting to ipods/personal video players is faster if the recording is in mpeg 4. However, there are a few caveats with tvmax. You lose the game mode of eyetv 250. Also, be aware that as is, TVMax has some recording after sleep issues which result in "0 KB" recordings (probably due to a softwar bug in eyetv 2). To overcome this you have to use a small workaround posted in miglia forum (at the company's website). After that the TVMax works perfectly and you would be much happier with TVMax than eyetv 250.

I'd been considering the EyeTV series for awhile and read a review on the 250. Being a tech junkie and a Mac enthusiast, I bought the 250 for myself for Christmas. It is a well-designed system. I've had no problems with it on my iMac G5 2.0GHZ nor my Powerbook G4 1.5G. I had a weak cable signal from the wall (some of the channels were fuzzy) and solved that with a $20 in-line cable booster. This system integrates very will with a Mac and Mac applications (e.g., Toast 6.0, Quicktime, etc.); it's operation is intuitive. Also, it allows me to digitize an analog signal (from recordings on a TIVO, cable box, or VCR) so I can produce DVDs from old VHS tapes, for example. I am very impressed with it.

The Elgato EyeTV 250 took less than 5 minutes to get up and running on my Apple Mini which I use as my Personal Video Recorder (PVR). That included the time to open the book and ignore the directions which was fine in my case, but I would suggest a quick read through if you are not a hard core or experienced geek. The unit and software has been absolutely reliable, no crashes, no weird behavior etc. But, the software compared to Windows software like SnapStream is very crude. The menuing is not intuitive and not friendly in some aspects. For Snapstream, you press R to record, for EyeTV you have to use two keys, the "Apple" key and the R key. When you want to watch a show, you have to find it in the library unless you manually made a play list and added it. Even after you made a play list, any new shows will NOT go into the play list unless you manually add it. That alone really sucks. When you stop a show and go back to finish watching it but you want to go back to the beginning of the shoow, you have to start it, stop it, scroll to the "go back to beginning" menu, and then go back to the play button. Snapstream offers a choice on the restart "watch from here or beginning" What a concept. My feeling is that this software does not really know if it to watch TV on a Mac as just another application or to be a real PVR solution because right now, it's neither.

Now, I will say that the editor is outstanding. It takes less than 2 minutes to whack the commercials from an hour long show. 5 minutes if you count the compacting time. And it's very easy to use, click click click done.

The Apple remote is supported but it's touchy to the point that half the time I get the Front Row menu and not the EYeTV menu I wanted. The freebie remote works but sometimes it takes several presses of the button. The Apple Remote has the same issue so I am thinking that the software is sometimes slow to respond to the remote, not so much the remote is not sending the signal.

I think that EyeTV is the best so far for PVR software on the Mac, but there is alot of room for improvement. It would be nice if they offered two versions, one as a real PVR and one as just another desktop application.

My first Elgato, purchased 2 years ago, has been working fine. Although it would not change to the correct channel for recording scheduled programs. I replaced it with the Elgato 250 which has zero-latency for use with video games. The variable screen aspect ratio to play movies in wide screen has been appreciated. The recording quality appears to be better as well. Being a much smaller unit gives more options in placing it out of the way.

The remote works fine, but since I sit close enough to the computer to use the onscreen controls, I rarely use the remote. I already have too many other remotes as it is.

Positives:
Set up is very quick.
External remote control convenient (although you have to push the buttons pretty hard).
Pretty good picture quality.
DVR works as well as other models I've used.

Negatives:
Not much in the way of (non-electronic) instructions. It would be nice to have a few trouble-shooting items handy without having to load the whole manual.
Often have to exit program and restart if it's been off for any length of time ("wake up" issues). This may be due to something I did incorrectly when installing it.
I live in a moderately large city, but it couldn't provide the promised digital channel guide based on any of the local zip codes. However, the web site link carries the schedule, so I'm not sure what's wrong there.
A small pet peeve is that the blue light on the little box is VERY bright and can be a little distracting, but it can double as a great night light if you need it!

Other features:
I haven't tested the VHS recording capabilities, video gaming and some of the other options, so I can't give feedback on how well they work.

Overall:
Nice to have and I'm glad I purchased it. I just need to spend a little more time working through the glitches.

This is a great cable TV turner that allows you to watch and record TV on your computer. The EyeTV250 does the conversion in the box, so there is little processor time required to use this device. It requires a G4/5 or Intel Mac to use it (though my old G3 iBook can be used to record programs, but nothing else). The software is great. If you have a computer hooked to the EyeTV250 and the internet all the time, you can even remotely program recordings using the TitanTV website.

The only drawback is that it does not do HDTV and requires analog cable TV to be able to change the channels with the EyeTV. These are pretty serious drawbacks, but if your cable & TV works with these, the device is great.

I have a Mac Pro and digital cable TV. My Eyetv is GREAT; it picks up the TV signal ahead of the set-top box and plays on my Mac. It accepts a camera feed and a VHS feed, too; just plug in the video cable(s) and click to select the new feed. Click to record, adjust channel and volume. Easy to replay or export to Quicktime for editing. NO problems at all!

Overall I gotta say this was a very nice purchase. The software integrates well with Mac OS X and setup was easy. Dinged it a bit on build quality. Also I use this to primarily watch TV on my computer not as a true DVR for my entertainment system so I can't speak to the quality on a larger screen. However, if you like to work on your computer and have a bit of TV now and then this is perfect.

The elegato iMac works reasonably well. I am running it on an iMac iSight 20" (Pre-Intel) and it performs great unless the processor is tied up with intensive tasks like burning CDs. Even then, the video pauses are very slight. I was a little disappointed with the quality of the recordings. On my 42" plasma the compression is obvious, but tolerable.

I was hoping this would do in place of a DVD-R hooked up to my TV and cable box, but the quality isn't quite there yet. Still, nice product and I don't regret the purchase.