14 DAY TRIAL // Digital television specialist Elgato released a new version of its EyeTV 3 software, and decided that it would be nice to give it together with two substantial hardware updates to its TV tuner line. The TV tuners are to be showcased during the Macworld Expo.
The Elgato EyeTV Hybrid is an external USB TV tuner the size of an average portable media player. In fact, it strikingly resembles one, as you can see in the picture. The USB 2.0 stick delivers both hi-definition capable digital ATSC and traditional analog NTSC tuners and allows the user to record, edit and even pause the live TV broadcasts. These advanced specifications are available only in conjunction with the EyeTV v3 software, shipped with the unit.
The EyeTV Hybrid USB tuner is especially designed for the MAC platform and work seamlessly with the Apple Remote. Moreover, the USB device includes a break-out cable for connecting composite and S-Video sources, such as a Playstation or Nintendo Wii directly to the Mac's display, in order to eliminate latency. If you are the owner of a VHS movie collection and wish to digitize it, you can easily connect the VCR to the tuner and start recording as you normally would do with an aerial channel.
The revamped version of the EyeTV Hybrid USB tuner and its EyeTV 250 Plus TV receiver / video converter are now available with included support for unencrypted digital cable channels, also known as Clear-QAM. This would be great news for the OTA (Over The Air) enthusiasts, but cable providers seem to no longer like this kind of service so they tend to discontinue providing Clear-QAM stations.
Both devices will sell for the same price as their previous models, namely $149.95 for the EyeTV Hybrid and $199.95 for the EyeTV 250 Plus TV receiver / video converter, respectively. Sadly enough, those who have bought the older models won't be able to get the new functionality via a firmware upgrade, but, at least they had the gadgets first.