[MacDV] Re: Digital VCR Question

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Ed -

The EyeTV is a great unit for your everyday DVR needs. It's half the 
cost of the Formac and much easier to use. It's better on disk space - 
only 650MB (like a CD) for an hour. However - the quality for 
reproduction (i.e. output as SVCD/DVD) definitely lies with the Formac 
unit.

The EyeTV software allows you to perform simple edits - such as taking 
out commercials or correcting beginning/ending points. If you require 
more sophisticated editing - you will need to demux and convert the 
audio/video. You need to use some shareware tools - and I haven't been 
able to get the two streams in sync - so I just gave up on this... I 
edit completely in EyeTV and output to VCD (seamless operation w/Toast) 
- if I want to watch it on my player/TV. The quality is about the same 
as recording on a VCR in EP mode. My family has never noticed the 
difference...

El Gato is very quick on support - they really listen to their 
customers. The software is being updated for more features - the edit 
feature was added a couple of months ago - and they stay in sync with 
Apple on OS updates.

Speaking of sync - both the Formac and EyeTV sometimes suffer from an 
issue where the audio and video get a little out of sync. The only 
low-cost unit that seems to avoid this is the Canopus ADVC-100 - but it 
doesn't have a tuner. Some of the Formac boxes also have to be upgraded 
(firmware and/or hardware) to work properly with iMovie 3 - so check to 
be sure that you get a good one if you want to use iLife apps.

Later this year - El Gato will release higher quality capture box - and 
Tivo will come out with a new unit supporting Rendezvous.

Hope this helps.

Marc


-- FWD from [MacDV] Michael Katzman --

>     Ed, check out the Formac Studio DV/TV.  It has the ability to be 
> used as
> a TV tuner and can also capture directly to the hard drive using the DV
> codec.  This is great for high quality recordings, although it uses
> approximately 12 gigs per hour.  The best thing about it is that it 
> leaves
> the material editable as DV footage which is compatible with iMovie or 
> Final
> Cut.  I'd suggest going with this one if you have a lot of hard drive 
> space.
>
>     Another alternative is the Eye TV from El Gato.  It is able to 
> capture
> in the MPEG 1 format, meaning it will be a much lower resolution and 
> higher
> compression than DV.  MPEG 1 however is not editable by anything I 
> know of
> unless you convert it to a higher quality format.  The good parts 
> about it
> are that if you don't need to worry about editing, a bunch of content 
> should
> be able to fit onto a CD without any extra work.  (Basically the file 
> sizes
> are much smaller)
>
>     These boxes both have analog video inputs, but where EyeTV has 
> Coax and
> the standard RCA inputs for Video and Left/Right Audio, the Formac 
> Studio
> has Coax, RCAs, S-video, and an FM radio tuner.
>
> Check them out:
>
> Formac:
> http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv
>
> El Gato Eye-TV
> http://www.elgato.com/eyeTV/index.html
>
> Enjoy!
> -- 
> Michael Katzman
> Senior Partner
> High End Communications
>
> Phone: 845-358-2085
> Fax: 845-818-3991
> Cell: 845-821-0124
> mkatzman at heccs.com
> http://www.highendcommunications.com
>
> On 2/27/03 3:47 PM, "edtuck at attbi.com" <edtuck at attbi.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I'm very interested in the Digital VCR technology (Kinda like TIVO 
>> but more
>> advanced).  Creative has a card (Video Blaster Digital VCR)
>> http://www.americas.creative.com/products/product.asp?
>> product=222&category=5&maincategory=5
>>
>> that does exactly what I'm looking for but it is for the PC only.  
>> Does anyone
>> know of a card that allows you to do this with a G4?
>>
>> Thanks for you help,
>> Ed