[MacDV] Recording TV to Mac w/ AlchemyTV DVR & EyeTV 200 & 500

[Kunga]

OK Let's get some URLs going here. You guys are leaving way too vague  
responses. No one saying what kind of Mac, how much ram, how big a  
hard drive and what speed of what processor. PLEASE. Let's be of some  
help here.

I am working on a comparative review of TV recording on the Mac. So  
this topic is mainly on the top of my mind lately.

AlchemyTV DVR by Miglia of Great Britton, PCI-PCI-X Card analog ONLY  
solution:

< http://www.miglia.com/products/video/alchemytvdvr/> AlchemyTV DVR  
$159 list

Don't have my review unit yet.

EyeTV 200 Analog $329 list

<http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv200>

and 500 Digital $349 list

<http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv500>

External FireWire Tuner Solutions:

<http://www.elgato.com/>

I have been working with the EyeTV systems for the past month or so  
on both a Dual 2 GHz G5 and on a 500 MHz Cube. The results are mixed.

Dual 2 GHz G5, 3 GB RAM, 700 GB HD space inside (3x233), Tiger  
10.4.1, QuickTime 7 Pro.

Cube .5 GHz G4, 1.5 GB RAM, 128 GB HD space Inside (1x160 = net 128  
usable), 250 GB outside, Panther 10.3.9, Quicktime 7 Pro.

First, If you have off air or cable HD available the 500 is the way  
to go. It captures stunning High Definition TV to your Mac as  
efficiently as half a GB an hour.

Second if you have only analog video sources the 200 is the way to  
go. And it also doubles as an analog transcoder to native DV on the  
hard drive.

I started with the G5 and wound up fixing the 200 on my Cube. .5 GHz  
G4 is the minimum processor speed this system will work on. But it  
does work fine at that speed.

What is amazing to me is how the hardware interfaces with amazing  
software to make it as easy to program as a Tivo. El Gato has figured  
out how to program shows from the Titan TV website. I all fairness, I  
have not yet received my review copy of AlchemyTV but it also uses a  
Titan TV interface of some sort. Perhaps Ron Michael will elaborate  
for us on how it works.

<http://partners.titantv.com/TTV/Grid/Grid.aspx>

Everyone here who watches TV at all should be subscribed to Titan TV  
(free) and using it daily to figure out what is on IN DEPTH. This  
site is better than TV guide - way more detail about every show on  
including long lists of the performers names, show titles and story  
summaries. This thing is a miracle.

And El Gato has just now release a new Tiger compatible version 1.8  
of their amazing EyeTV software which you can download and run  
without their hardware just to get an idea of how the interface  
works. I cannot stress enough how important I think this development is

<http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=support_updates_eyetv>

You can also download the manuals and study the details of how this  
works.

<http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=support_documentation>

My main problem has been that the system sometimes does not wake on  
time from sleep to record and it never returns to sleep after  
recording. I must manually sleep it after any recording is completed  
if I want to save energy and rest my Cube. However, as the Cube has  
no fan and I have been running it non-stop for years without sleep,  
this is not a fatal flaw. Moreover, while I can use EyeTV on a Cube,  
no way can I use AlchemyTV with it. Big mac with a fan seems to be  
Alchemy's minimum requirement. EyeTV will work with a Mac mini and  
any other Mac with a FireWire port and minimum .5 GHz G4.

More to follow.

k

On May 28, 2005, at 12:43 AM, Ron Michael wrote:

> I use the Alchemy DVR by Miglia to record TV to my Mac. It does  
> have a timer function but I don't use it. I got mine at Other World  
> Computing over a year ago and love it. I mainly use the TV tuner  
> function. I have a two monitor setup and leave the tuner on all the  
> time. I can hit the "record" button in a split second if something  
> comes on I want to record. I only had to contact customer service  
> at Miglia once and they got right back to me.
> Ron/TN