TV Tuner Compatable With Mac OS X

doofy10 · #1 October 2nd, 2003, 05:51 PM

I'm looking for a TV tuner that is compatible with Mac OS X for capturing TV and watching it on my iBook. Does anyone know of any products like this that is compatible with OS X?? I found one at http://www2.warehouse.com/product.as...&BCID=12445897 , but its for OS 9. Thanks in advance.
-Doofy

Arden · #2 October 2nd, 2003, 06:51 PM

I believe I read a review of one in one of my recent Mac magazines...

Okay, in the latest issue of Mac Addict, Oct. 2003, they have a review of the Formac Studio TVR. And it's OS X-only.

sjb2016 · #3 October 2nd, 2003, 10:40 PM

Elgato also offers the eyetv
which is has been well reviewed. It's only USB so the picture quality will not be as good compared to the Formac TVR, which transfers via firewire, but it's cheaper.

d8n_two · #4 October 3rd, 2003, 08:36 AM

I've been looking at the Formac Studio TVR for about the last six months. It's expensive, but it looks pretty sweet. I mean, first off it's FireWire, plus you can watch TV, encode it as high quality DV, and convert analog audio & video to digital from almost any source. From the reviews I've read (I could only find a few, I might add), it's perfect for the "pro-sumer" level customer with $400 to spend.

I've just been really nervous to spend $400 on something I've never seen in action. I was hoping one of the Apple Stores would have one, but apparently they won't carry it because Formac's displays compete directly with Apple's (from Apple Store employee, take it for what it's worth). Anyway, those are my 2 cents.

d8n_two

[tear]Woah! Post 100. What a proud moment.[/tear]

Netboothy · #5 October 3rd, 2003, 10:37 AM

I have one of these Hauppauge/Eskapel ab things for my imac.

I bought it as i cannot fault Hauppauges tv products on a pc.

I am now very sorry as i consider it a poor piece of equipment.
It is slow jerky video, capturing video is a task, and don't even think about compressing it on the fly. I always perceived it faster in os9 than osx

I did have a firedazzle unit for the pc once. great video capture, no hassle at all.

Go the firewire route, otherwise you will only regret it later.

macavenger · #6 October 3rd, 2003, 07:18 PM

I have a happauge/eskape labs MyTV USB TV tuner, and I have been mostly satisfied with it. I've had some problems with video capture, but otherwise it works fine, and gets entirely decent video quality with good frame rate (no noticeable jerkiness except when doing other task that use a fair amount of the processor). I'm sure a firewire device would get better quality, but for four times the price it was not worth it to me.