#TV TUNERS FOR MAC TV#
By feeding the USB tuners into the VGA input of the my testbed TV (a Vizio VX37L 37-inch LCD HDTV) and comparing their images to the image that the TV picked up directly from the cable box (using the Picture-in-Picture feature), I was able to compare the two. Two of the tuners caused mild rippling effects on the TV picture, which could have been caused by a poor tuner, problematic cable signal, or simply physically degraded cable lines or a bad splitter. Any of these tuners turn the Mac Mini into a very capable video hub.Īlong the way, I did hit an interesting problem. Plug in your DVD player, your iPod, your video camera, or anything else with a matching output. Of course, along with the cable F-connector, all three have standard RCA-type AV input jacks and SVHS inputs so you're not limited to just watching TV. They are simply analog solutions for cable TV. In addition, none of these tuners support IR blasters, so you won't be controlling external cable or satellite boxes with them. There are a few USB devices out there that can handle HD, but QAM, a method used by cable broadcasters to send digital signals down the same line as their analog programming, is almost nonexistent in the genre. None of these three tuners are compatible with High Definition ( HD) or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation ( QAM).
The third tuner, Eskape, also uses its own proprietary application which can also capture in a variety of formats, and which was ready to be played by other applications as soon as I was done. Miglia has recently switched from EyeTV to its own branded software, (that's the reason for the "+" in the product's name), and it has definable recording formats for a variety of playback devices. EyeTV is a European brand of TV tuners that allow users to watch TV on various devices including computers and smartphones.
Plextor uses Elgato's EyeTV DVR software, which works fine but had a few issues - while EyeTV claims to capture video directly to MPEG format, nothing I had would play the videos except EyeTV until I used EyeTV to convert the files to MPEG.
#TV TUNERS FOR MAC SOFTWARE#
Basically, it's an online guide to TV programming, usually spanning about two weeks, that lets you select programs to watch and/or record.Īnd all three come with software that does the nitty-gritty TV work (preferences for screen size, recording quality and location, even channel changing) and, in conjunction with a good EPG, can turn the computer you already own into a TiVo-like system.
In addition, all three of these tuners take advantage of TitanTV's electronic programming guide (EPG).