Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
EyeTV Hybrid is a superb all-in-one solution that delivers free-to-view digital and analogue television to your Mac via aerial and cable, as well as FM radio. Whatís more, EyeTV Hybrid can connect a variety of devices to your Mac via composite and S-Video such as a set top box for premium channels and satellite, a VCR, or a camcorder. Comes with EyeTV software and an EyeTV Remote.
- Watch TV on your Mac
- Rewind, fast forward, and pause live TV
- Export recordings to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV
- Record hours of television on your Mac
Overview
EyeTV Hybrid delivers free-to-view digital (DVB-T and DVB-C) and analogue television to your Mac via aerial and cable. With EyeTV Hybrid, you can also tune in to local FM radio on your Mac.
EyeTV Hybrid contains a full-size and built-in coaxial plug and does not require an adapter to connect cable or an aerial and comes with a composite (RCA) and S-Video break out cable to connect a variety of devices to your Mac, such as a set top box for premium channels and satellite, a VCR, or a camcorder.
Features
- Receives free-to-view digital TV (DVB-T and DVB-C) as well as analogue TV
- Receives FM radio
- Conveniently-sized USB stick
- Contains a full-size coaxial plug; does not require an adapter
- Comes with an EyeTV Remote
All-in-One TV for your Mac
EyeTV Hybrid is the only TV tuner that delivers both digital and analogue TV to your Mac via aerial and cable. A superb all-round device, EyeTV Hybrid receives unencrypted digital TV via aerial (DVB-T, also known as DTT or Freeview), unencrypted cable (DVB-C), analogue cable and analogue aerial TV. In areas in which HDTV is broadcast, enjoy watching stunningly clear 720p or 1080i HDTV (MPEG-2 as well as H.264/AVC) on your Mac.
FM Radio
EyeTV Hybrid is the only EyeTV device that delivers FM radio to your Mac as well as television. Tune in, record your favourite radio programmes, and export them into iTunes to enjoy later on your iPod or iPhone.
Superb quality digital TV recordings
EyeTV Hybrid records digital TV in one quality setting, lossless. The digital stream is recorded unaltered for full quality digital content as encoded by the broadcaster. EyeTV Hybrid also supports multilingual programming and Dolby® Digital sound.
EyeTV Hybrid processes analogue signals using the encoder built into the EyeTV software together with your Mac’s processor. As a result, the quality of analogue video depends on the processor speed of your Mac.
Made for the Mac
With its classic matte aluminium finish and surprisingly small size for such a versatile product, the EyeTV Hybrid is a perfect complement to the Mac. It features a USB 2.0 interface for the streaming of superior quality TV content to your Mac. EyeTV Hybrid is USB powered and therefore requires no external power supply, and contains a built-in and full-size coaxial plug.
What’s in the Box
- EyeTV Hybrid analogue/digital TV receiver
- EyeTV 3 digital TV recorder software (CD-ROM)
- DVB-T rod aerial with tilt/swivel magnetic base and detachable suction cup
- Infrared remote control with battery pack
- USB cable
- Video cable
- PDF product manual (CD-ROM)
- Quick Start Guide
System Requirements
Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G4,G5 or Intel Core processor, 512 MB of physical RAM, a built-in USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X v10.4 or later. Internet connection required to download Program Guide data. A CD/DVD recorder and Toast Titanium software (not included) are required to create DVDs, SVCDs or Video CDs (optional). Note: 720p or 1080i HD features require an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Analogue signals are processed via software encoder, therefore the quality of analogue video depends on the speed of your Mac’s processor.
DVB-T reception can vary by location, and a rooftop aerial may be required in areas with a weak or obstructed DVB-T signal.
EyeTV Hybrid is intended for use in countries supporting the PAL or SECAM standard (including Europe & Australia) and in countries where digital terrestrial television is broadcast. Digital terrestrial television is also known as DVB-T, DTT, Freeview in the UK, and TNT in France.
For a list of countries in which DVB standards have been adopted, visit www.dvb.org.
EyeTV 3 is the award-winning software that comes with all of Elgato's TV tuners.
EyeTV 3 Software Features
- Watch TV on your Mac
- Rewind, fast forward, and pause live TV
- Search the Program Guide using detailed criteria – includes one year of free television listing data from tvtv (where available)
- Record hours of television on your Mac
- Edit out unwanted content
- Create TV series subscriptions with Smart Guides
- Organise recordings in Smart Playlists
- Export recordings with one easy click of a button to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV
- Share recordings with multiple Macs in a local network
- Access recordings via Wi-Fi on an iPod, and iPhone and selected SmartPhones
- Store your recordings on an external drive, or burn to disc using Toast® 9 Titanium (not included)
- And much more…
Watch live TV on your Mac
Turn your Mac into the coolest television in the house. Pause the TV show while you get a snack. Rewind and watch that great play again. Fast forward past the advertisements. Float the EyeTV window on top of other applications to keep an eye on your show while you work or surf the Web, and watch two TV windows Picture-in-Picture.
At your Desk or in the Living Room
Sit at your desk and navigate with a mouse, or stretch out on the couch with an EyeTV or an Apple Remote. EyeTV’s gorgeous On Screen menu makes it easy to channel surf and move through the Program Guide and menus.
Integrated, searchable Program Guide (EPG)
EyeTV puts detailed and up-to-date TV listings at your fingertips, ready to view and search using multiple search criteria and full text search terms. EyeTV’s integrated Program Guide harvests the TV listing data contained in over-the-air digital broadcasts as well as online sources such as TitanTV in the USA.
Organise channels
EyeTV provides detailed information about each television channel. Drag and drop the ones you watch most frequently into a “favourites” list, or go a step further and organise your sports, news, movie channels and more into their own lists. Each list of channels comes complete with matching Program Guide information.
If you travel frequently, you can save your channel list configuration for each location and easily switch between them with a click. No more re-auto tuning, renaming, or sorting channels after you’ve used your tuner in a different place.
Smart Guide subscriptions
Smart Guides create subscriptions based on any criteria you like. Smart Guides are automated searches that can add new episodes to a recording schedule as soon as they appear in the Program Guide. What’s more, you can manage the number of episodes that are retained, drop the recordings into Playlists, and even export the recordings automatically to an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV.
Create Playlists
Organise your growing library of EyeTV recordings any way you like. File them by series and season, by artist, by genre – there is no limit to the number of Playlists you can create to store and find your recordings easily.
And to make things easy, you can tell EyeTV to do your filing for you. Simply create Smart Playlists to update in real time based on the criteria you choose. Or, set your recording schedule to go to a specific playlist automatically as soon as it finishes recording.
Edit your recordings
Use EyeTV’s built-in Editor to remove unwanted content from your recording, or to crop the beginning and end of the show. The Editor also enables you to create one or more short clips from a longer recording and save the clips individually. If you’re in a hurry, simply export video clips straight to your iPod, Apple TV or iPhone without saving them first.
Archive your collection
EyeTV integrates seamlessly with Roxio’s Toast® 8 Titanium (not included). To burn a DVD, simply select the recordings in EyeTV and click the Toast button – that’s all there is to it. You can also create a perfect back-up by dragging the recordings you’d like to backup from EyeTV directly into Toast’s data panel. Toast will span the data across multiple discs if necessary.
Turbo.264 Integration
EyeTV is fully integrated with Elgato’s Turbo.264 H.264 Hardware Encoder. Simply plug in Turbo.264 before you export for iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV formats, and before you prepare your EyeTV recordings for Wi-Fi Access. EyeTV will use the Turbo.264 as a co-processor to speed up the export without taxing your system resources.
Watch on an iPhone, iPod, and Apple TV
Enjoy last night’s late show on your iPod or iPhone during your morning commute. Watch your own recordings on your widescreen television with an Apple TV. Build up your iTunes library with TV content that you’ve recorded yourself. EyeTV makes it all happen with one easy click of a button, or simply set your recordings to export to iPod, iPhone or Apple TV automatically. Share recordings on a LAN or via Wi-Fi
Share recordings on a LAN or via Wi-Fi
If you’ve got more than one Mac in the house and EyeTV 3 is installed on all of them, then you can share EyeTV recordings over your local network. Shared libraries show up in the sidebar, and you can browse and play them in standard or HD resolution.
Superior Picture Quality
EyeTV is the only TV software that supports “Progressive Scan” for excellent picture quality, and it is capable of displaying full resolution HDTV on Macs with Intel Core Duo processors or dual G5 processors. EyeTV also supports closed captions and DVB subtitles as well as Picture-in-Picture (PiP).
Dolby® Digital Sound
EyeTV records and plays Dolby® Digital sound, including 5.1 Surround Sound, where available. EyeTV also supports the digital optical audio output built into newer Macs and passes Dolby® Digital 5.1 sound through to Surround Sound amplifier and speaker systems.
AppleScript Menu
EyeTV now offers an integrated AppleScript menu. Combined with more robust script support, EyeTV gives advanced users even more control and flexibility to create custom applications.
Most Recent Reviews
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Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
VHS copy & conversion poor!
Written by PD from Buckingham
22-Feb-2009
I bought this product primarily to convert VHS to burn onto DVD's & found that it was poor in recording sound ( stopping & startin…Read moreg ) and no picture at all.
(1 of 1 people found this review useful)
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Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
Easy TV on your Mac
Written by JT from SOLIHULL
12-Jan-2009
I've been using the EyeTV Hybrid for a couple of years and after reading some of the other reviews felt that I should make a contr…Read moreibution. The aerial which ships with the product is unlikely to provide much of a signal if you live in an area of poor Freeview reception as I do, so you need to connect it to a rooftop aerial or Sky Digibox. Once tuned, this is an excellent device and easy to use software.
I usually record Premiership football (Match of the Day) through EyeTV and then edit the file to leave the highlights of the games that I'm interested in. These files are then saved and archived as .avi. You can also subscribe to a free-of-charge program listing service so that you can plan to record programs in advance. It's also very easy to save TV shows in iPod format.
On a couple of occasions I had need to contact Elgato support and their service has been excellent. Highly recommended.(20 of 21 people found this review useful)
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Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
Great gadget but flawed
Written by AH from Tonbridge
10-Jan-2009
I've used this all over the world for a couple of years, very flexible, but a significant proportion of hybrids, including mine, a…Read morere prone to failure if they get to cold, reporting that the USB is only a 1.1. Elgato don't mention this on their web site but you can find it on their forum. So far application of a little heat seems to be the fix.
(11 of 13 people found this review useful)
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Most Useful Reviews
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Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
Amazing product!
Written by PP from BEVERLEY
06-Oct-2008
This unit allows you to watch, record and convert digital tv to other formats, namely Apple TV. The top spec unit also has input f…Read moreor video source, such as a VHS player. I havent't tested the video import feature yet, but it will allow you to put your old tapes onto computer and then onto your Apple TV! Cheaper options are available from £39.95 if you don't need all the bells and whistles. In my opinion - the best TV adapter out there, as long as you are using a good quality, roof mounted antenna.
(67 of 75 people found this review useful)
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Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
The one star reviews are of a different product
Written by MP
03-Dec-2008
Hmm, the problem here seems to be that the one star reviews are of the previous version of the Hybrid, the one without the FM Tune…Read morer. Whether or not they have a point, they aren't about this new version of the hardware. (Apple, is you cut the wrong reviews out, you can cut this paragraph too)
I use the Hybrid (the new one) to record Digital TV, and occasionally radio shows, and have found it to be great. I used it to transfer an old VHS video, just the once. It did a decent job, but comparing it to DTV just shows how bad VHS was.
The EyeTV software is amazing, and works like a dream. I can even (with a little effort) remotely (from my iPhone) tell it to record a show when I'm a little later in the office/pub than I had planned to be.
As I only used the analogue tuner once for the VHS transfer, so I'm thinking I might have been slightly better off with the Diversity, which has two Digital Tuners. But I'm very happy with the quality of the Hybrid, and the radio recording is handy from time to time.
One other thing, I use this with a small indoor antenna and it works well in my area. But areas with weaker Freeview signals may well require an outdoor antenna. A good rule of thumb is, if your main TV needs an outdoor ariel, you will your Mac (that should be obvious right?).
This is my second EyeTV product, I had an older analogue only model a few years ago. I have no hesitation in recommending this, or any Elgato product.(33 of 35 people found this review useful)
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Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
Excellent!
Written by JB from Eltham
14-Nov-2008
I am a student and stay in university hostel, tried many ways to watch TV here with my MAC and to be honest this is the best solut…Read moreion. It's not only watching the TV but you can Rewind, record, and listen to the radio. I can swear that the signal is better than the TV Line here in my hostel. I don't have to fight with my flat mate if we want to watch two different channel at the same time cause I can let her watch and record my channel at the background.
Finally the design is really outstanding, it looks really great with my MacBook Pro and the supply remote work really well. I am planning to have a Europe tour during my weekend in this coming December and I really believe that I still could to FM radio or either watch some TV at anywhere.
Worth Money.(34 of 41 people found this review useful)
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