Watch TV on Macintosh Notebook

[Ste]

My brother has a small apartment and he would like to purchase an LCD
TV to save some space. To save him some money, I suggested that he
should not buy the TV, but use an old VCR to tune the cable channels
while hooking up the video and audio outputs to his laptop, which
already has a 17" LCD screen. But, he needs some sort of capture
device with audio/video RCA inputs for his laptop. My question is what
type of device should he use?(keeping the price in mind, and it must be
Macintosh compatible) Some of these Dazzle USB things seem like they'd
work, but would they allow you to view a constant video stream in full
screen and full resolution?(his goal is to just watch TV, not capture
anything) I don't want it to be too expensive, otherwise it'll be
better to just buy the LCD TV.

Is this an option?
http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11081062&m=488&cat=521&scat=1751

[spiderman2k1]

There is a Capture box with a Tuner for the MAC I saw it on TECHTV on
Frash Gear. It's a small white box it only has composite no S-video. It's very pricey around $200.00 dollars and it only does MPEG 1 VCD. To tell you the truth I would not get it. I'm a PC user. So I can only tell you what I know. If I was you and you really want to capture I would get a Panansonic DVD-R burn I think they have turner'sjust like a VCR's look into if ATI or Hauppauge is bring any thing out for the MAC. One the Screen Saver's that Capture Box they really not that happy with it. it just oh ok if you want to use it to record a
show if your not home then delete it after you watched it

[WiseWeasel]

The device you are referring to is the EyeTV, but it only captures in low-rez VCD resolution, is USB, and is pricey at $200. I managed to find a Dazzle Hollywood DV bridge for a little over $200 online that lets you convert the analogue video to a higher rez 720x480 picture over FireWire, although you will need some software such as BTV or BTV Pro to playback at fullscreen in real time. A better solution is to use Formac's DV capture device and software, although that will be much more expensive. For the price of these solutions, I'd get a cheap TV and enjoy a bigger, brighter screen, but that's just me.

[spiff41398]

You can check out Interview Lite ($40), a a USB cable that accepts either s-video or composite inputs from NTSC, PAL and SECAM video sources.

More info: http://www.echofx.com/[/url]

[GORDYmac]

Hey! EyeTV is exactly what he needs. It's great, convenient, and effortless to use. It records standard and high quality VCD's too. Have him go to www.elgato.com and read up on this fabulous device.

[Ste]

Thanks for all the ideas, but I think this thing from ATI would be the most cost efficient solution. I don't even need a VCR in this case, because it has a 75 ohm connector.
http://mirror.ati.com/products/mac/xclaimtvusb/index.html

Only $90 at http://www.cdw.com

The goal is to just watch TV, not record.
It beats buying a new $700 LCD TV.

[changwei]

I am also looking for a TV tuner for my iMac and I found the ATI XClaim that you mentioned. However, there seems to be no driver support for OS X. I don't know if you are aware of that. Anyone has suggestions other than EyeTV?

[dm2243]

changwei, the only other cheap os x option is mytv or mytv-to-go

http://www.eskapelabs.com/mytv.html

it's not very good, however -- see the versiontracker reviews of its software

personally, i'm waiting for ATI to come out with an AIW card for the mac...but then i don't have an imac

[changwei]

Thanks dm2243! Yeah, I saw their ads on the current issue of MacWorld. I guess I'll just have to wait 'till ATI to update their XClaim or EyeTV to drop their price.

[toisanji]

I didnt read any of the replies, I just skipped down to the reply button, so..........If you have another computer(best to use is some unix variation) and a cheap $50 dollar crap tv card(mine is an ATI tv tuner), you can network it. I have an OpenBSD server with a TV card in it and I can watch TV from my mac with it through the network with great quality. Check out arstechnica.com and search for my name to find more info, I'm too lazy too search for the link myself now.