Hardware question:EyeTV vs Tivo for a capture device

[MerlinMacuser]

Hello friends.

I have a series 2 Tivo which I use to record various shows from digital cable TV. When I want to make an archive dvd, I carry Tivo back to the computer room, hook it up via a firewire digital capture device and record the content in real time to my Mac's hard drive. Then I edit in Final Cut Express or iMovie and burn the dvd. EyeTV by Elgato has a unit that captures and digitizes TV content just like Tivo but stores it on your computer's hard drive instead of one internal to the capture unit. Also, it has software that schedules recordings and a remote that controls your cable box just like Tivo...

Price for a 40 hour Tivo is down to ~$130 plus a $300 lifetime subscription fee. The EyeTV 200 costs ~$350 plus a new 250 G hard drive would cost ~$250 but the EyeTV content would be recorded directly on my G5 already without having to be transfered.

What do you think?

[Frobozz]

With the Tivo you are now converting the video to DV for editing and then back to MPEG2 for burning to DVD.

With the EyeTV 200 you'd stay in MPEG2 the whole time. The time savings is tremendous and the quality doesn't deteriorate from the conversions.

I know which one I'd choose. However, I'd also consider a standalone DVD recorder to connect to my Tivo and leave my Mac out of the whole process.

[vic-20]

I have to second the EyeTV vote. I own the USB EyeTV and love it. The scheduling software works very well and it allows you to do simple edits quickly. The software for the 200 lets you schedule remotely from the internet, which I think is a great feature. I also like the fact that with the EyeTV (as opposed to a stand-alone) you can record more than two hours worth at a time in high quality, and you can decide which recordings go on which DVD. For me personally, it's the best solution out there.

I plan to upgrade to the 200 very soon, but I was hoping to hear more about it. The initial reports on xlr8yourmac.com sounded kind of iffy, but the software has been upgraded a couple of times since then and I think it's supoosed to be very stable now.

[Manny C]

I don't know a whole lot about those systems, but I was wondering how you would go about editing out the commercials before transfering recorded programs to dvd?

[Frobozz]

I don't know a whole lot about those systems, but I was wondering how you would go about editing out the commercials before transfering recorded programs to dvd?

The EyeTV 200 comes with software that can trim MPEG2 files. You can read about its features at elgato.com.

[Manny C]

Well what about Replay TV? How does it rank compared to the others?

[badtz]

The software for the 200 lets you schedule remotely from the internet, which I think is a great feature.

Just FYI : you can also do remote scheduling with EyeTV USB [that's the one I have]