Overhauled EyeTV a must-have upgrade

Posted by Dennis Sellers Apr 7, 2006 at 12:00am

EyeTV 2 is a total overhaul of Elgato’s Mac OS X software for recording and viewing TV. The software was good before; now it’s great. The revamp looks and feels more Mac-like than ever; in fact, if you were to simply glance at its interface, you might easily assume EyeTV 2 is an app that comes with Mac OS X.

EyeTV 2 comes with some personal/digital recording devices such as Miglia’ TVMini HD, which we reviewed on April 6. If you bought EyeTV hardware or software after Dec. 1, 2005, you’re entitled to a free upgrade. Otherwise—and this is a first for the EyeTV product—you’ll have to buy it for US$79.

But it’s worth it, almost for the interface alone. After installing EyeTV 2 and opening it up, you’ll notice that’s very similar to iTunes and iPhoto. For instance, you can drag and drop recordings into playlists any way you like, sort them by genre, series, season, etc. Click on icons in the left-hand pane and you can access those recordings, see a list of accessible channels and more. You can use drag and drop to manage EyeTV recordings, channels, and schedules, all in one window. And you can also rename and move your EyeTV recordings in the Finder. From the Finder, double-clicking on any EyeTV recording will open it up within the Elgate software.

You can send your music videos, TV shows, and movie recordings onto your iPod with a click. check the box called “iPod” beside the schedule, and as soon as the recording is complete, it will export automatically to your iPod. iTunes will then launch and sync with your connected iPod. And with EyeTV 2’s MPEG-4 format, you can hook your iPod up to a TV. You’re not going to get big-screen Lord of the Rings quality, but it’s pretty darn good. What’s more, you can burn DVDs with a click.

EyeTV 2 has two new buttons on the main interface. One is the export to iPod button. The other is a Toast button that will let you use Roxio’s CD/DVD burning software from within the Elgato product—assuming you have bought and installed Toast. If you haven’t, well, ignore that button.

Version 2 also has some cool new video editing tools. The Editor’s action menu now has an “Invert Markers” command so that you can mark your edits and then decide if you want to keep the footage between the markers, or dispense with that and keep the rest of the show instead. Plus, there are new “intelligent” export presets and file formats—though you can still choose you own export settings.

EyeTV 2 features an integrated TV guide (EPG) that displays broadcast schedules within the EyeTV main window and retrieves information from digital broadcasts and from online TV guide services (TitanTV for North America, tvtv for Europe.)

If you’re really into making your Mac the center of your digital life, EyeTV 2 and a compatible TV tuner/recorder are must-have items.

System requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or later; a PowerPC G4 or Intel Core Duo Mac (500MHz or faster); 256MB of RAM (512MB is recommended).

Macsimum rating: 10 out of 10.

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