Xclaim TV USB Edition fills a gap in ATI’s current product line. While its Radeon Mac Edition retail cards sport an S-Video interface suitable for displaying graphics on a television set, the cards sport no video input capability, as some of ATI’s previous generations of retail Mac graphics card do. Xclaim TV USB Edition restores this capability by routing video input through the USB interface that’s standard issue on all Macs. Regardless of whether or not your Mac is equipped with an ATI retail card, you can still use the Xclaim TV USB Edition to digitize video through USB — particularly useful for folks that haven’t made the transition to DV and FireWire yet, or users who want to watch TV while they’re using their Mac.
Features of the box include channel preview, “hot words” to identify key words and phrases in a TV program utilizing the closed captioning system, and parental control for lock in or lock out of selected channels. You can also capture video streams and still images. The device supports video input through a coaxial cable or through an S-Video interface. It’s bus-powered, as well, so it doesn’t require an external power supply.
System requirements call for any Mac with a USB port; a cable TV signal or amplified antenna; Mac OS 8.6 through 9.1; and QuickTime 4.0 or higher.
Xclaim TV USB Edition is available from Mac peripheral resellers and carries a suggested retail price of US$99.
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