Elgato Systems on Tuesday will announce that it has added support for digital cable to its EyeTV 500 HDTV device. EyeTV 500 supports digital unencrypted cable as well as digital terrestrial reception.
EyeTV 500 allows users to watch high-definition television live via free-to-air digital HDTV (ATSC) or unencrypted digital cable TV (Clear QAM) on the Mac; record television to the Mac’s hard drive, creating an archive of with MPEG-2 encoding and sort by various by date, title size and more; “time shift” by pausing live television, rewinding or fast forwarding; edit out unwanted content using EyeTV’s built-in editor that identifies where programs and scenes start and stop; and program EyeTV 500 through the manual control panel or Electronic Program Guide (EPG) from TitanTV.
In addition, EyeTV allows users to export recordings for further editing to applications like iMovie, iDVD or DVD Studio Pro. Programs can also be archived to DVD or Video CD, to create an archived collection that can be played on most standard DVD players.
According to Elgato, EyeTV 500 HDTV requires a G4 500Mhz or G5 processor and built-in FireWire port. A dual G5 processor and 23-inch display is required for full frame rate HDTV playback at full 1920×1080 resolution. Mac OS X 10.3 or higher and 256MB of RAM (512MB recommended) and up to 8 GB of hard disk space per hour of recorded HDTV is also required. An Internet connection is required to use TitanTV, EyeTV’s optional Electronic Program Guide and an antenna (not included) to receive the ATSC signals; for reception via cable a basic digital cable subscription from your local cable provider is required.
EyeTV 500 is available for US$349.00 at Elgato’s online store, at the Apple Store and in select retail stores throughout the US. During Macworld Expo EyeTV 500 is available for the show special price of $299.00.