Elgato Systems on Wednesday introduced EyeTV Hybrid, a “two-in-one” TV interface that enables Macs to view and record analog and digital TV signals. The tiny interface connects to the Mac using USB 2.0 and costs $149.95.
EyeTV Hybrid can view and record both NTSC (analog) and ATSC (over the air digital) television signals. It connects to your video source using a coaxial cable connection and also comes with a breakout connector that patches to a composite or S-Video source (as well as RCA audio input), such as digital cable or satellite TV.
No external power supply or antenna adapter is needed — EyeTV Hybrid is little more than an aluminum-clad USB “stick” that connects to a USB input on your Mac (an extension cable is provided, in case you might otherwise block an adjoining port).
Because EyeTV Hybrid transfers video content to the Mac uncompressed, it’s also suitable for use with video game consoles, using the supplied breakout cable. And if you’re using the system with a dual PowerPC G5 or Intel Core Duo system, you can also watch 720p or 1080i HDTV signals. What’s more, EyeTV Hybrid also works with Apple Remotes.
The EyeTV software supports multilingual programming and Dolby Digital sound. Analog content is recorded via EyeTV 2’s software encoder — quality depends on the performance of your Mac.