Digital TV PCI card.. on a G4/G5...

[BFG]

OK

Recently my beloved harmen Karden TV Died on me, it is or rather was a beloved possession and apart from my macs/ipod (and car) probably one of my most stylish pieces of kit in that i have owned... Its pure class... its also dead.

As a Media Student i need my TV and Video... and almost as inportantly the ability to record off it! At Uni we have a media bank for recording from TV (analogue, and digital) to Beta or MDV etc etc... and now my tv is dead i am looking to get the same capabilities at home - through my mac in the form of one of those Funky TV Recorder gizmo's / PCI cards like Tvio and what not...

Anway, id like to be able to watch Digital Terrestrial (freeview for those brits who are reading this) and to be able to record onto a HD... I know there are several cards/box's for watching and recording analogue TV but i havn't seen much accomadating for Digital. - and seeing as in the UK we are turning off Analogue transmition in a few years it seems to make sense to get ready now and have the lovely clear singnal you get.

So does anyone know of such thing - PCI card preferably - Firewire if its a box as i know USB (unless its 2 which i don't have) can't keep up with the bandwidth required.

Price is most definatly a concern! Any information / advice / knowledge would be very very welcome!

[*DAMN Elandrion]

If you want digital (DVB-T, DVB-C or DVB-S) you'd have to buy the corresponding ElGato Device, the EyeTV 400 or the EyeTV 410 (with has a slot for PayTV cards) in your case.

For your analogue TV watching and recording needs, there are several options: the EyeTV 200 and the Formac Studio tvr which are firewire 400 boxes, or the Miglia AlchemyTV DVR PCI card.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any device which supports both analogue and digital TV yet.

About Prices: the EveTV 400 is about ?250, the EyeTV 200 ?230.

Hope I could help a bit
Elandrion

[BFG]

Hey elandrion

Hmm thanks. Yeah the thing is we have upstairs what we call in britain a "digibox" - with it you get your digital signal and apart from a lovely clear picture you get in 20 or 30 Free channels (some of which are shit, some half decent) ... down here in the Basement of the BFG i don't have a digibox (good one for christmas i guess at only ?50 or so) ... and most that ive seen are analogue.

I had a good look at the EyeTV410 and it looks great -very inpressive (although the HDTV eyeTV500 is the daddy!)  and although im not sure im thinking the digital signal here that im looking for is indeed DVB-T.  But to use it im guessing i also need to get a digibox.. probelem is that the digibox's connect to TVs Using a Scart Plug... not much info on the connector on the back of this box - im hoping it would be a case of from Digi box to EyeTV box with SCART and then from EyeTV to Mac with Firewire...

-edit
Ooh one other thing that kinda suprised me... these things have their own anntena's... so u don't have to worry about a digi box then if u use the annena etc - but can u get a good signal from somthing about the size of my toothbrush?

Hmm......


edit ... ahhh:

Get connected...
 ?  to antenna via antenna cable to the ANT.IN port of the EyeTV 400
?  to power supply with applicable power cord
 ?  to your Mac via a FireWire cable  

questions answered...

[*DAMN Elandrion]

Get connected...
 ?  to antenna via antenna cable to the ANT.IN port of the EyeTV 400
?  to power supply with applicable power cord
 ?  to your Mac via a FireWire cable  

yeah, something like that

i'm just guessing that your digital signal is DVB-T, because this is the standard for terrestrial TV broadcasts. So unless you Britons don't have some strange non-standard thingie here, you should be happy with the EyeTV 410. unfortunately, the freeview website can't satisfy my nerdy inquisitiveness...

If you want to import/watch the video from your digibox, you'd have to buy a normal digitalizer (Miglia, Formac or elgato), but then the advantage of the digital TV signal would be lost.

I have an old Formac Studio tvr at home, and it works like a charm.

[[a] LYNX]

for analog tv i suggest the "AlchemyTV". it's a PCI card, has a new chipset, works in g4 and g5, software that's stable (i have the old version of the card) and costs alot less than the elgato products - around 150 euros.

http://www.miglia.com/products/video/alchemytvdvr/index.html

the two versions of the card differ to my knowledge only in software. but i reconnemend the "DVR"-version since this one has better (programmable) recording features.

[BFG]

Yeah thanks logic, i took a look at the AlchemyTV card  - but like i said before becasue in the UK we are turning off the analogue signal in a few years im pretty decided on going down the digital route... Most probably the EyeTV410 if i can just get the relevant bits of info confirming it will work over here without massive problems!