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Chrisbs95

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
1
0
Maryland
I recently purchased the 27 inch 3.06 iMac and I am somewhat patiently waiting for it to arrive. I was wondering if anyone had tried using one of the third party TV tuners apple sells, or if there was a better one on the market, I was hoping to replace TV in my room with the iMac- thanks.
 
All I know of is these http://www.elgato.com/

I'm not sure of the quality of them, but I'm in the same position as you. I really want to stream HD TV to my iMac but dont want to purchase anything without any knowledge it will be good quality.

So yeh, not to hi-jack the thread, anyone in the UK have one of these?
 
i`m using pc tv nano stick ultimate and eye tv for watching digital terrestrial tv (freeview) and it works fine get now all channels the stick is not expensive but works better then the haupage wintv stick and the tube i used before where i only got some channels , so its realy up to the stick how many channels you will get
 
I just got the same setup as you, and bought the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid off eBay for around $60. I currently have an HD antenna running off of it picking up the basic channels so I can watch football on Sundays, and I must say it's a fantastic piece of hardware (and software). It gets better reception than the converter box out in my living room, and auto-downloads a program guide each day. You can record shows whenever you want straight onto your hard drive, and (coolest of all) you can stream live tv or recordings to your iPhone or iPod Touch through their EyeTV app. It's basically a DVR for your computer. I think it's great. Highly recommended.
 
Get the Eye TV HD. There are many compatible USB tuners with the elgato software, but unlike my regret of getting a hauppauge, eyetv processes the video without using your CPU.
 
Get the Eye TV HD. There are many compatible USB tuners with the elgato software, but unlike my regret of getting a hauppauge, eyetv processes the video without using your CPU.

So what if it uses the CPU? Processing this kind of video couldn't possibly require more than the new iMacs have to offer.
 
I have the Hauppaugge WinTV and it works great. It also comes with the EyeTV light version of the SW. I have it connected to my cable and get a lot of analog, digital, and HD channels. It all depends on your cable system though. BTW, I also tried this on my PC and it didn't work nearly as well with the software it provided for Windows.
 
I use Elgato's EyeTV 250 Plus as a DVR with my iMac 2.4GHz. Sends my stuff to iTunes so I can sync it to my iPhone and watch whenever. Works well for me.
 
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