Universal TV-tuner?

[rnizlek]

With Apple's announcement today allowing to dual boot Windows XP and Mac OS, I'm looking for a way to justify purchasing an Intel Mac Mini, manly so I can use it to play a few Windows-only computer games once in a while.

One of my ideas is this: I pay $12.95 a month for TiVo service. If I can set up the Mac Mini as a TiVo of sorts, over the cost of four years this will save me $621.60. So, I was wondering whether or not there are any good, universal-compatible DVR packages out there - I know EyeTV released some new software that is universal, but they don't seem to be offering a suitable hardware package on their website for my needs. At the moment I just need to have a USB or Firewire TV tuner hookup that relies on hardware rendering and will allow me to record off a standard analog cable hookup. I want to use hardware rendering because it will take the load off the system and provide me with a much smoother, higher quality picture.

Does anyone know of anything out there that is universal compatible (if I invest in anything, I'd want it to be universal compatible for the future and for better performance) and would perform this sort of function for me?

 

[generik]

EyeTV is now available as a universal binary if that's what you meant...

Edit: Ok I think I got what you really meant.

I am not sure what Amerikans use in their cable broadcasts, but I think what you need is a ATSC tuner. If it is anything like my EyeTV DTT tuner the signal would have already been transcoded digitally during broadcast, and that saves you having to reencode an analog stream into digital again.

 

[matticus008]

Unfortunately, there's nothing for the Macintosh that is as good as Tivo. While EyeTV is good software, the kludgy remote (in my opinion) and an all-around inferior program guide are serious drawbacks. If you want hardware that works on both OS X and Windows, look into the Plextor TV-402. They have a Mac model that comes with the EyeTV software, or you can buy it separately if you buy the PC version. The Plextor does/does not come with a remote (packages vary).

If you're prepared to spend that $600 up front, you can put together a very nice MythTV box, which is much better in terms of Tivo replacements. Additionally, you can have multiple tuners installed (or can be added in the future), expanding capabilities greatly.