EyeHome Updater 1.5.2 review

The EyeTV 200 lets users watch TV on their monitors, in a variety of window sizes, while enjoying the TiVo-like benefits of pausing and replaying live TV.

License: Freeware OS: Mac OS X File size: 13425K Developer: El Gato Price: $0.00 Updated: 10 Feb 2005

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The EyeTV 200 lets users watch TV on their monitors, in a variety of window sizes, while enjoying the TiVo-like benefits of pausing and replaying live TV. Even better is its ability to schedule and automate the recording of programs, either manually or through the nicely integrated TitanTV Web site.

The EyeTV couldn't be easier to use: attach a coaxial cable or antenna to it, and then connect it to your Mac's FireWire port (the unit draws its power over FireWire, so there's no need for a power adapter). Then use the Setup preference pane to automatically tune in the channels. To watch TV, use the full-size infrared remote control or the on-screen controller. Changing channels with the EyeTV 200 is much faster than with its predecessor. You can also connect the signal from a digital-cable or satellite TV decoder to the EyeTV, but it can't change channels -- you need to do that with your decoder box.

Bundled with a software package of the same name, the EyeTV can now wake your Mac from sleep or start it up for a scheduled recording. While this worked flawlessly on a dual-867MHz G4 desktop model, it was problematic when tested on a G4 iBook.

One of the EyeTV 200's biggest advantages over the USB version is that it captures video in MPEG-2 instead of MPEG-1. MPEG-2 is the encoding format used for DVDs and satellite TV: it takes up a lot of room, but it has great quality. You can choose from Standard (1.8GB per hour) or High quality (2.7GB per hour) encoding or Super Video CD (726MB per hour), which captures a smaller image at lower bit rates. A Custom setting lets you choose the resolution, bit rate, constant or variable bit rate, and audio settings.

What's New:
The graphical user interface was redesigned and features improved navigation and new control elements such as a popup window (invoked by pressing the wrench button of the remote control) that displays information about the currently playing video or music.
Searching for music titles has been improved.
The default background pictures during music playback can be replaced with photos from an iPhoto album named "EyeHome Music".
The 4:3 letter box, 4:3 pan and scan, and 16:9 aspect ratios for the output display were added and can be cycled through by pressing the Lens icon on the remote control.
Support for DivX movies has been improved.
The Ogg Vorbis audio compression format is now supported.
Support for 3ivx?® movies has been improved.
EyeHome now recognizes pictures that reside in the Mac

Requirements:
EyeHome hardware, G4 with a speed of at least 500 MHz or a G5 Power Macintosh, and Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. We recommend Mac OS X 10.3.3 or later. It also requires QuickTime 6.4 or later and QuickTime for Java 1.4.1 or later. Java 1.4.2 is recommended.