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Elgato Eyetv Diversity

(October 2007)

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JF
JamesyFish
I am thinking about getting an elgato eyetv diversity, and as its £80, it would be an expensive mistake, so I was wondering if it is any good and any past experiences.

Thanks
goldfish97
NG
noggin Founding member
Reviewed in Mac User this month - seemed to be rated OK. Almost every Mac TV receiver is bundled with Elgato's Eye TV software which is pretty well regarded.

The advantage of diversity devices is that they can tune two separate channels in high signal strength areas (or when fed from a decent aerial) - allowing you to record two things at the same time, or watch one channel whilst recording another. However if you are in a poor signal area, or using the two small internal aerials, you can combine the two tuners, allowing more robust coverage of a single channel with both tuners. (If one tuner gets a corrupted data chunk, it sees if the other tuner got it OK, and if it did it uses that chunk instead)

BTW - for high quality de-interlacing (so that you get fluid motion on sports and other "video" material) you need a reasonably recent processor, but that is true of Mac DVD replay as well.

(For info Elgato seems to be the Mac range of Hauppauge PC capture kit)
JF
JamesyFish
Yeah, it was reviewed in mac format this month too, I do think its good value for money as DVD recorders and freeview recorders cost around the same, and then I can use roxio crunch to export it to my ipod, so I think i'm probably going to go for it. I've been having a lookski and some cheaper alternatives, but they just seem a bit cheap and rubbishy and they don;t have half the features of the diversity or the ease of use.
LO
Londoner
I've got several other Elgato devices (450 and DTT) at home and at work and they're great.

I unexpectedly received a free protective case for my DTT stick in the post this week from Elgato.

I've also got a Tubestick and The Tube software is terrible compared to EyeTV.
JF
JamesyFish
Thanks for the advice guys, really useful.

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