Elgato EyeTV 3

Thanks to its compability and integration with OSX, EyeTV has become a standard for watching TV on the Mac. Elgato explains that all aspects of the suite have been redesigned, taking feedback from users into account.The functionality to edit movies, burn them on a DVD (requires Toast), streaming over wifi to your iPhone and export options for iPod, iPhone and Sony's PSP are still present. The list of functionality has been seriously extended, major improvements have been made related to searching items, sharing and navigation.
After having copied the application to the harddrive, a wizard guides you through the installation process, it lets you select a decoder, and offers to subscribe to a program guide (offered by TVTV). Opening "EyeTV Programs" will show you a home screen with EPG (Electronic Program Guide), recordings, playlists, ... . This window has been redesigned with Leopard-looks: the menu-items at a column at the left, and a coverflow-view in the contentpane.

What we appreciate most:

• - Sharing your library over WiFi, and the possibility to protect its content with a password. One can for example record movies in another room, and watch them later a Mac Mini or AppleTV.


• - The favourite channels let you iterate through a list of channels, without having to view all of them. For example, an "Actuality"-selection will only show you Euronews, BBC, etc.


• - Integrated program guide on the TV screen and on the one you're navigating through with your Apple Remote.


• - Automatic recording of programs that mach certain criteria, for example automatically recording all episodes of Prison Break, or shows on a given subject.


• - Improved editing for recorded videos: it's now easier to cut the ads out, before burning the program to a DVD, using Toast.


• - Estimates of the remaining disc space, and automatically erasing a disc.

On Elgato's website you can read a list of new features, compared to the previous version. The website TUAW.com has a demonstration clip, as seen on MacWorld.
EyeTV 3 is available as a software upgrade for € 39,95, or € 79,95 for a complete version, on Elgato's website.