I really, really wanted this to work, but I have to be honest, my experience with El Gato and eyetv has been anything but pleasant.
The short story is this:
I bought this a couple of weeks ago to use as a DVR on my Mac Mini. I don't really care about watching tv on eyetv, i care about RECORDING it...which is what i think MOST people are looking for.
Here's some big red flags if you are looking to use eyetv to record OTA tv via eyetv and OSX:
1. You will have to pay a subscription fee every year to [...] to get it to actually schedule your recordings. You used to be able to do this free with titan tv, but El Gato is now forcing only tvguide in the future...so this IS a hidden subscription fee with using this product (not too bad, about $20 a year)
2. The reliability of having eyetv wake up your mac to record a show borders on 50%. This has been a widespread problem that has not been fixed for years. Any DVR program that fails to record 50% of your programs verges on worthless. This can be (somewhat) rectified by leaving your mac on 24/7, but that completely negates the purpose of buying an energy sipping mac mini for a media center.
3. When eyetv does manage to wake the mac to record a show, many times, the recording is not watchable, with skipping, jumping, large gaps...etc. This is another problem people on the El Gato forums have been complaining about for YEARS with no solution.
I will probably be sending this back as it is not at all reliable for recording shows. Too bad, its a great idea, but the software is FAR FROM ROBUST.
Be warned....Get more detail about Elgato EyeTV One Computer TV Tuner 10020311.
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