It may not be as pretty as an Apple product (but seriously — what is), and at $180, it’s almost double the price of the ATV. But Elgato’s HDHomeRun comes in swinging for the fences with a trick Apple’s little black coaster doesn’t have: the ability to stream live TV, in HD, to your Mac or iPad — even over a 3G connection.
Not only that, the little box’ll let you record and timeshift shows, courtesy of Elgato’s EyeTV 3 software, which comes free (normally $80) with the HDHomeRun. Of course, EyeTV is only available for OS X, so Windows owners won’t be able to use this setup to stream to an iPad.