The EyeTV One from Elgato makes pulling Digital TV (DTV) from the air and down to Earth as simple as 1-2-3. Install the included EyeTV software then plug the device into an available USB port on your computer and you will be watching DTV on your Mac in no time at all.
I tested the EyeTV One on my Macbook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini and it worked fine on all three systems. My ultimate goal was two-fold. First I wanted something that would give me TV on the go and second I wanted something that could bring DTV to my Mac Mini which may ultimately serve as a hub for my entertainment system.
What’s Good?
The software application, EyeTV, is deserving of its own review, but that has been done many times over so I’ll just sum up my thoughts on it with — two thumbs up! It is your TV Guide, librarian for your television recordings, and your DVR. It will even pause and rewind live TV. You can schedule the recording of your favorite TV shows in advance and the application will even wake up your Mac from sleep as needed to record your shows.
Once I had the software installed and the EyeTV One plugged in I was able to view and record live HD TV on all three of the systems I tested the EyeTV One on. I especially like the portability of the device, but I found that having to drag an antenna around just added to the already impressive weight of my notebook backpack.
What’s Bad?
The EyeTV One will not accept an analog or cable signal of any kind so if you need access to these you’ll have to look at other products that Elgato offers. It also requires that you get your own antenna and although they recommend a DTV antenna practically any antenna with a coaxial output should work. However, if you want to find a good DTV compatible antenna for your area try antennaweb.org.
The EyeTV One cannot record multiple channels at the same time, since it can only access the incoming feed from the coaxial connection. This presents a problem if two of your favorite shows are on at the same time. You can only record the channel you are currently viewing. It is for this reason that I decided the EyeTV One would make an okay accessory for that Mac Mini based entertainment system, but only in certain circumstances.
Antenna reception is quirky sometimes and seems to be related to the strength of the signal being received. I could not completely blame the EyeTV One, but it was a bit annoying that it would register a channel via EyeTV’s auto-tune feature and later not display any video for that channel. Sometimes the channel would play briefly and freeze. You could change channels and then go back to the frozen channel or close and re-open the live TV window. Afterwards, the application would recover and the video would play normally again.
Conclusion
I’ve enjoyed using the EyeTV One very much while on the go. The limitations and quirks I’ve run into aren’t a show stopper for me since I seldom run into them. However, I would like to see improvements in video playback and the intermittent yet infrequent video freezing eliminated. The bottom line is that the EyeTV One makes a great portable over-the-air DTV tuner and that sure beats dragging a TV around.
