Watching and Recording TV on My Mac.

October 9, 2005 5:28 PM

I'd like to be able to watch tv and record it on my G4 iBook. I know that there are a plethora of ways to do this on the PC side, with a special card or whatnot. Is there a (cheap!) way to do this with my mac? It has to be external, obviously, since I'm going to be using it with the iBook.
posted by rossination to computers & internet (10 comments total)

There's EyeTV.
posted by qwip at 5:33 PM on October 9, 2005

Slingbox
posted by blue_beetle at 6:39 PM on October 9, 2005

Slingbox is only for PC.
posted by danb at 6:49 PM on October 9, 2005

I looked into this and it seemed that EyeTV was all that I found. It is pretty expensive.

I'd say the best option is to buy a extremely cheap pc, through a pvr-150 in it and then stream the recorded tv to your i-book. Because the pvr-150 uses hardware recording, the pc doesn't need to have a good processor at all. I used it in a pentium 2 400 mhz and it worked beautifully.
posted by meta87 at 7:12 PM on October 9, 2005

If you don't want to involve a Wintel box, then check this tutorial out. If you don't mind using a Wintel box, then this one might be good too.

Keep us posted, I'd like to know how you get this working and how you like it if you do.
posted by pwb503 at 7:15 PM on October 9, 2005

Hauppauge seems to provide external USB tv tuners that are (claim to be) Mac compatible.
posted by misterbrandt at 7:38 PM on October 9, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

If you want cheap, you could borrow a camcorder, hook your home entertainment system up to its inputs and run its output into the firewire port on your iBook.

You can then import video on the fly with iMovie and do what you like with it from there.

It's certainly not NEARLY the best solution for watching shows and flipping channels and whatnot, but if there's a program that you want to digitize, it will get the job done.
posted by bcwinters at 9:01 PM on October 9, 2005

If you're a Comcast Digital subscriber, you can pull it straight off your DVR.

You could also hack a Tivo and run Tivo Tool.
posted by nathan_teske at 9:14 PM on October 9, 2005

eyeTV is pretty much the way to go for a Mac. If you're feeling adventurous, O'Reilly has a more DIY approach.
posted by mkultra at 10:28 PM on October 9, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

Another option is this plextor item. Elgato's ITV USB is a little cheaper, but near as I can tell, none of the self-contained options are "cheap."
posted by adamrice at 7:07 AM on October 10, 2005