A tv tuner for macs?

September 13, 2008 10:19 AM

Can you recommend a good, reasonably priced, external HDTV tuner that will work with a friend's iMac?

A friend would like to add a tv tuner to her iMac, but isn't sure what to buy. I know there are USB HDTV tuners out there, but do any of them work well with Macs?

She's not looking for anything elaborate or costly. She'd just like to tune over the air HDTV on her iMac, and watch a few shows. Some software PVR functions would be great.

Side question: I use Windows Media Center with my own FusionHDTV5 card, which works well. Is there a comparable product for Macs?

Sorry if any of this is clueless, I know nothing about macs...

posted by wfrgms to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Best answer: El Gato has a line of Mac tuners here. There's also Miglia.
posted by sharkfu at 10:27 AM on September 13, 2008

Best answer: I have the El Gato Hybrid and it works very well and comes with a license for their eyetv software with provides a slick interface to view and schedule shows... you can even trim out commercials from within the software and encode to iPhone/iPod if you want.
posted by hummercash at 10:54 AM on September 13, 2008

Best answer: I have a single tuner elgato usb stick thingy and the eyetv software. Works well for me and my family.
posted by singingfish at 7:52 PM on September 13, 2008

Best answer: I, too, have an elgato USB stick-thingy. Frankly, I think that the EyeTV software could be improved upon, but unfortunately I don't believe that anyone has a better solution for Mac users, so yeah, that's the option.
posted by mumkin at 11:19 PM on September 13, 2008

Response by poster: I want to thank yall for the suggestions. I think we'll try one of the El Gato solutions - looks like exactly what she is looking for.

Thanks again!
posted by wfrgms at 10:48 AM on September 14, 2008