Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus Digital/Analog TV Receiver and Video Converter | 
| Brand: Elgato
Category: CE
List Price: $199.95
Buy New: $169.78
as of 9/5/2010 12:02 CDT details
You Save: $30.17 (15%)
New (21) Used (5) Refurbished (2) from $125.00
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  61 reviews
Format: CD
Platform: Mac
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Macintosh
Processors: 1
System Memory: 128000
Memory Type: DRAM
Hard Drive Size: 1
Graphics Card: This is the description of the PC Graphics
Graphics RAM: 256
Graphics Card Interface: AGP
Native Resolution: 640x480
Display Size: 669.2913385826772
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 2.5 x 7.8
Legal Disclaimer: Shipping is 3-5 days FedEx or UPS with tracking number. Brand New. Continental USA street address ONLY, we do not ship to P/O box, APO, AE, or international addresses
MPN: 10020780
Model: 10020780
UPC: 852095000751
EAN: 0852095000751
ASIN: B0013PQ6P4
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Watch, pause, and rewind free over-the-air HDTV, Clear QAM or analog television on your Mac. | | • | Record TV shows and export videos to your iPod, Apple TV, or iPhone. | | • | iPod Assistant to convert analog video to iPod/iPhone/Apple TV formats | | • | Includes Roxio Toast 8 Basic disc burning software and EyeTV 3 software. | | • | Records high quality video and frees up your processor for other activities. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
EyeTV 250 Plus is a hybrid TV Tuner for the Mac with a powerful hardware encoder for higher quality recordings and smaller sized video files. EyeTV 250 Plus receives both free over-the-air HDTV as well as analog TV, and offers a complete solution for moving your video collection from VHS tape to DVD-Video. EyeTV 250 Plus is future-proof for the upcoming digital TV switch-over in 2009, and is ideal for those who want the flexibility of a digital and analog TV tuner together with a hardware encoder in one device. EyeTV 250 Plus delivers free over-the-air digital TV to your Mac in stunning 720p or 1080i HDTV (MPEG-2) and other digital television standards, as well as conventional analog TV via standard cable or antenna. EyeTV 250 Plus also comes with a break-out cable for composite video and S-Video, enabling you to connect a set-top box directly to your Mac. EyeTV 250 Plus' powerful hardware encoder also records high quality video from analog sources, compressing audio and video signals to small size MPEG-2 files and freeing up your processor for other activities. MPEG-2 is a premium-quality video compression standard which is the basis for DVD and digital television. Use EyeTV 250 Plus to capture video and convert VHS tapes into high-quality digital files. EyeTV 250 Plus' easy-to-use VHS Assistant will walk you through each step, from connecting your VCR or camcorder right through to burning a DVD or sending the recording to iTunes. Export clips and entire episodes to your video-capable iPod, Apple TV, and iPhone Store your collection on an external drive, or burn it to disc using Roxio Toast 8 Basic (included) Convert old videotapes to digital files using the VHS Assistant
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 61
 Reliable Converter June 8, 2009
Theron Krusling (Florence, KY USA)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
I bought this specifically to do VHS to DVD conversion. So my review will not cover a lot about the tuner functionality. What I can say about that - setup went quick, event free, and everything worked - all my channels including those fancy new digital ones (which look really nice on the computer screen). Once the guide downloaded - everything seemed ready to record just like a Tivo. The remote control requires you to be a bit of a sharpshooter, but it's not as bad as my Philips DVD Player.
The options for quality and recording length are limitless. There are four quality setups and then a custom one which you can tweak every setting. I believe recording length is limited to 12 hours per recording - which is no problem for me. Seamless integration with Toast (which also came with it) and a plethora of export options to keep anyone happy. The quality is crisp. People that complain of VHS conversion quality encoding have one of two problems 1) They don't remember how crappy VHS looks compared to digital 2) Their VCR is a piece of garbage. I'm using an $1800 professional Sony editing VCR as the playback device - it cleans up the quality and makes the tapes look as good as possible. Remember - The better the source, the better the quality. Don't expect this device to make your tapes look better, just the same. However, I was able to tweak some tapes that had poor color and sharpness from a crappy camcorder. It has those settings, too.
It's mac quality at its finest - I have transferred over 60 hours of video in my first week with it without ONE problem. No errors, glitches, encoding errors, anything - IT JUST WORKS.
There is a PC version made by Terratec, but it's kind of hard to find - I've read that it is almost as good as this for the PC.
Just What I Needed October 31, 2008
Alfredo Faz Jr. (San Antonio, Texas United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This worked for me right out of the box. It does not come with an antenna, but I bought a cheap HD antenna from Radio Shack and it works fine. The Elgato allows you to view local OTA analog and HD channels. Personally, analog does not look great on the computer, but the HD channels have crystal clear video quality. I bought this mainly to watch football games from my home office. As an additional benefit, I was able to use the Elgato to digitally record some old video tapes from a Hi-8 camcorder.
Best way to convert VHS tape to DVD February 23, 2009
Convergent (North Carolina)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've tried many, many different methods of converting my old VHS tapes to DVD and they are always very labor intensive and give questionable results. This EyeTV 250 has really streamlined the process. You can even easily put chapter markers in to separate your clips without going into any other tool or software. Kudos to Elgato for this. Its quick and produces good quality results.
Works Well With Comcast Cable April 7, 2009
Photo/Video Gearhead
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
If you own a Macintosh computer, don't bother using your DVD recorder any longer. The Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus is a more elegant solution. With my Comcast "limited basic" cable subscription that costs $18.95 per month, the Elgato's QAM tuner picks up over 100 digital TV stations that are available unencrypted or "in the clear". Included in these 100 stations are 11 HDTV stations that include the major network stations such as ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS. The remaining digital TV stations are broadcast in SDTV (standard definition) format. And for those without a cable subscription, the ATSC tuner will pick up unencrypted TV stations over the air. An NTSC tuner is included as well, although the signal quality of this analog NTSC tuner does not match that of the ATSC and QAM tuners.
An on-line TV guide that is available free from TitanTV makes setting up recording simple. And you can download free "ETV Commskip" software from Google that automatically marks commercials and skips over them.
If you own an Intel Mac, you can record and playback in HDTV (720p or 1080i) format that requires 6 to 7 gigabytes per hour of recording and that approaches the Blue Ray 1080p quality. If you own a PowerPC Mac instead of an Intel Mac, you can still record in HDTV format, but playback will drop some frames because the PowerPC is not fast enough to decode HDTV in real time. However, you can record and playback in SDTV (480i) format which requires only 1.4 gigabytes per hour of recording. Even SDTV format is quite acceptable, and certainly a noticeable improvement over analog NTSC format.
If you don't own a Macintosh computer, your next best option is the Toshiba DR560 DVD recorder Toshiba DR560 1080p Upconverting DVD Recorder with Built-in Tuner. However, with this or any other DVD recorder that is currently available, you will be limited to recording in SDTV format.
A beautiful piece of hardware. July 3, 2008
M. Miller
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I have to say that the 250 Plus has been a pleasure so far.
During setup, I was a little disappointed that the poor packaging scratched up the unit (the adapter was unwrapped as was the receiver), but I was hardly devastated. Additionally, I was horrified to see that EyeTV only picked up 20 channels; however, I quickly realized that in my stupidity I chose analogue when I should have chosen cable. From that point on setup was a breeze. In fact, EyeTV managed to locate six additional channels on regular cable that no TV in my house has ever picked up. My only gripe about setup was that it took 3 attempted updates with Titan TV to finally get the program guide up and running.
EyeTV is a uniquely considerate program. While you are unable to set a series to automatically record, you can create a "Smart Guide," which locates the show and displays all available episode. You may then select which episodes you want to record. Also, EyeTV's editor mode is one of its most phenomenal capabilities. In fact, if you are feeling adventurous, Google has released a script called "ETV-Comskip," which marks all commercials for deletion. Crazy, right? It has worked like a charm.
Still, I am reluctant to give Elgato 5 stars. EyeTV is a memory monger. I checked my computer stats after one night, and the program had left 2.17 GB of 4 GB of memory inactive, leaving me with about half a gig of free RAM. Also, EyeTV has caused my first system freeze on my MacBook Pro. However, all in all, the 250 Plus and EyeTV are a remarkable combination of power and convenience.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 61
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