Elgato EyeTV HD

I own both the EyeTV HD and the Hauppauge HD-PVR.  The short version is, get the HD-PVR (unless your primary use will be digitizing VHS tapes. See below.) For the same money, the HD-PVR has more features and is more flexible.

Here are the shortcomings of the EyeTV HD:

1. No digital audio input. The only audio inputs are analog stereo. This means that the already compressed audio coming out of your cable box gets compressed again into AAC. Since I primarily make my recordings into blu-rays, this presents another problem:  AAC is not a blu-ray ready format. So, when making a blu-ray, the AAC audio must be converted into uncompressed LPCM format. This increases the space needed for the program and the muxer you are using to make the blu-ray cannot give you an accurate estimate of how much space you will need. And of course, no surround sound.

2. The EyeTV HD can only be used with EyeTV. The HD-PVR can be used with EyeTV and HDPVR Capture on the Mac and with the included Arcsoft package on Windows. If the EyeTV and EyeTV HD combo have problems with your particular program material/source, then you have no alternative capture software to go to.

3. The EyeTV HD does not have any audio/video passthrough like the HD-PVR does.

4. Despite what the Elgato literature says, the EyeTV HD does not do VBR. It is CBR. This will result in files that are unnecessarily larger than the same file captured on the HD-PVR. I've contacted Elgato about this and even sent them video clips demonstrating this. I never heard back from them.

On the plus side, especially for those who will be digitizing VHS tapes, the EyeTV HD seems to have a more robust encoder than the HD-PVR. In other words, in my experience, the HD-PVR will restart/fail to lock much more often than the EyeTV HD on glitchy footage. Also, once the HD-PVR restarts, it seems to take much longer to recover than the EyeTV HD.

So, in my case, I use the HD-PVR almost all of the time. I use it for all of my DVR recording and even for VHS digitizing when the VHS is one continuous recording in SP mode. Otherwise, I'll use the EyeTV HD.

UPDATE:  03/29/2011 - I heard back from Elgato after 7 months (I had to prod them to get a response.)  They still claim VBR for the EyeTV HD even though that has been demonstrated as false. But I did get my answer:  there will not be an update for this unit or for units in the future.  They did offer me a refund, which I turned down. The unit is still useful, it's just not what they claim it to be.

Hauppauge HD-PVR

The Hauppauge HD-PVR isn't exactly new, but I've had it and have been using it extensively for a few years now, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.
Overall, I'll say that the HD-PVR is a good unit and I'm glad it is on the market. There really isn't anything that competes with it at this point even though it has been out for several years now. (There are a few competitors that I know of, but they all fall short in some significant way.)

The pluses that I'll mention are:
- SPDIF 6 channel digital audio input and pass-thru.
- component pass-thru.
- variable bit rate encoding
- can be used with both PCs and Macs with at least 3 capture applications that I know of.
- resulting h.264/AC3 files can be re-muxed directly into a blu-ray without any re-compression needed.

The minuses I'll mention are:
- encoder seems fragile when it comes to dealing with less than perfect video inputs (and this will cause an encoder restart which will create about a 30 second gap in your recording for each glitch.)
- only 1 capture application option that I know of for Windows.
- some A/V sync issues when using the SPDIF input with certain hardware sources.
- as far as Hauppauge is concerned, there is only one officially supported capture application for this unit and that is the very old Capture Module in the included Total Media Extreme.

The competitors that I mentioned earlier would be: Elgato EyeTV HD (I own this unit and will comment on it in a separate entry), Blackmagic H.264 Pro Recorder (not shipping yet), AVerMedia AverTV HD DVR (I have no experience with this card.)

Image Constraint Token

Information seems a bit sketchy and conflicting on this issue, but one source seems to indicate that this may be enabled on December 31, 2010. In case you forgot, the Image Constraint Token is a mechanism by which content that has this flag or token turned on, will be down-rezzed on the component outputs of hardware that obeys the token. This is an attempt to plug the so-called "analog hole".
So if you rely on the HD component outputs from any of your hardware units, you could be in for an unpleasant surprise soon.
There is one potential fix for the consumer that I know of:  units like the HDFury3 and the Moome EXT-FULLHD. These connect to an HDMI output, perform the HDCP handshake and then convert that digital signal to an HD, analog component output. I have tried the HDFury3. I'll write that up in a separate entry.

The New Apple TV

The New Apple TV? Not so much. At least not for me.
All streaming, all the time? No thanks.
With the old Apple TV, when I'm listening to music, it's not putting additional load on my computer. With the new Apple TV, I'm using two devices just to listen to music.
I like to own my media and store it locally. In fact, I insist on it.
720p? Still? Are you kidding?
I can't see this new Apple TV as anything but a step backwards.
I'll be hanging on to my old Apple TV for as long as possible.