I had been interested in the El Gato EyeTV Hybrid for a long time. I like that it had tuners for digital and analog. No one up to this point had a single solution for the Mac OS X platform and on top of that it comes as a relatively small USB dongle that can be used with a laptop when on the go. The El Gato EyeTV Hybrid has the ability to watch analog and digital television programming, record that programming, and later edit the video. The unit also has the ability to rewind, fast forward and pause live TV. Getting two tuners in one for about $150 to me is a bargain.

The system requirements aren’t too steep if you aren’t looking to record HD programs. It needs a G4, G5 or Intel processor with 256MB of RAM, a USB 2.0 port and Mac OS X 10.4. If you are looking to record in HD it’s recommended to have a G5 or Intel processor. I’m running the system on a 24″ iMac with an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM and I haven’t come across any slow downs and I wasn’t expecting any either.

The El Gato EyeTV Hybrid comes with a small dongle to connect S-Video and composite, but no input for component video. For the price of the unit, one can’t expect to have component input or output and I don’t think I’ve seen a product that offers that yet. In any case, The EyeTV Hybrid offers analog connectivity through an external video source.

The TitanTV features are really nice and it gives it the ability to show program listings as well as schedule recordings. Another nice feature of TitanTV is that its configured through a web browser and the user has the ability to schedule recordings remotely through the web interface. I was primarily looking at the unit for viewing purposes, but the recording options are a nice feature.

The EyeTV Hybrid is also compatible with the Apple Remote and offers a similar interface to Apple’s Front Row for viewing television in full-screen mode. You have to hold down the Menu button to activate the feature and the controls take a little getting used to. I would often launch Front Row by accident, but after using the remote for a while it’s not too much of an issue.

The El Gato EyeTV Hybrid comes with the popular EyeTV software which makes it really easy to watch TV on your Mac. Playback is fairly smooth and I didn’t really have any issues with the software. My HD over-the-air reception is pretty good in my area, but without an adequate antenna it’s hard to pick up any reception. I had thought the unit was packaged with a small antenna, but I was wrong. This is something separate that needs to be purchased in order to pull over-the-air stations. I was okay with this because I had intended to use my cable provider to television reception as my primary provider.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the purchase. It’s very reasonably priced and does everything that it says it will do. I’ll have to use it more as a DVR and see how that goes. While I still enjoy watching TV on my living room TV, it?s a nice feature to have a TV tuner on my computer when I’m in the office. I would recommend it for those looking into adding a tuner to their Mac. If you have any questions are comments, as always feel free to post them.