Nice device and a good price, but it dosen't export digital video to analog devices, meaning recording your shows to VHS needs additional hardware. The Formac Studio would be better for folks who want VHS export as well as video in/out, but this competes well with the elGato device.

Good to see more Mac TV input options available!

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KitsuneStudios wrote:
Nice device and a good price, but it dosen't export digital video to analog devices, meaning recording your shows to VHS needs additional hardware.

Do people still do that? Seriously, though, a major reason to use a DVR is to avoid those bulky VHS tapes. And you can always burn to a DVD.

...the whole reason for DivX is that you can burn your favorite TV show to a good old-fashioned ultra-cheap CD, and quite a few home DVD players can play DivX CDs with no problem. We're talking recording of broadcast-quality TV signals here-- not DVD quality-- so video on these discs look as good as VHS (as in: not so great) but are perfectly okay for most people's needs.

As for Miglia's device, I would've liked to have seen Firewire on it too, since there are still a lot of us out there without USB 2.0 in Mac land.

-Ken P

No HD. Bummer.

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jimothy wrote:

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KitsuneStudios wrote:
Nice device and a good price, but it dosen't export digital video to analog devices, meaning recording your shows to VHS needs additional hardware.

Do people still do that? Seriously, though, a major reason to use a DVR is to avoid those bulky VHS tapes. And you can always burn to a DVD.

Not necessarily. For folks without Superdrives, the $20 difference between the Formac and the Miglia means the difference between using a standard/cheap VCR, or buying a DVD burner plus software.

Also, not everyone has fully adopted DVD yet. Sharing videos with friends or family that don't have DVD players is still a possibility, and many people working in the fields of video, effects and animation need to have the opportunity to produce inexpensive disposable demo reels to be sumbitted to the widest range of studios possible, and that means VHS still.

Don't get me wrong, no video to analog export isn't a deal killer. But it is something to keep in mind when looking at available options. That's all.

....I guess I'm missing something in the analog VHS discussion here. Except for the Tivo-esque programming calendar features, if you want to output to videotape, why not just record the show to a VCR in the FIRST place and bypass all of this high-tech conversion nonsense? Or tell your cheap friends to spring for a $40 DVD player if they want to see what you "taped" with your new-fangled computer device.

Instead of getting the EvolutionTV, $279 will buy you one hell of a nice VCR/DVD combo unit, which, btw, will also play those cheap DivX VCDs I mentioned in an earlier post. Bummer that it won't play Beta or 8-Tracks tho...

-Ken P

PS: Sorry for the crankiness today, but, c'mon... VHS???!!!

VHS is the best way to insure your video is seen by everyone. I know tons of people who aren't even slightly tech savvy at all and don't even have DVD players.

Why not record right to VHS? Cause you can't edit out the commercials and/or mix your camcorder footage with nice iMovie transitions and such. I have the Formac tv/studio I much prefer having the option to go analog or digital. Sending video to VHS is realtime where encoding and burning to DVD takes longer (even on my dual g5 with 2.5 gig of ram, in dvd studio pro encoding with compressor), so for comps VHS is the way I go.

Basically the point is why limit your options to save $20.

The real point is that this unit is being marketed as a replacement for your VCR. From Miglia's web page:

"With EvolutionTV, now is the time to say good-bye to your VHS recorder!"

They are aiming it directly at computer users who WANT to move away from their VCR's limitations. Assuming one has at LEAST a CD burner on his/her Mac, the VCD-burning ability is vastly cheaper way to replicate (and mail) multiple copies of a TV show to friends (and you don't ask for that 10-cent CD back from them either). And after that first VCD or DVD image file is made, the time saved burning multiple copies vs real-time VHS dubbing is tremendous.

As for sending demos to clients, if you want to wow them with the quality of your reel, DVD is the way to go. Do musicians still send cassettes to record labels?!

VHS is certainly not dead.... I have hundreds of them laying around. But, like the floppy disk, VHS is quickly fading away like the audio cassette. Take a look in your local Blockbuster to see what the ratio of DVD to VHS title availability is. Or look in Target to see the meager selection of VCRs compared to the several dozen DVD players on display.

You might "know tons of people who aren't even slightly tech savvy at all and don't even have DVD players." I can only name one... my 82-year-old dad! ....And his birthday's coming up soon...

-Ken P

Does this device have the ability to record on various channels when the source is digital cable that has a scrambled signal?

This box has been shipping for months now. why are there NO reviews online? No personal experiences, no magazine writeups... nothing. Its like everybody that bought it suddenly died. There is one quicky "first reader report" on xlr8yourmac that came out before the evolutiontv was actually shipping, and then... nothing! Somebody please buy one and test it out.

MacIntel owners be notified: Evolution TV application v2.7 is not fully functional on Intel machines. I have a 17" MBP and had lots of difficulties.

Despite claims and descriptions that say it is a universal binary, some features do not work. Installation was not clear thanks to old documentation. Had to install and uninstall 3 times until all plugins were installed. The bundled MovieGate plug-in v1.0.2 (also claimed to be a UB) definitely does not work. It kept telling me my MPEG-2 recordings were Divx or MPEG-4 recordings and rejecting them, and refusing to burn a DVD. Migilia customer support told me I must be doing something wrong because they had no problems. 10 days later they admitted they did their tests on a PPC. That was 2 weeks ago and they still haven't updated the software or reduced the claims of what this product can do. Perhaps Apple is buying them up and that's why they don't want to take the trouble to fix their claims.

Clicking inside of software while recording can lead to app crashing.
Sometimes app had errors while recording.
Out-of-date documentation. Follow the installer, not the manual.

Could be a great item if the company would stand behind what they sell and get the software up to speed or at least not advertise it does things it doesn't.

Only a combination of 2 new beta elements, resulted in being able to burn a DVD from the app. Unless you like having to beta test the products you pay for STAY AWAY.

Evolution TV v 2.7
MG Plugin 1.0.2
MBP 17"
USB 2.0
OS 10.4.8
NTSC video

MacIntel owners be notified: Evolution TV application v2.7 is not fully functional on Intel machines. I have a 17" MBP and had lots of difficulties.

Despite claims and descriptions that say it is a universal binary, some features do not work. Installation was not clear thanks to old documentation. Had to install and uninstall 3 times until all plugins were installed. The bundled MovieGate plug-in v1.0.2 (also claimed to be a UB) definitely does not work. It kept telling me my MPEG-2 recordings were Divx or MPEG-4 recordings and rejecting them, and refusing to burn a DVD. Migilia customer support told me I must be doing something wrong because they had no problems. 10 days later they admitted they did their tests on a PPC. That was 2 weeks ago and they still haven't updated the software or reduced the claims of what this product can do. Perhaps Apple is buying them up and that's why they don't want to take the trouble to fix their claims.

Clicking inside of software while recording can lead to app crashing.
Sometimes app had errors while recording.
Out-of-date documentation. Follow the installer, not the manual.

Could be a great item if the company would stand behind what they sell and get the software up to speed or at least not advertise it does things it doesn't.

Only a combination of 2 new beta elements, resulted in being able to burn a DVD from the app. Unless you like having to beta test the products you pay for STAY AWAY.

Evolution TV v 2.7
MG Plugin 1.0.2
MBP 17"
USB 2.0
OS 10.4.8
NTSC video