Plextor, Elgato Annnounce New Personal Video Recorder

Plextor and Elgato have teamed up to introduce a new USB 2.0 Personal Video Recorder for Macs, the companyis announced Monday.

The ConvertX PVR combines the Elgato EyeTV software with Plextoris PVR video capture device with built-in TV tuner. ConvertX includes a TV tuner that works with broadcast, cable and satellite TV, and sports an MPEG-2 hardware encoder. Other inputs include RCA composite video, RCA stereo audio and S-video input.

During live TV viewing, Elgato EyeTV software supports all the time-shifting features normally associated with PVRs, including pausing live TV, skipping forward, and instant replays. The EyeTV electronic programming guide (EPG) allows users to schedule TV recordings with a single mouse click. Users can edit video scenes using EyeTV software, or they can export files into popular Macintosh software like Appleis iMovie, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, or Roxio Toast Titanium. EyeTV also can convert video into other popular video formats such as QuickTime, AVI, MPEG-4, and 3G.

The Plextor ConvertX Personal Video Recorder for Mac is scheduled for shipment to distributors and resellers in North and South America in November 2004, the company said. The retails for US$229.99.

System requirements for the device require a G4/500MHz or faster processor, Mac OS X v10.2.8 or higher, 256MB RAM, 20MB free space and USB 2.0.