The brand new, sleek and black Mazda RX8 appeared in our drive yesterday. Exactly the sort of vehicle we like to park there, so we can pretend it’s ours. The car’s engine throbbed as the driver let it cool down before cutting the ignition. As the RX8 has a rotary engine it would be more accurate to say it wasn’t throbbing but wan… err, better stop there.

The Mazda’s door opened, from its tan leather interior stepped Elgato’s PR man, none other than David Fanning, one-time editor of MacWorld. He was delivering a replacement EyeTV 250 Plus and his own EyeTV Diversity for me to play with. We soon got to the root of the reception problems reported earlier, it was the EyeTV 250 playing up.

No sooner had David departed, Miglia’s engineer, Eric, telephoned to see whether there was anything he could help me with. Excellent service from both Miglia and Elgato. The latter I know from personal experience provide top-rate after sales service and support.

Down to business
For this test, Miglia loaned me a TVMini Express (£34) and TVMax Plus £128). Elgato sent their latest EyeTV 250 Plus (£140), an EyeTV Diversity dual tuner (£90) and I used my own EyeTV 410 (£208). All but the latter are USB2, the EyeTV 410 uses Firewire. All can be bus-powered although the TV Max and EyeTV 250 plus come with mains adapters. I have added one to my EyeTV 410, cost about £12 from Maplins.

General differences
All of the devices are capable of receiving TV through the tiny aerials supplied but for better reception, a rooftop aerial or cable connection is needed. The EyeTV 410 has a slot for a CAM card (eg. Top Up TV). The Miglia TVMax Plus is different from the others because it works with analogue TV and cable only.

The EyeTV 250 plus and Miglia TVMax Plus have extra features designed to work with games consoles VHS players, camcorders and DVD players. Both come with software to digitise old VHS movies and the EyeTV 250 Plus has a game mode which, when connected to console, turns off its built-in Mpeg-2 encoder for zero latency. The hardware encoder otherwise takes the strain off the host Mac’s CPU when using analogue signals both cable and free to view TV signals. Finally, the EyeTV Diversity has twin TV tuners so you can record one channel while watching another. It needs two aerial feeds

All of the Elgato devices are able to use HDTV signals unlike Miglia’s which cannot (AFAIK). Only the Miglia TVMini did not come with an infrared remote TV controller, the others included what appears to be identical zappers.

The software: Elgato
Elgato’s EyeTV software was included originally with Miglia’s devices but rumoured unpaid bills and management buying-up a bankrupted firm, saw a falling-out between the two companies. Nevertheless, all the devices on test work with EyeTV2.5. Elgato supplies EyeTV with all their TV products, plus a year’s supply of TVTV, an excellent, on-line, TV scheduler which is integrated into EyeTV.

TVTV works with a variety of cross-platform devices including mobile phones. No subscription is needed just to view TV schedules but with a subscription you get remote scheduling via a web-browser. EyeTV checks TVTV from time to time to see if you have set anything to record. Just the thing if you are stuck away from Mac and need to get EyeTV to record something for you.

EyeTV’s list of recordings works similarly to iTune and Mail so that recordings can be sorted into separate folders, even automatically as they are recorded. Recordings can be edited from within EyeTV to cut out advertisements or unwanted non-contiguous sections.

Wi-Fi Access
David Fanning also demonstrated a further piece of magic EyeTV has built in. Archived recordings can be streamed wirelessly to an iPhone or iPod Touch, either locally or anywhere they can get an Internet link. A very cool feature and one which could become addictive for iPhone users.

The software: Miglia
Miglia’s two products arrived with different software, The Tube for the TVMini and MigliaTV for their TVMax. The TVMini also came with 30 days free TVTV. An annual subscription is less than £15 and well worth buying once free access runs out. In addition to The Tube, written by Equinux, a demo copy of their MediaCentral home theatre application also installed automatically. As it only runs for 5 minutes in demo mode it seems unnecessary and should have been an optional install.

The Tube
As with all software, personal preferences often out-weigh any subjective analysis but The Tube definitely feels a cut-down version compared with EyeTV. All the basic features are there but that’s exactly what they are – basic.

For example, The Tube tuned into many less TV channels than EyeTV even using the Miglia TVMini Express on the same aerial and Mac as the others. The Electronic Program Guide used in The Tube is limited to the free DVB transmitted on Freeview whereas EyeTV gives the choice whether individual channels use DVB or TVTV for program information.

Once a channel list is created in The Tube, the locations of channels are in an unordered mess. Channel Five, for example, may be in position 24 with BBC 1 at position 9. Their location in the list can only be changed by selecting each channel and dragging it to a new position. EyeTV can apply a default sort order so that BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5 and so, appear in their normal places in a channel list. You can also manually dial-in a channel to EyeTV by entering its frequency in the channel list dialogue box.

The Tube has no small on-screen ‘zapper’ as EyeTV does. Instead it uses a large multi-tabbed sidebar to control channel changing, EPG and controlling recordings. The sidebar takes a lot of screen space so can be turned off and TV capture controlled via the handheld remote or from the top menu bar. This is very clunky compared with the miniature on-screen zapper in EyeTV which automatically turns invisible after a few seconds, if full-screen view is being used.

One feature The Tube improves upon EyeTV is timeshifted recordings. This means whenever you’ve paused a live TV show, or scrolled backwards during a live show (which EyeTV can do), you can record from whichever point in the program you are and even jump forward to the live action while keeping recording from the point you had scrolled back to.

Finally, The Tube has no on-screen display of TV signal strength. Something I found invaluable when doing this test especially as two of the devices arrived with some problems. Elgato personally delivered a new unit via David Fanning, plus his own personal EyeTV Diversity, dual tuner USB stick.

TV and Radio capture
All the software works in a similar way, decoding TV signals, scrolling to hard disk and playing them on the Mac. Both The Tube and EyeTV include scheduling ahead of recordings, stopping and starting live TV and exporting recorded programs into various QuickTime-powered formats as well as burning direct to DVD. The Tube and MigliaTV are the most limited in output especially compared with EyeTV’s long list of options and sub-options. EyeTV now comes with a copy of Toast Basic 8, one of Elgato’s creator’s original inventions and a welcome and unexpected addition that is fully integrated into EyeTV.

When viewing live TV or recordings various screen sizes can be choosen via the keyboard or menus and the window can be expanded by dragging the corner. Screen pre-sets also include aspect ratio, over-scanning and de-interlacing to remove the jaggies and soft areas that movement does to digital pictures. EyeTV has more options than The Tube but some are processor intensive and need a fast Mac.

I tried to tune the Miglia TVMini into digital radio stations using The Tube software but was unsuccessful. However, when connected to another Mac with a digital radio list already set-up in EyeTV software, the TVMini connected to them without problem. This seems to be a feature, or lack, of The Tube rather than the TVMini.

Installing and setting-up
This is the point where I have to admit I was disappointed the most by them all apart from my EyeTV410. As that was already installed on my G5 I put the others one-by-one onto my MacBook. Without exception they had reception problems which later turned out to be something to do with their ability to use the RF feed. On my EyeTV 410 the signal registers as 100% but plugging the same lead into the other boxes produced huge variations. This is, to a certain extent, how each displayed the signal strength information but there were differences between two different EyeTV 250 plus boxes and the Miglia TVMini seems to be the most picky even though its Intel chip is supposed to be the best.

From the start the Miglia TVMax would not work at all. Analogue reception here is below par but the TVMax could not use the signal it was receiving, which on BBC1 and 2, ITV and Channel 4 is usually perfectly watchable. It was impossible to test the TVMax using its own software. A later test session will be done using the Miglia TVMax and Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus to see how they integrate with VHS and DVD player/recorders.

Form factor
Again this is a matter of personal choice and space available. The EyeTV Diversity and Miglia TVMini are two tiny memory stick gadgets which plug directly into a USB port or via a short extension lead. They also need an adapter to connect a standard RF coax plug. Because of this, there is quite a large lump of gadgetry which is easy to dislodge, sticking out of the USB socket. The others are housed in tough cases varying in size from a pack of cards (EyeTV 250), a hardback novel (EyeTV 410) to a Mac Mini which the Miglia TV Max is designed to sit underneath.

Conclusions
Both manufacturers have highly informative websites with full technical specifications of all their TV capture devices. Elgato even has a full, point-by-point table here showing the differences between each of theirs. Their websites should be a first look before deciding which is the best for individual circumstances and what you want: Miglia Elgato

The software supplied by Miglia is not a patch on EyeTV and given the choice, factor in the cost of buying EyeTV separately (about £55) because of all the extra facilities it gives: editing, wi-fi, better exporting and free copies of Toast and TVTV. Given that Miglia’s products are considerably cheaper than Elgato’s comparable ones, this evens the price difference out almost to the penny.

As far as the actual TV capture boxes are concerned, I could not detect any great difference in the picture displayed and recorded by them, even though Elgato boast they have superior interlacing to make the best picture. The EyeTV 410 caused the least hassles and was easiest to use. It picked up the best signal of them all and even has an aerial through-port, a second Firewire socket and the options of a CAM card and its own power supply. But it is the most expensive on test and for simply picking up a TV signal Miglia’s TVMini is six times cheaper.

The EyeTV 250 Plus and Miglia TVMax are able to connect to other devices such as camcorders, VHS player and so on which are especially useful for digitising old recordings. But the TVMax is analogue only and wouldn’t work with our TV signal. As the digital transmitters are due to be switched off shortly, it has a limited life span as a TV receiver.

I have to admit that I am not a fan of the USB sticks such as the Elgato Diversity and Miglia TVMini Express but once installed correctly they both run well and need no desk space. Of the two, the EyeTV Diversity probably gets my vote because it is capable of receiving two signals so can record one channel as you watch another but it is almost three times the price.

For the moment I’m sticking with my EyeTV 410.