Miglia has announced their TVBook Pro – a TV card specifically designed for Apple’s MacBook Pro. TVBook Pro allows MacBook Pro users to watch live digital TV (DVB-T), record to your hard drive, edit your favourite shows and burn them onto DVDs.
TVBook Pro comes in the form of a ExpressCard/34 card integrating a digital TV tuner with an amplified antenna. Your MacBook Pro powers the antenna through a free USB port.
Key Features:
• Watch digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T) on your MacBook Pro
• Watch, pause, rewind, skip forward and record live TV
• Edit your favourite shows
• Small and discreet MacBook Pro Express Card
• Amplified antenna for optimum reception
TVBook Pro ships with EyeTV 2 software allowing you to watch digital television on your Mac and allows for pausing, rewinding or even skipping forward live TV. EyeTV’s built-in editor lets you quickly edit recorded television to save only the parts you want to see again.
TVBook Pro supports Digital Terrestrial Television (Freeview in the UK, TNT in France, DVB-T elsewhere), which will give you a perfect picture quality on your MacBook Pro.
More info here.
[Attribution: MacNN]
MacDailyNews Note: DVB-T stands for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial and it is the DVB European consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television.
[UPDATE: 9:45am EDT: Added DVB-T info note.]
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Novatel debuts first EVDO ExpressCard for Apple MacBook Pro – April 17, 2006
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Now all I need is a MacBook Pro …
Cool, but… what, exactly, is digital terrestrial TV – and how many channels are actually available?
oooo… I can keep widescreen, HD versions of “House” and “24”!
I’ll take one!
Digital Terrestrial TV is what it says it is, Digital TV through an Terrestrial aerial. In the UK it’s provided by Freeview and you get 40 or so channels.
macca
I’ve got a DTTV box for my iMac. It receives (depending where you are and signal) all of the Freeview channels here in the UK. No idea about US.
DBV-T is not the format used in the USA for over-the-air digital TV. The USA uses ATSC.
Don’t think this is for the USA…
why not just use a USB device for the same, since you also have to use a USB to power?
Not for the USA! WTF! Everything that seems to come out is always for Europe first, and I’m getting sick of it! Apple and its developers need to realize that the US market is an important one, and that routinely ignoring it is a serious…
uh…
wait a minute…
Nice to see a manufacturer making something in this odd “card” form- factor. It does not really impact me since I don’t watch TV and don’t have an MBP yet.
problem is that in the US we have encryted digital. We need either huge clunky boxes or a cable card which cable carriers do not like giving out. I had a hard time getting one card and they keep periodically blocking it. I have to call once every two months to have them reactivate the thing.
Unencrypted HDTV in the US is in the Clear QUAM format. Other El Gato & Migla devices support it.
The great thing about DVB-T here in the UK is that Freeview digital broadcasts are in MPEG-2, which is the same format used in DVDs. EyeTV recordings on your mac are therefore stored in native MPEG2 streamed files, so when you create a DVD from the EyeTV recording of a DVB-T show, the quality is identical to the broadcast stream. There is a bit more compression than on a commercial DVD, but that means you can get about 3hrs on one single-layer disk, and the playback quality is way better than recording standard analog TV. With EyeTV you can also edit out the commercials, and then use Toast to burn a really good quality 16:9 DVD for playback on your standard DVD player. You guys in the States are missing out.
Would be interesting if a product (AirPort Express w/video? MacMini PVR?) announced tomorrow would have an ExpressCard slot to accommodate a card like this.
The timing of the announcement makes you think a bit.
I fell in love with this product on a trip back to Oz where it was running both on a G4 PowerBook then moved to an eMac. Note that it MUST use Tiger (not even 10.3), at least G4 (no G3) and have USB 2 (no USB 1.1).
Unless Apple comes out with something spectacularly better tomorrow I’m going to buy the EyeTV Hybrid. The things I like are:
• supports 720p and 1080i HDTV (only Australia for now, under trials in London, but needs dual G5 or Intel)
• set up as many timed recordings as you want, even wakes up your Mac!
• can compress recorded show into iTunes ready to download to iPod
• works with Apple remote – good for Mac Media Centre
• displays in a window or full screen
• accepts composite video – play/record PS1/PS2 on Mac monitor, I hope it can also convert my home videos to DVD
• easy to remove to another Mac
• supports Teletext and therefore subtitles
• we even linked it with Sailing Clicker and changed channel with our PDA/mobile phone!
I am not affiliated with ElGato at all, just very impressed. It needs Apple to incorporate it as an icon in FrontRow, if plugged in.
BTW these products really need access to an EXTERNAL aerial. The one I used in a house with the external aerial was excellent, but the one I saw in a Mac shop (inside shopping centre) with the included cheap aerial was grainy and dropped frames.
Gorsh. It is beacuse the wireless tech in Europe is better than the US with the exception of HD adoption. The digital TV and Radio here is all free and unencrypted and the phone networks are far superior. If the US were to take the same line as Europe on these things then everyone would be happy. However, I wouldn’t complain, you have iTunes TV shows and I am sure Movies too which we won’t have here till god knows when!
Tim
Sounds great, if you have the E34 slot, but what about connecting it to a cable box? Since I have a second LNB on the motorcoach which is not being used….. can this be done?