Elgato Eyetv - 250 or Hybrid? Hardware Encoding?

[punkywhitething]

A quick query concerning Elgato's Eyetv. I'm undecided whether I should purchase either the 250 or the slightly cheaper Hybrid. More specifically, what is the difference between having hardware encoding and how will it differ?

I will be using an iMac 24". Gaming will also be a factor. Are both of these products around the same for zero latency? I've searched around and it seems that they might differ because of how the image is processed.

If someone can possibly shed some light on this that'll be great.

 

[michaelsaxon]

I bought the Miglia TV Max and have been very happy with it. As I understand it, it uses the same software as the Eyetv but has different hardware. I recall comparing the two and thinking it was better. I think because it has DivX encoding.

Hardware encoding places the task of encoding your tv signal on the hardware in the product and not on your machine. I can tell you that on mine, it is frequently recording at highest quality settings in the background and I don't notice any performance degradation on my machine.

http://www.miglia.com/products/video/tvmax/index.html