PVR & Mac - As good as Tivo / Sky+ ?

[mistuk]

I live in the UK and am sick of paying Sky nearly £50 a month for a load of channels I don't watch.... but I love Sky+.......

I'm thinking of going down the Freeview route, but need some sort of PVR capability. How do the Mac ones rate? Do any of them let you record 2 channels at once?

I've got an iMac G4 800 MHz sitting around doing nothing at the moment - would that be up to the job? Ideally I'd like to display the output through my 42" Plasma - is that going to be a problem?

Would I be better off buying a new mini?

Lots of questions - hope someone can help!

Kev

 

[fh2level]

Im looking for the same thing. Im tired of having to pay Tivo. I have a mini that I want to use for something since I got my MacBook Pro. I have a WinTV PVR 2 but there isnt' software for the mac for it. I have tried HackTV but It only recognizes firewire but this is USB. I was looking at EyeTV but it costs $200, I might as well keep paying Tivo for that price. Any free solutions? Hope somone can help us.

 

[Jowl]

I have recently been invesigating using a Mac Mini as a media centre.

I already have a Windows XP comp built as a media centre, using a freeware media centre app. But it's not fast enough and too noisy. Rather than spend time and effort (and money!) bring it up to spec, I thought I'd investigate Mac.

So the Mac Mini core duo handles the HD content fine - at least from my brief test in the Apple Store.

There are 2 free software projects - Centerstage and MediaCentral. However. both rely on Eyetv software for their TV features i believe. I found a TVMini in the uk for £70 + VAT which includes EyeTV 2 software.