The Best DV Recorder for Mac
Written: Mar 17 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent Video Quality, Easy Editing Software, Better than Plextor ConvertX DVR or Canopus ADVC 100
Cons: Higher price than Plextor ConvertX for Mac or DV encoders for PCs.
The Bottom Line: Buy EyeTV 200, if you are in for quality. Otherwise, go with Plextor ConvertX for less money!
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| marbleflat's Full Review: Elgato Systems EyeTV 200 Video Capture |
I have used both Canopus ADVC 100 with iMovie and/or Toast 6.0 and Plextor CovertX DVR with EyeTV software to record TV programs as well as digitizing my good old VHS tapes based Japanese Samurai movie collections. I recently decided to spend extra money for EyeTV 200 from Elgato for my 2nd TV receiver system in my home office. EyeTV 200 like Canopus works with Firewire instead of USB 2.0 used by Plextor ConvertX. After watching the DVD copies over my 50" SONY LCD rear projection TV, I must say that I am more than ecstatic about the quality of digital video converter circuit Elgato has put in EyeTV 200. It is a class above both Canopus ADVC 100 and Plextor ConvertX DVR.
Canopus ADVC 100 together with iMovie produced good result. The color reproduction was excellent and sound quality was great, but the finished DVD showed small amount of grains compared to the original VHS. What was a pain about Apple's iMovie was that it took more than 28 gigabyte of disc space for just 2 hours worth of VHS movie. Then, I had to use Final Cut Pro to compress it into QuickTime icon based format before buring that onto DVD disc. Then, came EyeTV 200, but I was not willing to spend more than $300.00 for it at that time. I felt that it was better for me to go spend $300.00 and buy me the latest DVD recorder. So when Plextor introduced ConvertX DVR for Mac, I took advantage of a special introductory offer and bought it for $156.00. Since Plextor ConvertX came with great EyeTV software, I was so pleased with it then. I re-archived all my VHS movie collections with Plextor ConvertX over Canopus rendered archives. I am afraid that I must now be engaging in the same task re-writing over Plextor rendered video collection with new EyeTV 200. Is EyeTV 200 digital video encoder that good? You bet!
While I was somewhat pleased with Plextor ConvertX rendered digital image, I was not totally satisfied with its rather soft image quality as well as its sound quality whose dynamic range becomes somehow compressed into the boring restricted dynamic range. While it may be a great feature if your are dealing with sound source with wild dynamic range to avoid distortion, but it loses quite a bit of excitement compared to the original Samurai movie when the bad guy gets cut by the good guys or a bunch of explosions take place one after another.
EyeTV 200 not only offers very sharp and yet low grain image quality with little artifacts, it records sound in very beautiful quality with good dynamic range. The difference could be likened unto that of the difference between CDs and cassete tapes, though not that dynamic. For music lovers, who record MTV shows, EyeTV 200 is a clear winner over Plextor ConvertX.
For image quality test, this is the test that I conducted. I have 2 identical Dishnetwork receivers in my house. I connected both EyeTV 200 and Plextor ConvertX and began to record Iron Chef from Food Network. Both DVR units were connected to Power PC G5 desktop unit with 1.5 gigabyte of memory. Since both unit utilizes EyeTV software, this turned out to be a great test for evaluating the quality of digital video encoders inside each unit. S-Video input was my choice in each test.
I recorded 2 minutes in Extended Play (240 min per disc), then changed the setting to Long Play (180 min per disc), Standard (120 min per disc), High (90 min per disc), etc. Then, using Toast 6.0 I burnt each recording onto Memorex DVD-RW disc, using an external DVD burner containing Pioneer DVR-107 to make sure that there is no video quality difference that my arise from using different brand of DVD burners. The result was amazing!
Plextor ConvertX produced good color but not so very exciting sound. As expected it produced very soft image quality. High and Standard quality mode based recordings were good, but 180 min Long Play showed very noticeable degradation in image quality. You could see pixels and artifacts whenever video image moved faster. 240 min Extended Play produced very annoying artifacts that were very bothersome for large screen TV. It may be acceptable for iPod and for those with small screen TVs, but for those viewing large screen high definition TVs, it will become very unpleasant to continue to watch.
EyeTV 200 produced a very surprising result that got me very excited. Unlike Plextor ConvertX, EyeTV 200 produced very, very sharp image without grains and artifacts under High and Standard. The sound quality was bright and pleasant with good dynamic range as if watching the original broadcasting. What surprised me so very much was the fact that 180 min Long Play mode with EyeTV 200 produced very, very good video image that I had seen only with high end DVD recorders. Unless you are watching fast moving sport events, during which artifacts become serious problems for digital video reproduction, I could hard hardly tell the difference between EyeTV 200's Long Play and Plextor ConvertX's Standard mode. EyeTV 200 is that good. What makes even better with EyeTV 200 is that even under 240 min Extended Play, while the color quality had been lowered, it was not very unpleasant to continue to watch with my large screen television. This is a great news for me. Now I can have my mother-in-law in Hawaii record many more Japanese Samurai movies in 180 min Long Play mode without worrying about running out of space in her Mac's hard drive (1.3 GB per hour) instead of 90 min High (2.7GB per hour) without worrying too much about poor video quality. I can also start recording several cooking shows in 240 min Extended Play mode (940 MB per hour) and still archive it to watch in acceptable quality to improve my cooking skills.
One bad news? I must go through all my old Japanese Samurai movies in VHS tapes for the final archiving. (I hope that this is going to be the last time.) I am glad that I recorded everything on re-writable discs. Nevertheless, that is a lot of work.
This may sound funny, but I feel peace inside with EyeTV 200. I have finally found a DV Recorder capable of producing very satisfactory result without compromising the original sound quality. Plextor ConvertX was a great improvement over Canopus-iMovie combination, but its image quality constantly casted shadows in my mind due to its lame sound and very soft image quality. It just bothered me every time I watched archived videos.
So do I recommend EyeTV for everyone? Well not so fast!. The retail price of over $300.00 is a little bit steep in my opinion compared to what is available in WinTel world these days.
Conclusion: If you own a large screen television plus quality sound system, and video image quality is number one for your taste, go with EyeTV 200. More than $100.00+ extra money you must pay for EyeTV 200 will be a well spent investment in the long run in my opinion. However, if you are cheap or strapped for cash and do now own a large screen television without high quality sound system, Plextor ConvertX will do the job. After all, both come with EyeTV software, which is so fantastic compared to any of the WinTel world software interface that I examined before.
PS. While Elgato recommends that we use Macs equipped with 500mhz+ CPU, I have connected EyeTV 200 to my old Powerbook G4 with 400 mhz notebook computer with just 384 megabyte of RAM. It produced perfect recording result in every recording quality mode during the playback as long as recording mode is turned off and also once burnt on DVDs. However, during the recording, you would notice picture skipping effect on your screen. It was rather comical to watch CNBC with stock market ticker tape running at the bottom of the screen, playing catch ups one after another. Despite that, once recorded onto the hard dirve and burnt on DVD, I came up with perfect looking video image playing on my DVD player. I congratulate folks at Elgato for designing such a well-written software which places priority in preserving the actual recorded image quality rather than the image sent to the computer screen for review and display. After all, what we are looking to accomplish with DVR is to obtain the good quality recording played back on our DVDs. KUDOs for EyeTV 200!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
marbleflat
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Reviews written: 1
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