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Product Review: The AlchemyTV DVR
By Steve Manke Digital Video and the Macintosh are a natural combination. Software engineers at Apple took the industry by storm with the release of Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro. Following on that success, they released iMovie, iDVD, and Final Cut Express, each powerful video editing tools intended for the home user. Each of these applications was based on QuickTime, another Apple technology that has grown hand over fist for the last decade. Thanks to Apples suite of applications for the amateur or home user, third party vendors have started to bring powerful tools to the market that share Apples ease of use. One such product is Miglias AlchemyTV DVR card. As the name implies, this PCI card adds a TV tuner to your Mac that supports DVR functions. For those unfamiliar with the term DVR, its short for Digital Video Recorder and it is revolutionizing the way we watch TV. It is similar to a VCR in that it records video for later playback, but in this case it records video in a digital format to a hard drive. In many ways it makes your Mac a TiVo! The AlchemyTV DVR card installs into a Macs PCI slot. One you install the driver from the accompanying CD and plug card into a cable TV line, you instantly have the power to record TV shows to your Mac hard drive. Installation is a breeze. One caveat make sure you install the drivers from the CD, and then hit www.miglia.com to download the updates to those drivers. The download from the web site is not a complete install, and the drivers that come on the CD are not compatible with the latest build of 10.3. The AlchemyTV DVR lets you watch TV on your Mac. TV can be full screen, turning your Mac in to a TV set, or you can opt to scale the window back and keep it in the corner of your screen. This makes it easy to multitask like watching the news as you read your email. As I alluded to earlier, the AlchemyTV DVR has full support for QuickTime. In many ways, this makes the product more flexible than a TiVo. It is easy to capture TV to your hard drive, and thanks to the QuickTime support, you can save it in any QuickTime compatible format. For example, you can take advantage of the recently added MPEG4 format. MPEG4 provides beautiful picture quality while compressing video file sizes that are much smaller than conventional video. MPEG4 makes it easy post your captures online, or send them to your friends. For example, you could capture the latest BMW commercial and email to your best friend. Or consider saving the same ad in DV format. This makes it easy to edit the footage in iMovie, or burn it to DVD using iDVD! The AlchemyTV DVR also can also serve as a digital video bridge. Simply plug your VCR or camcorder into the card and you can digitize those old home videos you have wanted to archive. From there you can easily burn them to DVD with iDVD! The AlchemyTV DVR also comes with a wireless remote that lets you control your Macs TV functions without ever touching the keyboard. The software even lets you schedule recordings much like you would with a VCR. Simply enter the start and stop times for the recording along with the channel you wish to record. The software will capture the program to your hard drive in the format you specify. After that, you can watch the program whenever you like! Whether you want to watch television on your Mac or archive your favorite TV show, the AlchemyTV DVR makes it easy. Not only is it a neat toy, but it is remarkably practical, and easy to use. Given its tremendous power and flexibility, Miglia simply has no competition in this price range. This is the perfect gift to give the Mac fanatic in your family! It brings power and flexibility to the Mac that it has never had! Turn your Mac into a Digital Video Recorder and make sure you never miss your favorite show again! |