Elgato EyeTV 310 HD satellite TV tuner

The BBC’s solitary HD channel is broadcast free of charge over Freesat, and we were dying to take a look at some HD content on our widescreen iMac. The image quality really is impressive and definitely left us wanting to see more. We were pleased to see that HD recording and playback was nice and smooth, even on a relatively modest Mac equipped with a mere 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo processor. It was also interesting to compare the sizes of the standard- and high-definition video files that we recorded during our tests. EyeTV captures satellite broadcasts in their original MPEG 2 format, which produced file sizes of around 35MB per minute - approximately 2GB per hour - for standard definition recordings, while HD programmes recorded off BBC HD came to almost 150MB per minute (9GB per hour).

With apologies to Jaws, we're going to need a bigger hard drive.

Supports DVB-S and DVB-S2

EyeTV also allows you to convert those MPEG 2 files into other formats, such as the more compact H.264 format used by portable devices such as the iPod and PlayStation Portable, and we were able to squash our test files down to about 20MB per minute for standard-definition recordings and 40MB per minute for HD. That will make life a bit easier for your hard disk, but the EyeTV 310 also has a second Firewire port tucked away round the back, which could come in handy for connecting an external Firewire hard disk to provide some extra storage.

We were also hoping to explore ITV HD as well, but ITV HD isn’t a conventional full-time TV channel. It's only available on specific occasions – ie. big football matches – and there weren’t any of those happening when we tested the EyeTV 310. And shame on Channel 4 for giving its HD channel only to Sky HD subscribers – we’ll remember that when you hold your hand out for a chunk of the BBC’s licence fee.

To provide a bit of additional future-proofing, the EyeTV 310 can also receive broadcasts that use the newer DVB-S2 standard. This uses the more efficient H.264 compression to squeeze HD broadcasts down to the same size as standard-definition MPEG 2 broadcasts, and which should lead to a wider range of HD channels becoming available in the future.

We questioned Elgato about the cost of the EyeTV 310, and it explained that, unlike conventional TV tuners, which can be mass-produced cheaply, the EyeTV 310 uses custom chips and components and is only produced in small quantities.

And since Humax's promised Freesat HD capable DVR is set to retail for around £299, perhaps the EyeTV 310 isn't so badly priced.

Either way, it’s certainly given us a taste for HD TV and we can’t wait for the laggards at Ofcom and Freeview to get their act together and provide free HD channels for everyone.

Verdict

It’s a shame that the EyeTV 310 is so expensive, as we had a great time exploring the selection of channels that we could pick up on it. The chance to glimpse BBC HD at long last was also welcome. If you're keen to see and record BBC HD on your Mac, this is the box to go for.

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