Record TV broadcasts directly into video formats suitable for Sony Playstation Portables or Apple video iPods.
That's the promise held out to Mac-owning users of Miglia's EvolutionTV external USB analogue TV tuner box.
Real-time direct encoding for iPod and PSP is said to be added with the latest V2.6 software for EvolutionTV - available now, though still in beta, as a 7.3MB download from http://www.miglia.com/Support/evolutiontv_beta.html.
In addition, the controller software offers RT hardware compression for MPEG-2/4 and DivX formats
Miglia EvolutionTV - back viewEvolutionTV – VAT-inclusive SRP £175 - is also said to let users carry out real-time capture to the same selection of formats from composite and S-video analogue sources such as VHS, S-VHS, Hi8 and DVD and Hi8.
System requirements are reasonably modest but do include a PowerPC with a 1GHz or faster G4 processor and Mac OS X 10.4x or higher. Also required are 256MB RAM and USB 2.0 connectivity.
Commenting on the new beta software, Simon Ellson, president and CEO of Miglia Technology, “Up until now, capturing and loading video onto an iPod or PSP involved lengthy software conversion steps. You could spend several hours exporting a video file to make it iPod-ready. EvolutionTV uses built in real-time hardware compression and does away with the export steps. Simply press the record button and synchronise the recorded video file to your iPod.”
On the downside – EvolutionTV has, as we've mentioned, an analogue TV tuner, so UK owners are missing out on the far wider range of TV and radio channels that are available with the Freeview terrestrial digital service.
A list of distributors and resellers is available on Miglia's website.
