"Fast forward TV?" I hear you ask Okay, so you can’t fast forward live TV – until you have rewound it, of course. Teletext and the pausing, rewinding and fast forwarding of live television are also accessible from the physical remote control.
Along with the the obvious volume and channel buttons, the remote control allowed access to a number of other handy features: The green button maximizes the video display, the yellow opens up the Recorded Programs interface, and the blue button toggles the software remote control’s visibility. The included remote worked exactly as you would expect a regular TV remote to work and despite its simple look and feel, it got the job done. Too watchable at times, if the tardiness of this review is anything to go by! Without getting into the glossy versus matte debate, we thought the general image quality was clean, sharp and very watchable. While it doesn’t stand up to our Pioneer Kuro reference set, watching TV on the MacBook via the EyeTV DTT Deluxe was quite enjoyable. The cheap pair of rabbit ears, however, worked perfectly from both locations and it is these that we used for the bulk of our testing. While the tilt/swivel antenna’s ability to pick up channels was better than the telescopic aerial, the overall performance of these included aerials was, considering the distances from the transmission towers tested, disappointing. The tilt/swivel antenna, however, was slightly more successful in that it managed to pick up one channel (SBS) from this location.įrom our second testing location – approximately 8km from the transmission towers – the magnetic aerial worked perfectly but the telescopic aerial only managed to pick up SBS. From this location, the telescopic antenna refused to pick up any signals whatsoever, indoors or out. To put things in perspective, our main testing location is approximately 20km (line of sight) from the Melbourne transmission towers. That’s more like it!Īfter a quick look at all the channels, everything looked okay so we re-connected the original aerials to see if they would give us a bit more joy now that the hard work had been done. Success! The Autotune found 25 channels (including four radio stations). Using the included IEC to MCX adapter, we rummaged around for our $10 special internal antenna, crossed our fingers and re-ran the channel search. When all else fails – go to the rabbit ears. After another ten minutes searching for channels, we again turned up nothin. Having had little success with the telescopic aerial, we connected the ever so slightly bulkier tilt/swivel aerial. About 10 minutes later, a total of zero channels were found.
We skipped the 3 months free IceTV subscription and hit the "Autotune" button (with exhaustive search ticked for good measure) and waited. After entering my location – Australia – up came a blue window with an ominous "No Channels" label. When not in use, the DTT Deluxe’s opposite end has a neat translucent grey cover keeping the USB port protected.Īfter plugging the DTT Deluxe into a free USB port (and connecting the telescopic aerial), I inserted the included EyeTV software disc.
The only real giveaway is the small golden coloured MCX aerial port located on its outer end. And with its stylish silver finish and neat grey labeling, a cursory glance would have many believe that is all it is. At 55x17x7mm the actual tuner is quite literally smaller than many USB flash memory sticks. While the package is quite small, the actual EyeTV DTT Deluxe is positively minescule.
Accompanying all this was the usual quick start guide and light smattering of product cards. The package also contained an infrared remote control (with batteries), a small USB extension cable and a CD-ROM containing the EyeTV 3 software and product manuals. An IEC-MCX aerial adapter is also included which allows the DTT Deluxe to be connected to any standard coaxial aerial (internal or external via wall plug).
The larger aerial comes complete with a small magnetic suction attachment which allows it to be stuck to windows or other similar surfaces. To start with, the EyeTV DTT Deluxe package contains two DVB-T aerials – a small telescopic aerial, as well as a larger tilt/swivel one.
And for the past month or so, we have had it connected to our unibody MacBook Pro for some portable free-to-air viewing.Īlong with the tiny USB stick that is the EyeTV DTT Deluxe, the Elgato package contains a bunch of accessories – Accessories that other manufacturers might consider to be optional extras. The Elgato EyeTV DTT Deluxe is an impossibly small High Definition digital television tuner for the Apple Mac.