Watch, record, edit and enjoy TV on the Mac with EyeTV 250 Plus, a hybrid Mac TV tuner with hardware encoder. EyeTV 250 Plus receives free-to-air digital TV with an antenna, and unscrambled analog and digital cable TV. It also offers a complete solution for transferring video from VHS tape to DVD-Video.
It is a good price for an overpriced tv tuner. There are other options out there (pinnacle etc) at a much lower cost. Admittedly even a tech illiterate person can operate the elgato with ease.
Can anyone recommend a good cheap alternative? Can't say I've ever seen one with hardware encoding though so the price might not be that outrageous after all.
The reason the EyeTV 250 is more expensive than most tuners is due to the fact that it is a hybrid TV tuner & video converter in one that receives both digital and analogue signals and uses hardware compression, making it morre suitable for older, non-Intel Macs. If you are just after a straight HD tuner then the EyeTV deluxe is just over $150 and the EyeTV diversity (which has dual HD tuners so you can watch 1 program and record another) is around $190. All are ridiculously easy to set up and use.
That's good value for the tuner. Personally I can't use it as I am too far away from the antenna but compared to even ebay prices it's cheaper.