Miglia's TVMax external tuner for the Mac mini

Peripherals manufacturer Miglia has just announced a new external analog TV tuner for the Mac mini, but because they'd already used the name TVMini on another line of products, they decided to confuse us and call this mini-shaped tuner the TVMax. Naming schemes aside, this model -- which adopts the same form factor as several mini hubs that we've seen -- seems to offer everything a TV junkie could want in a external tuner, including MPEG-2/4 and DivX hardware compression, PVR capabilities via the bundled EyeTV 2 software, direct iPod or PSP export, and of course, the obligatory electronic program guide, which in this case is the excellent TitanTV. You also get the standard set of A/V inputs for recording from camcorders or VCRs, as well as a wireless remote to free you from clicking around to change channels, all for $250 and available immediately.

[Via Mac Observer]

[Chris @ May 23rd 2006 3:53PM]

First post! woohoo

At first glance, the tuner looks like a reflection of the mac, but the line-in gives it away HAHA

[A B L @ May 23rd 2006 3:55PM]

So ummm, is this just a bigger and more expensive version of this:

http://elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv250

Or what am I missing?

[rcw3 @ May 23rd 2006 4:00PM]

Not HD?

[Peter Elliot @ May 23rd 2006 4:08PM]

What it really needs is an embedded 300+GB Hard drive as well. Otherwise the stack would be rather tall with the Mini, HD and Tuner...

[Todd @ May 23rd 2006 4:13PM]

Sweaty Apple fan boys don't like the El Gato ABL, it doesn't observe the "mac look and feel".

[Scabies @ May 23rd 2006 4:15PM]

Aand... we're still limited to S-Video as the highest quality input. Screw life.

[Brian Sexton @ May 23rd 2006 4:16PM]

Nice; that might turn my 1.5 GHz G4 Mac Mini into a decent little living-room computer.

The EyeTV 250 looks nice too, but it does not seem to offer any built-in storage, so the $199.99 price does not seem like much savings over the TVMax. Also, http://elgato.com/index.php?file=shop_onlineshop lists the EyeTV 250 as "Currently not available", so it seems to be a moot point unless there are some of them sitting on store shelves somewhere (I could not find one via PriceWatch or at Outpost.com or Newegg.com either).

[sun @ May 23rd 2006 4:17PM]

the only difference i found is the Mpeg-4 hardware encoding this one has .. as opposed to the one from el gato ... anything else? ..

[Tom @ May 23rd 2006 4:25PM]

I just picked up a 250. I ordered it from apple.com and it came in a few days. I already owned the eyetv wonder usb and dug it for the most part, but I was looking forward to getting eyetv 2 free (the software that it runs), getting a remote, and having the box take over the tast of compressing incoming video when recording (the wonder put all that on the processor). So far, I dig it. The remote is pretty crappy tho - feels flimsy and the reciever has a hard time reading it. Anyone else use a 250?

[Rick S @ May 23rd 2006 4:32PM]

no HD, no Cablecard....nope, not really interested

I know Apple's all about the cube shape - but I don't think stacking Minis is the way to get there...

Now, if they did a taller Mini with room for Cablecard, a full size hard drive, video card, etc. with a decent interface (as good or better than Comcast's) then sign me up.

[Brian Sexton @ May 23rd 2006 4:48PM]

Oops, it looks like the TVMax does not have built-in storage either; I could have sworn that I saw something about built-in storage in the article, but it seems that I am either mistaken or something has been edited. In either case, if the TVMax lacks internal storage, it looks unnecessarily large and my G4 Mac Mini might be destined to be sold to establish a MacBook fund after all.

[Mike M @ May 23rd 2006 5:02PM]

great, with all these ad-ons this mac mini is not so mini anymore

[MacFreak @ May 23rd 2006 5:12PM]

Dumba**es. They should have added space for an internal drive, and even more dumber, considering that the Mini only has ONE firewire port, they only put ONE firewire port on their TVMax. Golly gee, how are all those Mini owners gonna add a firewire drive to store all their shows on?!?

[Bret @ May 23rd 2006 5:35PM]

#12: it's a USB port.

[The Mole @ May 23rd 2006 6:17PM]

Color me retarded, but am I the only one who wants component video HDTV outputs on Apple products. Apple is usually REALLY smart about these things, but there is NO component output on the mini or any other of their devices. Not every television has DVI or HDMI, so some of us are just plain out of luck I guess. It's really sad because while the addition of component video support might only add $10-$20 to Apple's cost, as consumers it costs a lot more to get a converter to go vga or dvi to component video. Like say $200. Apple needs to do us all a favor and support ALL HDTV's not just HDMI/DVI because MOST of us don't have HDMI or in many cases, DVI.

[Myrmidon @ May 23rd 2006 8:07PM]

If these guys really had any sense of industrial design, they would have located the power LED in the same physical location as the Mac Mini's, rather than on the other side. The devil is in the details...

[mark b @ May 23rd 2006 9:02PM]

i love the way mac mini pheriphals can be stacked. what i would love to see for a mac mini, would be an additional RAM based harddrive.. it would rock! & make the ultimate home theatre system!

[CupertinoSlim @ May 23rd 2006 10:53PM]

If you need to capture the output from old tapes, this is for you. Otherwise it seems like a waste.

[Bigglare @ May 24th 2006 2:15AM]

Gee a new NTSC tuner product just 10 months short of all devices being required by US law to be Digital ATSC tuners come March 1, 2007.

Lucky Mac bastages with the behind the times tech. hee hee.

[Scabies @ May 24th 2006 9:56AM]

So, how many replies want HD-in on these devices? Hey marketing, research and development, wtf weren't you thinking?
Do we have an HD-DVR like tuner out there anywhere yet? (under $x,000?)

[Joe V @ May 24th 2006 10:50AM]

Agree completely with Rick. If this sucker can't let me get rid of my cable box, it's worthless to me. I need fewer remotes, not more!

Apple seems to have said with the new Mac Mini, "look guys, we know this thing would be PERFECT as a DVR & media hub, but we don't want to piss off the networks who are fueling the iTunes Music Store, so you're stuck with third party solutions." Which is understandable. But those "solutions" have all been pretty lackluster so far.

Miglia, Elgato, please make something that: 1) fits under the Mini (check), 2) can accept digital cable without needing a separate box (i.e. has CableCARD slot and HD tuner), 3) has large and/or upgradeable hard-drive, and 4) either integrates DVR and other functions into FrontRow (not sure how plugin-friendly it is) or replaces it. If you can do this, I promise to give you loads and loads of my money.

[Wry Cooter @ May 24th 2006 11:19AM]

I posted the exact same questions to another article on this but...

Why didn't ElGato do this mac mini form factor themselves? (their ties with apple?)

Even more confusing... why are they letting a competitor bundle their software with their product? Is El Gato leaving the hardware business? .

Form conspiracy about Apple DVR here.

As someone mentioned above, folks want a mac based DVR, something that stacks with the mini and a similar form factor external drive. I cannot figure out why El Gato refuses to do this themselves, or allows a competitor to do it instead.

[Russ @ May 24th 2006 2:24PM]

I've been using a dual-tuner card (Hauppauge), and I wouldn't go back to using less than two TV tuners. I can either record two programs at once or watch live TV while the other tuner records...

[starwxrwx @ May 25th 2006 3:15AM]

isn't the TVmini (USB-key form factor) DVT-B (digital free to air) and cheaper???