I'm considering cutting the cable cord and moving to satellite (more HD channels), but also considering trying to go without either for a short time in between, where I would record the network shows I watch OTA, and buy whatever other shows I watched (non HD cable) via iTunes.... (Daily Show, etc).

I have a G4 1.4G/DP, and a Mac Mini (upgraded with T7400) to chose from as the box that records the material, and/or willing to consider going the MythTV route (or some equivalent).

So let's look at going the Apple route 1st...

a) The EyeTV Hybrid (USB based) appears to record OTA ATSC and NTSC. On the website it says "Do you plan to use EyeTV Hybrid with a Dual PowerPC G5 or an Intel Core Duo processor? Then enjoy watching 720p or 1080i HDTV (MPEG-2) in addition to the other digital television standards."... is the horsepower needed for recording or for playback? Given that all my locals have digital equivalents, I'm not sure I'd use the NTSC portion ?

b) the EyeTV 500 (assuming I can find one used) (Firewire based), appears to record ATSC and QAM... so with digital locals, this would allow me to record any clear QAM channels if I still had any cable (perhaps even basic cable) which might solve any antenna problems.

Do I have that much correct?

Does either offer an advantage if the target is just NTSC material in terms of quality/density of recording (ie. using a more advanced compression), or does one do more or less processing itself vs. putting that on the host processor?

Does either (or both) work well as the main tuner? (my display has no tuner of its own).

Would it matter which machine I connected either one to for recording? (I have a gigabit connection between the machines with shared drives). I could play the recording back on either machine? (but perhaps not use the tuner from the other machine?)

For the G4, are there any PCI cards that are worth considering?

How does this compare functionally and financially vs. putting together a MythTV box for the recording side of things? ie. it seems like there are MANY more tuners available cheaper, and sometime dual-tuner, such that I might be able to put together a MythTV box for ~$500? (just a couple months of savings from cable bills). Not sure how I would access the files stored on such a box, but I'm assuming I'd find a way... but again I guess I would have the active tuner problem.

Thanks,
Mike

a) The prime horsepower is required for playback. I can record using my EyeTV 500 with a 1.25 GHz G4 mini. (One nice feature about the EyeTV software is that it will automatically scale video playback to 1/4 resolution if your processing power cannot handle full HD playback. I don't get quite full frame rate on the G4 mini, but you should get full frame rate, 1/4 res playback with your DP G4. It certainly looks better than standard definition, but you can see that it isn't full HD.)

b) Yes. You will receive whatever digital channels your cable company does not encrypt. I occasionally get ESPN-HD, but it's usually just the five major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW) and a few PBS channels.

One issue with EyeTV is that you will not be able to stream a show (watch it on the computer that it is not being recorded on). If you try, the receiving end machine will play back only up to the point the recording was at when you started to stream. When the receiving end machine reaches that point you would need to open up the video file again, and suffer the same consequence at a later point. Also, if you open it up again, you'll be back at the beginning of the file and will need to FF or 30 sec skip up to where you were. You might be able to get around this using VLC network streaming, but I haven't investigated that yet. Also, you won't be able to use a remote computer to watch live tv, unless you can get that VLC streaming working.