Cheap Elgato 10020111 Eyetv Wonder USB 2.0 (Electronics) Price

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Customer Reviews of Elgato 10020111 Eyetv Wonder USB 2.0

Good at what it does, but system demands are high.
First, if you want to save yourself the trouble of reading all this: Spend the extra money and buy one of ElGato's FireWire-based solutions like the EyeTV 200. You will have a much happier experience. <
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>Now, contrary to Nicolas' review, the EyeTV Wonder does in fact save DVD quality video. The problem that Nicolas was having was due to the fact that he's double-compressing the video; the EyeTV software records video in (compressed) MPEG2 format, which he then brought into Toast to make a DVD. Toast recompressed the video to make the DVD (even though it's still MPEG2) which accounts for the severe artifacting issues he's talking about. The component DVD recorder works better because it's only compressing the video once. So ElGato's claim of "DVD quality recording" is true; Nicolas interpreted that as "makes DVD quality DVDs" which is quite different. <
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>Aside from all that: There are some caveats to getting this unit working well. First, you definitely need a USB 2-equipped machine. USB 1 just won't cut it. I've successfully used this unit with a USB 2 port via a PCI card but YMMV. <
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>Second, you need a LOT of processing power if you want this thing to behave nicely. Figure a 1GHz G4 as an absolute minimum requirement, with a dual 1GHz G4 being comfortable. The reason for this is because all of the encoding is done within the computer, not within the EyeTV hardware. (The FireWire-based units like the EyeTV 200 do the MPEG2 encoding within the EyeTV unit itself, so you can actually use the FireWire units with lower-end systems.) <
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>Third, this unit runs VERY HOT after a relatively short period of time. If you keep it in an enclosed area it WILL overheat and shut down. <
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>Aside from all that, there's two things about this unit that I really don't like. First is the alleged TiVo-like functionality of this unit. Simply put, it doesn't exist in a way that most people recognize it. You can pause/rewind/advance a live broadcast ONLY if you're recording it; if you're just watching a program and want to jump back a few seconds, you can't. (This function IS included with the FireWire-based EyeTV units however.) <
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>And second, the unit's physical design is obnoxious in its inelegance. Cables enter/leave the unit from three different sides and there's no way to effectively keep the unit upright for maximum cooling. (This is in comparison to the EyeTV 200, where all the cables enter through the back and the unit easily sits on a desktop.)

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Frustrating product and support
My expectation, based on Elgato's claims, was that this product would allow me to burn DVDs of comparable visual quality to commercial ones. When I first began using the product I wrote to Elgato to ask why the picture looked poor, and they expressly said it was "DVD quality." I guess that doesn't mean what I think it means because, even at the highest quality, the final output looks poor when burned with Toast. The picture is laden with compression artifacts. My estimate is that a Wonder DVD looks inferior to an average VHS tape. <
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>Why is that the case? Getting answers to that question or any other from tech support -- which is only available online -- is dicey. The techs are cordial but the responses are often unclear. One of them told me that I might be happier with another, more expensive, Elgato product if I wanted a better quality picture. Why do I need to spend more money if Wonder offers the elusive "DVD quality"? Again I could make no sense of the explanation. Perhaps the higher priced product streams more data, but there is no clear explanation on the company's website. It would be nice to ask directly, but Elgato doesn't even have a voice line for sales. I find it immensely frustrating to deal with a company whose tech support response is next-day, and whose answers are then often not on point. <
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>If you want visually mediocre DVDs this product will give them to you. It works and it is easy to operate. You just don't want to set your expectation too high, as I did. <
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>Update: Elgato has subsequently told me that the model 200 will not produce a better picture than Wonder on higher end Macs, one of which I have, so this is the best they have to offer. <
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>Further update: As of Sep 05 the product has new software problems. The screen goes white intermittently during a recording, and sometimes the recording hiccups. Elgato acknowledges and claims to be working on white screen issue. I would reduce my star rating to two if I could since this product is so dodgy. <
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>One more update: I've purchased a component DVD recorder that is connected to a TV. The quality of recordings made on that device at SP and XP settings are FAR superior to the "DVD quality" produced by EyeTV Wonder.