TVMicro – Your TV Mac Companion

reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Watch TV on your Mac. Okay, call it a Mac Companion. I would! Of course, you will need a Mac that can handle the TVMicro, but it requires a powered USB 2.0 port.

We reviewed the TVMicro’s big brother, EvolutionTV back in January and found it to be rather lacking in a few areas. Apparently Miglia listened and TVMicro meets or exceeds all those expectations. Of course, it also helps that EyeTV 2.1 is included with the unit this time. What’s really cool is that there are not wall warts or electrical cords to mess around with. And the Miglia Remote really works well. So well in fact, that the TVMicro can be plugged in directly behind the iMac G5 screen and the control signal still reaches the unit to change channels and do the other things remotes do for a living - so it can’t be infrared, right? Wrong.

Oh, and the EyeTV 2.1 for the Mac is very, very nice. The Titan TV EyeTV Programs screen has been improved considerably and looks and acts like it was designed for the Mac. Well, it was, actually! If you were willing to part with $270 plus the cost of EyeTV software on top of that for the EvolutionTV unit, now you can have your cake and eat it too for $99 USD.  This is sooo sweet! Look at the EyeTV 2.1 review elsewhere in this issue (June 2006) of macCompanion.

Apple is supposed to come out with a media center-like systems and I think they could very well take the thumbdrive-sized TVMicro, license the technology from Miglia and include it inside the next gen Macs just like they did with the iSight camera. I say, “Why not?” Notice that the unit will not run on anything older than Mac OS X 10.4? That is because instead of processing externally like is done with the EvolutionTV, this unit relies on the CPU power of the Mac instead. If you want to convert VCR tape, the EvolutionTV is a better option. But who still uses VCRs or tape anyway? Most folks I know have gone the DVD route already. Also, while the TVMicro supports PAL and NTSC, it does not support SECAM (Eastern European and France) video formats, so I guess they are not selling this in France. Oh, and it records in MPEG-1 and MPEG-2.

I have been blessed with Cable, so there are two adapters that came in my box. One for the micro jack from the opposite end from the USB port and the other adapter that works with cable to connect. It took me a little while to figure out the business ends because the device to connect directly into the TVMicro was still hiding in the box. Otherwise, you would need to connect to an external antenna – and no, it doesn’t do HDTV. That is the job of the TVMini HD we reviewed earlier in March.

Even though the TVMicro is the size of an Apple Shuffle or a gum pack, it does tend to run surprisingly warm.

Now look at that jack. It is a proprietary Lucent connector known as an MC-Card connector and Apple uses it for the AirPort base station antenna jack. They originally were with the ORINOCO wireless cards from Lucent. These are gold-over-nickel snap-on connectors that can handle up to 5,000 matings and have a frequency range from DC up to 3 GHz.

An MC-Card plug goes into it as the

male end. Only in the TVMicro case, the male adapter is straight-through instead of at a 90-degree angle as shown in this picture from Raidall.com                   

Female end of the TVMicro.

 The other end of the MC-Card adapter is a PAL jack.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/PAL.html                                                       PAL Female (Jack)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL                                                                          

The other adapter is a PAL Male (Plug) to cable TV adapter.

And the cable end is an F-pin (coax) connector jack, also rated up to 3 GHz.

So the chain from the TVMicro to the cable is MC-Card jack > MC-Card plug adapter to PAL jack > PAL Plug adapter to F-pin jack. Now I have this daisy-chain thing sticking out the back of my iMac G5 that is about 5 inches long. If I wanted to, so as not to stress the USB connector in the iMac, I could use the included USB cable instead. But the video is awesome!

By the way, for technical support Miglia bows to Elgato. Apparently there isn’t a whole lot that can go wrong with the TVMicro itself. After all it really is a dedicated solid-state thumbdrive. They call it a USB stick.

The video is phenomenal and I have it running in “best” mode.

The line below the lettering on the device has a green LED in it near the antenna/cable connector end and above the “o” is the communications port for the function between the remote and the TVMicro. Is it IR or RF? Can’t be IR, because IR requires line-of-sight, right? Well the unit is the EyeTV Remote with the Miglia logo on it. And the 5-page Infrared Remote Hardware Guide says it is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared

This explains it; http://www.hearinglossweb.com/Technology/ALDs/ir.htm Reflections of infrared can be reflected and bounce around a room.  I happen to have a mirrored wall behind my computer.  Here is another reason why the USB cable is included, so that folks can get line-of-sight with the TVMicro, if necessary. And the added cable helps keeps the stress off the USB jack in the computer. I initially put it on the top bezel of the iMac and than dropped it below on the foot. Then I saw the iMac picture on the Miglia website and figured I’d try it that way instead.  Just keep the Infrared port free from obstructions and it works surprisingly well.

However, if you run out of batteries, or want to be tethered to a keyboard and mouse, the on-screen virtual remote works well too.

Looking at the Miglia Remote (the picture is from the Elgato Infrared Remote Hardware Guide manual) the Red button cycles backwards through open windows on the screen, the Green cycles forwards, the Yellow opens EyeTV Programs and the Blue toggles the on-screen remote on or off.

Now if you want to record H.264, than remember that the processing is going to be done by the CPU of the computer and not the external chip, as is done in the EvolutionTV unit.

And Elgato has really outdone themselves with EyeTV 2.1. It is a Ubinary version and works flawlessly on my iMac G5.

So I give Miglia a 4.5 for this one. Here is a petite DVR that works well. Just like a Mac. Now if Elgato can add a few more features to EyeTV and Miglia can work out the SECAM deal with the TVMicro…