Updated Apple imac

[Fluff]

Saw they have improved the range on the apple website.

I would buy one in an instant if it has SCART / HDMI imput. So I could connect Wii and PS3 to it, and use it as my main entertainment center. Express card 34 would be neat too.

Don't know why they don't do this they would be the ultimate bedroom unit... would only cost a few bucks more.

[az]

Get an EyeTV Hybrid, it has video in. ~100 EUR. They are also great DVB-T sticks with a fantastic software.

[Fluff]

Cool... What's the latency like?

[az]

I don't know, don't have any consoles (and an EyeTV Diversity, which has 2 DVB-T tuners, but no video in).

[Tomasz]

The lack of direct video-in on the iMac has prevented me from buying one.

EyeTV only does composite or s-video input for game systems (no 720p), so Xbox 360 or PS3 would look like crap on it.

[az]

An answer from Elgato (from another Forum):

Richard,

Thank you for contacting Elgato Systems.

No consumer products for the Mac or Windows can bring HDTV from component, DVI or HDMI to your computer's display and hard drive.

USB 2.0 or FireWire is not the limiting factor. The lack of affordable chipsets to achieve this is one factor. The desire of the cable and satellite industry to prevent their signals from reaching a computer's hard drive is another.

Thus, this is a ways off, perhaps a few years.

You can bring in analog video using composite or S-Video, but not digital using component, DVI, VGA or HDMI.

Nick Freeman
Customer Support

Elgato Systems LLC

[Tomasz]

This would be much easier if the iMac just had a DVI or VGA port that could be used to display video on it.

In the post above, the rep says that USB or Firewire are not limiting factors. However, transmitting full quality uncompressed 720p video takes about 1500 megabits per second bandwidth, which exceeds USB 2.0 or Firewire... so, compression would be needed and this would just degrade image quality for gaming and increase latency...