I’ve been looking at an EyeTV for a long time. Almost too long. A few weeks ago, a family member inquired about recording a television program for later viewing. I did not have a post-VCR solution for that. When I returned to the ElGato website, I couldn’t find any of their relevant products. Nothing from Amazon as well. Looks like Tivo will be following this path as well.

I rarely watch TV or record any programs. After all, it’s been years since the living room has seen a VCR, so I didn’t want to commit to a Tivo with its monthly fee. Fortunately, I found a new ElGato EyeTV 250 Plus from Other World Computing. Looks like a few others had the same idea since they are now out of stock.

The EyeTV 250 Plus is quite impressive since I was able to pull a few more channels from my external antenna than the television. KQEH (Channel 54), which has a few more channels of programming than KQED (Channel 9), was cutting in and out on the television, but clear on the EyeTV. (This prompted me to terminate all the unused coaxial ports in the house. KQEH now works, but I’m not sure if that was causation or correlation.) Unfortunately, I have a coaxial port in the living room, but not the office. So, I picked up a Winegard FlatWave Amped internal antenna from Costco. I affixed it to the window and scanned for channels again. It picked up even more than via the external antenna, but mostly international and shopping channels.

I am very impressed by the combination. Had I known they worked so well together, I would have made the leap a lot earlier.

Feb 5, 2014: I was wondering why the Winter Olympics did not show up in the program guide. Then, I noticed that NBC 11 (KNTV) was missing. I had problems receiving this channel on the regular TV as well.

So, I went about testing various mounting locations. I could not get a signal for NBC 11 from any of the windows, regardless of orientation. When I mounted the antenna on the wall, it worked. Note that the height of the antenna matters too. The antenna is placed close to the ceiling. While NBC 11 shows up in the program guide, the Signal Quality sometimes drops, even when there is no change in Signal Strength.