Just got done shopping for a new PVR (Personal Video Recorder) for my Mac Powerbook. I settled on the Hauppauge MyTV.PVR USB; I'll put up a review of the product later, but this is another story.

While looking for this product, I spent a good deal of time digging through the [URL="http://www.macmall.com"]MacMall[/U] site examining different options. One of the most frustrating things is that I kept running into XP specific hardware like the ATI TV Wonder or the WinTV.PVR. On a Mac-specific site, they were giving me Windows-specific hardware in search results.

Of course, if you know anything about MacMall, they are essentially an alter-ego of PC Mall and probably share the same hardware database, but one would think they could at least bother to mark Wind-specific, Mac-specific, and/or Mac-recommended hardware in some obvious way. In many cases, however, you must dig through the listing to find the exact requirements. Many products out there (particularly external drives) are Mac-compatible without particularly advertising it. Similarly, some products do not make clear their Win-specific nature. Wading through all of this can be a major pain.

As a counterpoint, Small Dog Electronics told me straight off exactly what I was getting and what it was compatible with. It also did not show me any Windows-specific items in the search.

Anyway, just my minor rant. I'll get off of my soap box now...

This post has been edited by evought: Sep 7 2006, 09:56 PM

At one time ATI built a Mac specifc TV wonder card (internal)

Let me know how well it works at capture. I'm looking into getting another capture device as this Cannapus box is getting a few years old now.

I have posted the review here.