I love watching TV on my Mac! Next to my iPod, few other Apple computer gadgets I've bought over the years have added so many hours of enjoyment to my computing experience. A Mac compatible TV tuner stick or box does more than just let you watch TV: The software that comes with a tuner lets you schedule and record your favorite shows and movies, lets you Time-Shift live TV viewing (pause, rewind and resume), and then lets you export your best stuff to iPod, iPhone and AppleTV formats - or burn to disc.

Imagine: The best of a high-def HD television set AND a Tivo-like PVR - personal video recorder - all wrapped into a Mac compatible TV tuner stick that's often barely the size of a USB flash drive! Whether you receive your TV signal via Analog or Digital cable - or using an indoor or rooftop antenna a HYBRID TV tuner will give you the best of both worlds.

Hybrid TV tuners for Mac accept both kinds of signals, Digital AND Analog - and also allow video capture and recording via Analog S-Video and Composite connectors. For those still receiving basic Analog cable - or who want to capture video from DVD and VHS players or Game Systems - a Hybrid TV tuner will let you work with older Analog standards and still take advantage of the Digital television era.

Some new Apple friendly TV tuners are pure Digital ONLY. Meaning they simply receive only Digital signals from an ATSC DTV antenna - or receiving what they call QAM - unencrypted Digital content from your Digital cable subscription.

Beyond the hardware - it's really the TV software that makes the television experience great. ElGato's very popular EyeTV software, and TheTube software from Equinux work (and are often bundled with) a wide variety of 3rd-party Apple compatible TV tuner cards as well as their own. Here you have the ability to switch and scan for channels, download current TV program guides, watch, Time-Shift and record, save and export with easy on-screen and keyboard controls.

+ Mac friendly TV tuners do require a FAST Macintosh - Ideally with Dual-Core Intel or Dual G5 processors. Especially high-resolution HD content.

+ OSX 10.4 Tiger is now the minimum - and ideally you'd be running OSX 10.5 (and soon) 10.6 Snow Leopard to not only have a great television watching and recording setup - but a great Mac computer experience overall.

+ USB 2.0 speed ports are critical for high-frame rates and proper operation. Because TV and Video is so demanding, TV tuners tend to work best when plugged directly into a dedicated USB 2.0 port on your Macintosh - and not shared on a hub with other devices.

+ Tons of hard drive space: If you're big on recording - and not just watching TV, frequent recording of full hour TV shows or long movies can really gobble up disk space fast. High resolution HDTV programming in particular uses the most disk space. So give it elbow room to store your programs.

+ Free or Pay -- OTA - Over The Air Digital antenna reception - or Analog or Digital Cable/Satellite service -- Let's not forget you need some kind of TV signal coming in!