The dual tuner support is still in beta stage (I am using EyeTV version 2.3.1) but the first impression is OK.
It works great for watching movies and listening to music (both using FrontRow) and for watching and recording TV using EyeTV and the Plextor tuner. To conclude, I am very happy with my Mac Mini. This Miglia TVMini is a USB-stick sized decoder and cannot be used with a smartcard for decoding, but there are other tuners that can (e.g. To decode the scrambled signals you probably have to get a Digitenne subscription for the smartcard. The others are listed with a “$” sign behind them, but this is already more that I had expected. Regarding radio, the same applies: only Radio 1-5, the Concertzender and Radio Gelderland are available unscrambled. Note that most of the channels are actually scrambled, only the public stations (Nederland 1, 2, 3 and TV Gelderland) are not scrambled. So also digital trough-the-air TV works fine with the MacMini/EyeTV setup. However, after doing the auto-setup, it did find a list of ~30 TV and ~20 radio channels! It gives a very sharp picture and has less of a delay than the Plextor tuner. I had previously read somewhere on the internet that Digitenne would not work at all with such a device, since all all stations (including Nederland 1, 2 and 3) would be scrambled. In the Netherlands these broadcasts are carried out by Digitenne. It is a DVB-T tuner for digital through-the-air broadcasts. To test out the dual tuner support in EyeTV, I borrowed a second tuner from a German friend: a Miglia TV-Mini. Actually, I consider this EPG to be quite important for serious PVR use. Also the electronic program guide in EyeTV (using tvtv) works well. What a difference when I installed Elgato EyeTV op my Apple PowerBook: just plug-and-play and it works like a charm. I did not even dare to try to convince my girlfriend. The Dell laptop works fine with linux, but it did not convince me to be usefull on a daily basis.
After fiddling around for multiple evenings, I got it to work but I found the software not of sufficient quality. I originally bought the tuner to be used with my old Dell laptop and Linux PVR software like MythTV.
The Plextor tuner is one of few tuners that connects through USB and that is also compatible with both Linux and Mac OS X. I am using EyeTV together with a Plextor M402U Convert-X tuner. When watching TV, I sometimes accidentally press short instead of long, resulting in the FrontRow menu opening instead of the EyeTV menu.
A small nuisance is that pressing the “menu” button on the remove short opens FrontRow, pressing it long opens the full-screen EyeTV menu interface opens.
However, EyeTV is not completely integrated with FrontRow: the two full-screen menus are seperate from each other. The EyeTV software can be controlled with the Apple remote, and resembles the FrontRow interface. I am using it together with a NEC LCD screen at the moment (which will be replaced by a 23″ Apple Cinema Display soon) and Elgato EyeTV. It arrived soon and sofar it completely lives up to my expectations. After a long period of doubt, last December I finaly decided to buy a Mac Mini as home entertainment system.