The ability to record two shows at the same time is a highly addictive PVR function that’s sorely missed when it’s absent. And my EyeTV 500/Mac Mini combo simply didn’t have the capability.
Until I got my second refurbished EyeTV 500 day before yesterday, that is. And now I’m running a dual-tuner PVR that allows me to watch and/or record two HDTV programs simultaneously. Unfortunately, this feature is officially “not supported� by El Gato and there aren’t many simple guides to what two tuners can (and can’t) accomplish. Hence the following description of what I came across.
EyeTV’s software integrated the second tuner without any additional installation steps…I just powered down the Mini and daisy-chained it to my first 500 and external hard drive. Upon restart, EyeTV opened automatically and displayed two separate tuner windows (albeit playing the same station).
I have EyeTV set to always open in Full Screen mode, so one tuner filled the screen and the other sat in front in a smaller size. I switched the smaller station and confirmed both were playing without any dropped frames.

The Preferences didn’t offer any new options beyond acknowledging the number of units attached. The Menus also stayed the same.
I immediately began recording whatever was playing on each station to see what would happen…and the recordings went directly into the Recordings folder. They both played back (again) without dropped frames. So far, so good.
The most common complaint I came across about dual EyeTV units involved scheduling, so I tried scheduling two programs at the same time. No problem. And the Program Guide reflected two simultaneously scheduled recordings, something that obviously wasn’t possible before.

At the scheduled time, both recordings went off without a glitch. The tuners each changed from different stations and dropped both finished recordings into EyeTV’s library. No dropped frames during playback.
While the recording seems to be working effectively, there are a couple of rough edges worth mentioning that make the experience fall short of Tivo’s ease-of-use. Navigating between the two tuners requires a mouse or keyboard…ending the single Apple Remote I was able to use with a single tuner. This sucks when you’ve just gotten pumped about dropping the “computer� aspect of a Mac Mini PVR.
I’m also unable to locate the second tuner if I close it after the program starts up. I’m sure there’s a way to re-open a second channel window, but trying to actually accomplish this can be frustrating when one tuner is recording. It’s not impossible, just not as intuitive as I’d like.
It’s should be noted that I’m using EyeTV v2.3.0 instead of the most current release 2.3.1. I upgraded to 2.3.1 and ran the same tests in that environment and saw no difference in features or ability from 2.3.0 during dual-tuner activity.
Overall, I’m very excited with the new set-up. Being able to record two shows at once is a huge gift going into the new fall season!