I’ve finally taken my first small steps into direct access to HDTV — I’ve ordered an Elgato Systems eyeTV 500 personal video recorder for my Macintoshes. As is often the case in the Mac world, the item is a little pricier than its PC equivalent, but, as this EFF product review notes, it also is better in terms of functionality and ease of use.

Why buy this now? (Why, especially, when I don’t own a TV or computer monitor capable of full HDTV display?) The short answer is, I’m buying it before the FCC’s broadcast flag regulation goes into effect in July. There are rumors that Elgato will discontinue this product then or before then — I want to make sure I own a lawful product that ignores the broadcast flag. That way, when I do upgrade to HDTV, I won’t have to comply with the silly copy-protection system mandated by the FCC.

The broadcast-flag regulation, as regular readers of this blog (and EFF’s website, and PK’s website) will already know, is a Rube Goldberg scheme for protecting broadcast content, brought about by intensive content-industry lobbying and foisted off on consumers, the consumer-electronics industry, and the information-technology industry. We’re challenging the regulation in court (there’s a nice account of the oral argument in our case here), but it seems prudent to go ahead and buy one of today’s noncompliant products regardless of how the court case comes out.

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