Elgato's terrific EyeTV program, for recording standard and high- definition TV programs via a separate USB2 hardware dongle has just received an update. The most noticeable change in EyeTV3 from its predecessor is the new look of the program. While some helpful user interface updates have been made, many familiar features remain virtually the same. I'm left wondering if this full version number increase is more of a face-lift for the program, or have hidden usability improvements been made as well?

EyeTV3 sure looks different. The icon for the program has been updated to reflect the new look, and on-screen controls have been updated from a blue on blue look to a more serious-looking grey on transparent black. The program still does all of its usual tricks such as: grabbing channel & program information automatically from TitanTV.com (for free!); automatic export of recorded programs to iTunes in AppleTV or iPod format or Roxio's Toast; plus playback, volume and channel control via keyboard commands, the on-screen remote or an Apple Remote.

Yet now I see some very iTunes-inspired things as well, such as "smart" playlists and "coverflow" view. The on-screen playback display is much improved over the EyeTV2 version. It now includes a progress bar with a playhead control; the remaining time of the recorded program, show title and episode information, play and full- screen mode buttons. Previously one had to mouse over to the on- screen remote to scrub through a program or remember the keyboard command for full-screen mode. Scrubbing is smooth and painless, unlike scrubbing through a program in AppleTV or iTunes.

While playing back any recorded show in windowed mode, one may click on the oval button in the menu bar to reveal EyeTV's edit features. These are wonderful for clipping commercials or trimming the beginning and ending of a program from your recording. You may trim in either "fine" or what I'll call "rough" mode. Rough mode allows you to scrub quickly to the area you wish to trim out of your show, and fine mode makes it easy to do frame-accurate cuts. Even this excellent feature has been tweaked in the newest version. Larger thumbnails make editing much easier. On-screen trimming and tweaking with the heads- up playback & scrubbing controls make the process much faster.

The built-in program guide, powered by TitanTV, is a huge plus over TiVo's subscription service — mainly because it's free. While the TitanTV guide is great for analog channel listings in our area, it seems to continue to have problems acquiring the same programming information for the high-definition channels in our area. That's not a fault of EyeTV3, but it bears mentioning, especially if you plan on recording exclusively in high-definition.

New features also include sharing EyeTV recordings with other Macs on your home network, management of your channel sets (for frequent travelers), and WiFi streaming improvements for streaming to your iPod Touch or iPhone from your EyeTV3 software.

One other nice feature is that EyeTV3 will check the 'net to see if you've set a recording remotely. You can browse program schedules online and then make your selections. If EyeTV has been set to check the Internet periodically for your online selections, you're set. Even if you forget to set it before leaving, you can still have your favorite show recorded. Great!

One minor gotcha that I'm sure will be addressed in a future update — the onscreen information tends to get cut off when watching the live TV feed. This usually only happens to the time and call letters of the station. The program title seems to be unaffected.

Overall, Elgato has taken a wonderful piece of software and made it ever so slightly better. If you don't have it, and would like to start checking out the world of HDTV, look into it. While welcome, the visual improvements are not entirely necessary. If, however, you spend a lot of time with the program, you may find that these minor interface enhancements make a big improvement over EyeTV2.

Steve takes TV seriously. He also takes his wife very seriously when she asks him to record CBS Sunday Morning for her. Sometimes, he would forget. Life was bad. Now he has EyeTV to do all the remembering for him. Life is good!