Elgato has been giving people the ability to watch and record TV on their computers for as long as I can remember, and now the company has an app that brings TV to your iPhone. You'll have to have a hardware device attached to your Mac or PC for it to work, but once you have that, you can stream live or recorded TV to your iPhone. I've been testing this hardware and software combination for a few months now, and while I have encountered some hiccups, once you get the product working you can view great quality TV on your iPhone.
The Hardware Requirement
My focus here is on the iPhone app, but since you can't use the iPhone app without having Elgato hardware on your computer, I'll start by addressing that. The company sent me (free for review purposes) its EyeTV One device, which you can get for just over $100 on Amazon. The EyeTV One has a USB connector on one side and a coaxial connection on the other side to which you must attach your own antenna. I use a "Silver Sensor" antenna similar to this one. The device then works with the EyeTV software on your computer to give you free, over-the-air high definition television on your computer. The quality of the image is excellent. For a good sense of how the product works, here is a recent review by Macworld's Jonathan Seff of a similar product clled EyeTV Hybrid ($134 on Amazon) which gives you not only over-the-air high definition plus also works with unencrypted cable television.
Unfortunately, I have had some trouble with the hardware. The first unit I was sent would only get a signal for a minute or two and then would stop working. After trying every software fix I could think of, Elgato sent me a replacement unit that solved the problem instantly. The company's service department was excellent, although I wish I had not wasted so much time trying to fix a problem that turned out to be a hardware issue.
Even with the replacement unit, I still sometimes have trouble with the TV signal, but here I am fairly certain that the fault is mine in that it is inherent with over-the-air television. You have to have a decent over-the-air signal for it to work, and I don't always get that in the study in my house where my computer is located. This problem brings back memories for me; I was an early HD adopter back in 2002, back in the days when you needed to use an antenna to get HD local stations. Because of where my house is located and the buildings between me and the transmitters in New Orleans, I sometimes had problems getting an HD signal with an indoor antenna. Nowadays, cable and satellite companies provide HD local stations so it has been a long time since I needed to use an indoor antenna to get HD local channels, but with the EyeTV I sometimes find myself having the same problems again. And there is nothing worse than recording an episode of a show like Lost and syncing it to your iPhone via iTunes only to discover while you are on a plane and ready to watch the episode that the recording is poor. Yes, that happened to me, and yes, it was annoying. I hate to dwell on this too much because you might get excellent reception where you live. For example, Seff noted in his Macworld review that he had "a small antenna on my desk at work with a clear view of San Francisco’s Sutro Tower, from which I could pick up nearly 40 channels."
When it works, however, EyeTV hardware and software on the computer is really nice. I don't have a TV in my study, but with EyeTV I can now work on my computer at home and have a tiny window in the corner showing live TV. Or I can expand the window to full screen, turning my iMac into a 27" high definition TV with an awesome image.
[UPDATE 5/24/10: Elgato has now released the $200 EyeTV HD that hooks up to your cable or satellite box. If this setup works in your home, this looks a great way to use the EyeTV to record from EVERY channel that you get, plus this solution isn't subject to the problems of over-the-air HD reception.]
The EyeTV app
As I said, however, my real focus here is not the EyeTV hardware but instead the EyeTV app on the iPhone. Once you get the EyeTV hardware and software working on your computer, the $5 EyeTV iPhone app works quite well. Using either Wi-Fi or 3G (the ability to use 3G was added only recently), you can stream video from your computer to your iPhone, no matter where in the world you are. Thus, whatever live TV your computer is able to pick up, thanks to the hardware product such as the EyeTV One, is streamed from your computer to your iPhone. I noticed about a 12 second delay from live TV over Wi-Fi, and about a 20 second delay using 3G. If you are watching a live sporting event the delay might be annoying, but for most uses I had no way of noticing the delay at all.
Setting up the EyeTV app to find your computer is surprisingly easy. If your iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi network as your computer, it happens instantly. For 3G or Wi-Fi connections to a remote computer, a locator utility running on your computer lets your iPhone find your computer. It works well.
After you set up the app to find your computer, it does so easily and quickly over either Wi-Fi or 3G. From the main menu your choices include watch live TV or watch something that you recorded on your computer using the EyeTV software that comes with a device like the EyeTV One.
If you select Live TV, you will get a list of the channels that your computer can receive and a description of what is currently playing The information comes from TV Guide, which is free for the first year that you have the EyeTV hardware on your computer and $20 a year after that.
If you can use Wi-Fi to watch TV, the quality is excellent. Over 3G, the image is much more pixelated. It is difficult to convey this using pictures instead of video, but these two frames will give you a sense of the difference. The first one is Wi-Fi, the second one is 3G. To be fair, however, both of these still frames look worse than the video looks. Capturing just a single frame is not a good way to show off video.
If you select to watch a recording, you will get a list of everything recorded on your computer, and if you select an episode you are given more information from TV Guide about the episode.
Start to watch either live TV or a recorded program and the show will stream from your computer to your iPhone.
Note that while the app lets you stream something you previously recorded, the EyeTV software on your computer can be set to automatically create an iPhone-compatible version of a show after it records it. Thus, you can transfer the show to your iPhone using iTunes and watch it on your iPhone just like you would watch a TV show that you purchase from Apple via iTunes. As a result, it will often not be necessary to stream a recorded show unless you have not yet had a chance to sync it to your iPhone using iTunes.
Watching TV on your iPhone is very neat and can be very useful. If you are out of town and want to watch your local news, sports, etc. back home instead of whatever is showing on the TV in your hotel room, you can now watch whatever you want on your iPhone using the EyeTV app — assuming that you left your computer on at home. Or if you are in your office or in some other location that doesn't have a TV and you want to watch something, such as breaking news on an important event, your iPhone can now function like a portable TV.
Should you get the EyeTV app? The app itself is easily worth $5, but of course to use the app you also have to spend $100+ for the hardware. If live TV on your iPhone is not that important, and you would just like to watch the occasional TV episode, it may be cheaper to just buy episodes as you want to watch them from iTunes. You won't encounter any commercials and the quality will be excellent. On the other hand, if you find that you often travel and/or often find yourself in situations where you would like to be able to watch TV when you don't have access to a "real" TV, the $100+ might be worth it to you. One thing that cannot be disputed is that watching live TV on an iPhone is a neat trick, and EyeTV does that job well.
Click here to get EyeTV iPhone app ($4.99): 
Click here to get EyeTV One (the hardware) from Amazon ($104.26).
