So just before Christmas 2007 I purchased EyeTV for my Mac. I figure I spend most of my time in front of this thing anyway, may as well watch TV while I work.

I was a more than a little reluctant to spend $200 on a little plastic box with some software to watch TV on my computer, but after looking at what I could do with it I decided to go for it. As it turns out, I absolutely love having TV running on my machine as I’m working. The EyeTV software is fairly easy to use, has some nice features for recording and converting video, and after the pain in the ass of setting up an account and getting the program guide stuff working it sits here and runs on my fourth monitor all day keeping me company while I’m working (I have no friends).

Then a week ago the unit just quit working. No power to the box, no more TV for me. I went to the company’s website to submit a ticket for service last Saturday, 6 days ago. This is the only way to get software/hardware issues resolved with their products; go to their website and submit a ticket. Then wait. And wait. And wait some more.

They finally sent a response on Wednesday in which they said maybe it could be serviced but there’s only a year warranty, so they needed the date I purchased everything. I replied immediately with that information, and I never heard from them again. Right now I’m really not sure how this will go. Is it worth $200 plus a software upgrade worth $40 every 18 months to watch TV while I work? Maybe when times were good, but when the economy is floating in the shitter and I haven’t had a project in a couple months it’s really hard to part with another $200 for something that I know is going to crap out on me again in the near future.

Normally I wouldn’t think twice about it, nor would I take the time to write about my frustrations, but when a company leaves a customer dangling like these people do, all I can do is bitch. I’m really hoping they come through and take care of the problem, but when a company that sells computer technology doesn’t have any way for it’s customers to directly contact them, I really don’t have much hope for resolution. It’s obvious that they don’t want us calling them. They certainly don’t want to be bothered with some pesky issues that a customer may be having; it’s just not profitable. I love how easy they make it to purchase their shit, but good luck when you have issues with it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with their support and service. A couple months back there were some serious issues with their providers and programming service. I went through the same crap trying to get them to respond and just tell me what was going on. They didn’t even need to fix anything; they just had to tell me if the problem was on their end or mine so I could skip all the troubleshooting and hours of screwing around with the system on my end. That took more than a week.

No, I don’t have much faith in ELGATO as far as taking care of this issue. I hope I’m wrong. I hope I have to eat my words. If they come through for me in the next 24 hours and fix my unit or send out a replacement, I will take it all back. Well, not the part about the severe laps in response time it takes them to get around to dealing with stuff; that’s all on them. They SUCK at doing anything for their customers in a timely fashion. As far as dealing with ELGATO and purchasing their products, I wouldn’t recommend it. Not unless you have the patience to deal with the service of indifference. It’s just not worth the $200 bucks.

I guess I’ll post an update when this gets resolved, one way or another. That’ll give everyone some idea of how long it takes for these guys to get off their asses.