You don't have to re render it just for me, I'm fairly sure I'm one of the only mac users on here. Someday, when I am on one of the school's PCs I will take a look at it.
As for my encoder, I have my eye on one of these:
http://www.elgato.com/eyeTV/
Pretty fancy, it has a TV tuner, all the software, and a remote. I found one second hand for $75
-Matt