Initially shut out of streaming video to its EyeTV iPhone app over 3G, the minds at Elgato have just released a workaround involving a free desktop update coupled with Mobile Safari.

The trick comes by way of Elgato’s new EyeTV Live3G web app, an ingenious solution that allows EyeTV hardware owners to stream live television and their EyeTV recordings over a 3G connection to their iPhone.

The EyeTV Live3G web app uses the HTTP Live Streaming technology introduced with iPhone OS 3.0, relying upon H.264 video and AAC audio to deliver the highest possible playback quality, even over a 3G connection. Live3G also takes advantage of the iPhone’s hardware acceleration to deliver higher performance and longer battery life.

Live3G requires a free EyeTV 3.3 update for the desktop software. The web app connects your iPhone to your Mac at home running EyeTV, then uses HTTP Live Streaming to broadcast both live TV signals and your own recordings to the phone.

Elgato’s EyeTV iPhone app launched in October and users were quick to discover a backdoor that allowed broadcasts over 3G when the app was only intended to work over a Wi-Fi connection. Apple slammed that door shut just as quickly, and a subsequent update from Elgato removed any chance of using 3G inside the app. Instead, the developers cleverly chose to shift their strategy to the Live3G web app unveiled today at https://live3g.eyetv.com/ (login required).

EyeTV 3.3 also improves on its H.264 video decoder by running it as a 64-bit process, when available, which improves playback performance on Intel Macs by 10-20%. A long list of other improvements and bug fixes are also detailed in Elgato’s Read Me file included with the update.