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Recording live TV?

I want to record live TV on a Mac Mini, but I don't know which one to get: Elgato's EyeTV HD or BlackMagic Design's Intensity Shuttle for Thunderbolt? I was hoping to record TV shows broadcast in HD into an "Uncompressed" format, which is a format supported with the Intensity Shuttle. Is "Uncompressed" video quality worth the hard drive space when compared to the Elgato's EyeTV HD's bulit-in hardware H.264 encoder? Also, will I ned to get an SSD or will the Mini's stock HDD be more than enough to record "Uncompressed" HD shows?

Mac mini

Posted on Mar 14, 2014 9:54 PM

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Posted on Mar 15, 2014 2:55 AM

FWIW, some quick math for "uncompressed video":

Full HD screen - 1920 pixels X 1080 pixels = 2.0736 megapixels

For a frame rate of 24 frames/second - 2073600 X 24 = ~50 megapixels/second

So, each minute would be - 50 megapixels/second X 60 seconds = 3 gigapixels every minute


For color, if full 24 bit is desired, multiply that number by 3, 16 bit color, multiply by 2.


So, for "uncompressed" video, in full 24 bit color, a 1 hour TV show would use up

540 gigabytes!!!!!!!!


Bottom line, dealing with uncompressed video is pretty much reserved for

high end work stations in production studios or someone with more money

than they know what to do with.

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Question marked as Best reply

Mar 15, 2014 2:55 AM in response to Pikachu10

FWIW, some quick math for "uncompressed video":

Full HD screen - 1920 pixels X 1080 pixels = 2.0736 megapixels

For a frame rate of 24 frames/second - 2073600 X 24 = ~50 megapixels/second

So, each minute would be - 50 megapixels/second X 60 seconds = 3 gigapixels every minute


For color, if full 24 bit is desired, multiply that number by 3, 16 bit color, multiply by 2.


So, for "uncompressed" video, in full 24 bit color, a 1 hour TV show would use up

540 gigabytes!!!!!!!!


Bottom line, dealing with uncompressed video is pretty much reserved for

high end work stations in production studios or someone with more money

than they know what to do with.

Mar 15, 2014 7:24 PM in response to woodmeister50

Thanks for replying! I'm certainly not the one to have tons of money. I'm just wondering if the speed of slower notebook hdd's, that are in the mini's, be able to keep with recording? But, I take it that I won't need to upgrade from the HDD to an SSD, not because of the read and write speeds, but rather the amount of storage space is more important than the read and write speeds of either the HDD vs. SSD?

Mar 16, 2014 5:03 AM in response to Pikachu10

Pikachu10 wrote:

But, I take it that I won't need to upgrade from the HDD to an SSD, not because of the read and write speeds, but rather the amount of storage space is more important than the read and write speeds of either the HDD vs. SSD?

If you take the numbers above, even at a 16 bit pixel, you need a transfer

rate of ~100 megabytes/second. No sinlge HDD would be able to achieve

that. If there are any, it would not meet it by much.


Actually, to acheive this rate of throughput (or greater), most studio

type environments use several hard drives configured RAID0.


Bottom line, If you are using a standard TV that you get in any store

and not a studio grade monitor, you will not see any difference between

"uncompressed" video vs. a Bluray HD level of compression. Besides,

anything you are getting via cable, satellite, or over the air, has already

been compressed, so in my opinion, recording as uncompressed video

would really seem pointless.

Mar 16, 2014 6:36 PM in response to Pikachu10

I would suggest Elgato and have used it for years. The only drawback is that that they nolonger support a f ree tv schedular and that is reason alone not to buy their product. But when comes to features and easy of use it is a good deal.


It does not require turbo HD, but is also a nice thing to have.


guess apple is still censoring:


"You have included content in your post that is not permitted." becuse I used the word "f r e e"

Apr 14, 2014 11:25 PM in response to woodmeister50

I have considered getting a RAID set up thanks to your suggestions, but I am unsure if a two bay RAID enclosure is enough to record/capture HD (720p) or Full HD (1080p/1080i) in "Uncompressed" format with no problems, or will I need a 4 bay and up RAID enclosure? I plan to put Western Digital Black Desktop Hard Drives in the RAID enclosure. I also need help on deciding what's the best RAID enclosure as well. I haven't had time to get any of the hardware. Please help me. Thanks.

Recording live TV?

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