eyeTV

The most recent software for EyeTV is 2.4.
EyeTV is unfortunately very poor at multitasking while a show is being recorded. I've found it is best to have nothing else running while recording with EyeTV.

For iMac G5 users - according to Stephen Withers ( http://homepage.mac.com/swithers/iblog/ ) EyeTV 2.4 has been revised to deal with a stability problem on G5 iMacs. You need to manually download the update as EyeTV does not recognise it as an update.
I decided to upgrade to obtain the Apple TV export functionality. That part is working very well, although it is very slow to do the conversion. I am using an Ethernet cable to link the iMac G5 to a Macbook to stream Apple TV to a projector. Wireless networking (G not N) was not good enough.

I have had a similar problem. The pixalization occurs during motion sequences. I've been using a 500Gz external drive.
I decided to use the built in drive for recording live TV in case it's a write issue. I'll update you on what difference (if any) it makes.

Are you trying to view analog or digital stations?

If analog (like cable ready), the problem may be that the eyetv Hybrid uses SOFTWARE encoding, which makes your Mini and its CPU do all the work. Trying to do anything else with the computer while it is recording may affect the quality. You would probably be better of with a device that has HARDWARE encoding (I use the Miglia Evolution TV).

If digital (like over the air HD), the signal strength to the antenna might be poor, or the throughput to the hard drive might be too slow. Are you trying to save the recordings directly to the external 500 gig drive? Is it USB or firewire? I found that trying to save recordings directly to an external USB drive sometimes resulted in stuttered playback.

Hi Anthony:

Maybe you can help me out. I recently purchased a refurb 1.5 ghz Core Solo Mini with 512 RAM and I notice that I have intermittent sound issues with my EyeTV Hybrid. There is an occasional small "pop" sound and/or some crackling. It's annoying because I want to watch a clean copy of one of my shows.

All this to say, because it is software encoding, as you say, is this coming from the taxation being placed on the processor? If you can help me, awesome. If not, thanks for the chance and looking this up ahead of time. Thank you!

- Jay

Just a thought - is it possible that a radio transmitter such as a wireless network station or cordless phone is causing intereference for the EyeTV receiver?

The other issue for Jay is whether 512MB of RAM is up to the job!

Michael -

I thought about that and yes, there is a wireless network station about 7 feet away (Airport Express used to boast the signal from upstairs). But I wondered if that were the case, wouldn't it have the same sound when it was live TV too?

I am, by the way, recording off of basic analog cable. Thanks again for the help.

- Jay

Just a thought - is it possible that a radio
transmitter such as a wireless network station or
cordless phone is causing intereference for the EyeTV
receiver?

The other issue for Jay is whether 512MB of RAM is up
to the job!

I wouldn't trust 512MB total RAM to be enough for everyday use, never mind multimedia. The OS will use at least half of that not to mention the extra memory use via the Intel graphics chip. I haven't monitored how much memory EyeTV uses over an extended period of time but it seemed to grow the longer it ran/recorded.

If you run out of physical memory, your Mac will turn to VM which will will slow things down. With a traditional 5400RPM laptop hard drive, the performance will suffer more compared to, as an example, my iMac's desktop 7200RPM drive.

On that note, even a core duo iMac with 2GB of RAM experiences the odd glitch with the EyeTV hybrid. My understanding is that the hybrid is a good solution for watching televison, less ideal for recording. In the latter case, a hardware encoding solution is preferred.

I've got the Elgato EyeTV 610 (for digital cable) hooked up to my mini with 1 GB of RAM and have no problems described here. I can even record a show and watch another.

And I've tried my Miglia TVmini with the Mac mini with no problems.

These problems could be a result of a weak reception byt the hybrid. This should be checked in Preferences, Device/Signal.

Patrick:

Would it be better to get a recording solution like eyeTV 250? Does this serve as a better hardware encoding solution? I guess I am confused between the 2 ideas of software encoding vs. hardware encoding. Is there anything you can tell me to help understand the difference?

Thank you in advance.

- Jay

Hello Jason,

I haven't used the EyeTV 250 so I can't make a recommendation from personal experience but my understanding is that because the 250 performs hardware encoding as opposed to requiring the Mac to do it via software - performance should be noticeably better. For one, your system will not be pushed as hard. The Mini's 'laptop' hard drive is (obviously) not as ideal for DV recording as a desktop 7200RPM one although I'm confident that it would still be up to the task.

Essentially, from my experience with the Hybrid and from the literature that I've read;

EyeTV Hybrid:
- good for watching analog and digital broadcasts.
- okay for recording video but quality/useability is dependant on your Mac.
- small, USB powered

EyeTV250:
- good for watching analog broadcasts, digital via included breakout cable.
- hardware encoding allows quality/useability with less powerful Macs.
- better choice as a DVR/PVR

If your priority is recording (analog) over just watching TV, the Eye250 is probably the best choice.

(now there is now a $20 rebate for American/Canadian purchases of it made before June 30th - has me wondering if a new model is being developed...)

I have an eyeTv USB hybrid connected to my dual core mini.
I have no issues whatsoever picking up, recording or watching live High def content.

I use the mini's hard drive to record and buffer the video-again no issues-it is clear and pretty.

I don't use an analog source but I imagine if it can handle hi def content with no problems, analog should not be an issue either-unless you have poor reception.

my greatest frustration is reception. With my old tube television, local analog broadcast with a cheap RF antenna brings in clear video. With the EyeTV hybrid, it's often more fuzzy/snowy regardless of the antenna used or location and requires far more work to get a decent picture. It's viewable but not as good as I had hoped.

The recording aspect still works well enough for me on my iMac, just very CPU intensive (of course, having the quality set to the highest will no doubt do that). I suppose I just need to train myself to do less multitasking while trying to record. 🙂

There's a new EyeTV update just out (2.4.1) that is suppose to resolve a number of issues for both PPC and Intels, hardware, exoprts and playback. The problems dr.scott may or may not be resolved by it but it's worth a try.

In my case, exported video files now play properly from beginning to end whereas prior to the update, they would start accelerated for a few seconds.

I don't use an analog source but I imagine if it can
handle hi def content with no problems, analog should
not be an issue either-unless you have poor reception.

This is not correct. When recording from a digital source using an EyeTV Hybrid (and most other digital TV devices) the digital information that makes up a digital TV broadcast is sent directly to disk. This requires relatively little processing power on the computer since it is just a matter of grabbing the data from the device and writing it to disk.

This is not the case with an analogue TV signal. See http://faq.elgato.com/index.php/faq/more/439/ where it states

"EyeTV Hybrid features an analog NTSC or PAL TV tuner that lets you watch live TV directly on the Mac, in the uncompressed YUV format. The EyeTV software encodes this YUV into MPEG-2 or MPEG-1, and the speed and quality of that encoding is entirely dependent on the power of your Mac.".

This is because the EyeTV hybrid does not have a processor which can convert the YUV ( http://www.answers.com/topic/yuv ) to MPEG format so the host computer must handle this task. Since the encoding process is quite intensive it places much higher demands on the computer's CPU and possibly memory.

This can be contrasted with the EyeTV 200 and 250. The Elgato website says, "EyeTV 200 supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 hardware encoding.", see http://faq.elgato.com/index.php/faq/more/389/. These devices are recommended to people with less powerful machines since they handle the demanding encoding process themselves.



Mac Pro/iMac PPC/MacBook Pro/Mini Mac OS X (10.4.9)