Elgato Systems, makers of EyeTV, offers a nice online explanation of how their product works with Apple’s new Apple TV:
• EyeTV puts your TV recordings into iTunes: With EyeTV, watch television on your Mac and record TV shows directly to your hard drive. EyeTV has an easy “iPod Button” to export EyeTV recordings into iTunes, where they automatically appear under “TV Shows.” This puts your own content on your iPod, and now, your live TV recordings on Apple TV.
• Apple TV puts your iTunes content on TV: When an Apple TV is connected, iTunes automatically detects and synchs with it. That way, your Apple TV box always contains the latest content from iTunes, including the EyeTV recordings you exported there. Apple TV puts that content onto your widescreen TV.
Elgato is working to integrate Apple TV and EyeTV even further and invites Mac users to join their mailing list to be notified of future enhancements.
The company also offers two QuickTime demo videos:
1. How to use EyeTV’s iPod button to add your recordings to iTunes
2. How to send new EyeTV recordings to iTunes automatically
More info and the videos here.
Why exactly hasn’t Apple bought Elgato yet?
i use eyetv for all my video recording
i swapped a sony 860 and a panny drmex 85 for my imac w/ an eye tv
i never looked back
the b/i guide wipes the floor with ‘conventional’ tv
do a search for a prog then click once , who needs ANOTHER box ?
Will Eye tv record HD broadcasts?
Connect a dedicated PC with BTV and a couple of capture cards installed directly to your HDTV and that set-up blows away the EyeTV and Apple TV combo. I can record OTA HD, cable and Sat all in high quality while playing back any file. You can also watch live TV and even after the progam has started you can decide to record it and it will record it to the hard drive from the beginning of the show. I especially like the “smart” programing guide that automatically reschedules conflicts.
EyeTV and Apple TV is a nice combo but BTV is superior.
I’m another happy eyeTV customer.
TT, yes. Some models will record HDTV. My eyeTV Hybrid will. El Gato recently introduced another model with dual-tuners for improved HDTV recording.
It must be true–Peter Brady wouldn’t lie…
Which models, I’m looking on the website and I don’t see anything about HD…
and what do you mean by “imporved Hd recording?’ Are there currently problems reording HD?
I’m very interested if I could use eyeTv to replace my Direct TV HD DVR. It sucks.
TT:
More info:
http://www.miglia.com/products/video/digitaltv.html
The newer versions of EyeTV will but only decrypted video. So you will need your cable / satellite box to be tuned to the right channel to take in the feed.
http://faq.elgato.com/index.php/faq/more/483/
This is what is stopping me from using it. I need the ability to record encyrpted channels from cable, just like my cable / dvr box can do. For that eyeTV would need a cable 2 card.
Looks like Europe is out of luck for a while. It is amazing to me that technology is lagging so far behind HDTV rollout. Over 90% of my cable channels are still SDTV.
The problem with the EyeTV solution is that file format conversion from their rinky dinky MPEG format to a format playable in iTunes, QuickTime, and AppleTV. Try converting a 1 hour TV show or a 2 hour movie. It takes friggin’ forever. When Elgato’s boxes convert and save TV on the fly to a format “immediately” playable by iTunes/QuickTime/AppleTV, then they’re worth a purchase from Apple.
I’m tired of all the hoops I have to jump through to record TV and save it on my Mac. The conversion is one huge hoop. Since I already have a DVR, why isn’t there an easy solution to move those files over to a Mac, fully converted and playable in iTunes/QuickTime?
EyeTV = $269
AppleTV = $299
CableCo DVR = $10 a month
The TV experience on the Mac is all about hoops and money. I jumps and I pays.
Thanks for the link Fred.
So does anyone have experience using this? How well does it work?
Another question..
So If I buy a Mac mini with the Miglia HD usb device to record HD content with 5:1 surround, will the mini be able to output 5:1 to my home theater? And can the mini handle playing back HD files?
I’ve pre-ordered Apple TV, but I’m not convinced I’ll be happy with what it offers.. For music and photos, it seems great, but for movies and tv, it still needs work.
I’ll spend the extra $$ for the mini if it can do what I want it to, which is record and playback HD with surround.
This is what I THOUGHT Apple TV would be.
I don’t get why Apple didn’t include a tuner with Apple TV.
I already have a TVMiniHD which I love, and have an AppleTV on order. We’ll see how they work together. I wish they would make it so I could play the files from EyeTV directly after being recorded. As it stands, it looks like I have to export them to iTunes which takes FOREVER! I wouldn’t want to automatically export them as I edit out the commercials in EyeTV before exporting.
“I’m tired of all the hoops I have to jump through to record TV and save it on my Mac”
———
Amen Iggy.. I know there are people who will defend Apple tv endlessly, but quite honestly, I think Apple missed the mark with it..
I mean, they advertise that it was designed for widescreen tv’s and a home theater. But in reality, most people who spend the money on a widescreen tv and a home theater do so because they want the quality that the home theater experience can provide, which is HD and 5:1 surround.. Not “near dvd quality” with only stereo sound.
As complex as Microsofts solutions may be, at least they are delivering what consumers want with the XBOX 360 setup.. It offers HD movies, surround sound AND a movie rental option..
Why can’t Apple make a true living room media box that will allow us to purchase and record HD content with surround sound without having to jump through so many hoops?
I have an EyeTV 200 (Firewire) hooked up to my 20″ iMac Core Duo and I love it. I have basic cable hooked to it so I can use my Apple remote to control it. (also, if you use a cable box, check out iEye Captain (http://www.vidcan.com/Software/iEyeCaptain.html)
As far as conversion, yes that is painfully slow when exporting. Rather than have it done automatically, I edit the show first for commercials and intro-ending. I do this as much for time as for space. Then I use VisualHub to expot it. Simple and quicker-although not fast. You can change the settings for your export, not to mention all the other uses VH has.
For HD, you will either need to back up to DVD or get more storage-my next purchase will be a 500 gig OWC or G-Tech, (any advice would be welcomed) mailny for my 20 years of home movies I need to convert.
I forgot to mention iSquint, smaller version of VisualHub. Free. http://www.isquint.org/getit.php
Some more info-just for fun http://www.ripdifferent.com/phpbb2/index.php
I have a dual core mini and the usb hybrid(hd), it works great.
HD ota is broadcast in mpeg2 and recorded as such, the box doesn’t do hardware based conversion.
Mac Mini + eyeTV is the way to go.
You can stream stuff from your other comps to ur mac mini…but you have a whole other computer. Web browsing, gaming, and everything else, all on your big nice LCD 😀
i’ll be getting a mac mini as soon as the C2D ones are released.
elgato makes (or repackages) good hardware,
but their software is HORRIBLE !
they payed a lot of attention to the interface, but they forgot the most important thing, the first thing a user cares about is the data, if an application makes you loose data it ruins the experience.
1 you can’t save a section of the live stream, so u have to know what u want to record in advance, -> loss of data
2 when a recording starts, your live stream is deleted -> loss of data
3 when the disk is full the app freezes -> idem
(you have to set how much space you want to use for video, that is plain stupid !, it would be a lot better if u had to set the amount of free space u want to have, and it would not crash)
4 they save the live stream in 1.5 GB mpegs, but they don’t allocate the whole file when they create it, this results in VERY heavy fragmentation, some mpegs (the last time i looked) are divided in hundreds of segments, causing hiccups at playback
5 the playback is bad anyway, it skips frames when u watch frame by frame ! (why ??)
it jumps back and forth when u switch speeds.
6 i use a dedicated mac for eyetv, it’s a quad g5, but apparently it’s not powerfull enough to handle 4* speed (or over) ?
7 no time compression, that’s unacceptable, they should just use quicktime for display , feeding it the data (quicktime allows that, it’s designed for it)
etc etc etc….
yes they have a good UI (now), i remember that the early versions of the software did not allow to change the order of the channels !
i spent hours and hours writing emails to them, i’m an experienced software developer of very successful software, some of mac os, fileguard, diskguard, popupfolder (all discontinued since OS X), they never replied (that’s ok). but they never did anything to fix their software, even the simple things that require a few lines of code.
they should just make a codec, and leave the programming to someone else.
@ iggy
eyetv saves the video in mpeg 2, if u have the codec (for sale on the apple site), u can view it directly.
u just wanted to add, that regardless of how much i dislike their software, i could not live without my eyetv’s, they change the way you watch TV, u can never go back.
All new HD-TV’s and devices require a DRM chip to decode Hi definition HDCP signals.
Eventually all TV’s in the US will be equipped with this HDCP chip, and all broadcasts in digital Hi Def.
Cable companies further scramble certain signals/channels depending upon your purchases which requires a cable box and a telephone line.
El Gato’s EyeTV device is NTSC (or PAL) which is the old analog standard definition.
Since the purpose of the EyeTV is to watch and record TV on a computer, they were denied a license to the HDCP club.
If were lucky and got yourself a EyeTV 500 before July of 2006 legal cut-off date, you can watch un-HDCP encrypted Hi definition stations (ClearQAM signals) on your Mac from your cable line (bypassing the cable box obviously). The so called “Free HD” stations, (free of HDCP) and also broadcast “over the air” in ATSC in certain areas if you have a antenna on your roof or attic.
Cable companies, like Steve Jobs said, are a monopoly and even charge people for the FreeHD stations.
In order to watch BlueRay or HD-DVD’s in full resolution on a Mac/PC will require a HDCP chip in future monitors.
Martin’s comment were valid and include things that I think definitely need to be addressed in future updates to their software. Having said that, I have completely switched a couple of years ago to digital TV after purchasing my EyeTV 410 and have it connected to my dual G5 2.0GHz. I’m in Australia and only a few months ago did we finally get an EPG, IceTV which is fabulous. I can now select Series to record the shows I like regardless of whether they move time slots from one week to the next. And I can record in HD if I so choose.
I bought the newish EyeTV diversity yesterday which has a dual tuner and allows me to record two shows on different channels simultaneously. It’s worth having a read about on the Elgato site.
I love EyeTV and Elgato and think they make fabulous products that see frequent updates. I’m sure the issues that Martin mentioned will be eventually rectified. I can see this working very well with the Apple TV.
well, i wrote about why i hate my eyeTV, BUT i can’t live without it !
that gives you an idea how much i like it.
Apple TV is completely useless for me, i don’t have a TV anymore.
what i want is Apple to propose a standard for digital TV on a computer (in fact they did that over 20 years ago with quicktime), elgato should just provide the codecs (drivers), and Apple should provide the application, linked with Apple TV for those who still think a TV is usefull, when u can get awesome monitors that have 3 times the resolution of HDTV.
eyeTV is so great, i wish i had one in my brain, sometimes, when i hear a noise in the street (a car breaking, someone shouting), i have the reflex of wanting to jump back, to hear (or see) what happened.
that says it all.
get an eyeTV, and start mailing them to ask for a fix to the most important part of their software.
(i lost 4 hours of TV since my first post in this topic), and i did not save 5 hours of stuff that turned out to be more interesting than i thought.
it’s 2 days of work for them to fix it !