EyeTV: TV, Mac Style!
Have you ever eyed one of those fancy Windows Media Center PCs that can watch TV and act as a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and thought “Self, I wish I had a Media Center Mac” ?
Well, worry no longer because you can have it all, and more with EyeTV.
EyeTV, released by Elgato Systems is a hardware/software package. Elgato sells a number of different hardware tuners with a variety of different price points and features. Have a look before you purchase and see which one fits your budget. The smaller USB Key sized device is perfect for road-warriors but the larger devices include on-board hardware that makes TV editing much quicker – by doing the encoding on the device itself rather than leaving that to your CPU. If you plan to simply DVR shows to watch later, the smaller, cheaper device is fine. If you plan to encode shows for your iPod, AppleTV or to post to the internet (you do own the copyrights, right?) you are best served by one of the fancier models.
On to the software. EyeTV is a Universal application, ready to take advantage of your speedy Intel Mac. In my case, I used the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid, the USB Key sized model, $149 at the Apple Store Online or a retail store near you. I plugged a standard rabbit-ears TV antenna into its ATSC/NTSC antenna port, and I picked up all my local TV stations in brilliant HD. Your mileage may vary depending on how far you are from your local broadcast antennae, and you may need to get a more powerful antenna or even an outdoor, roof-mounted antenna.
EyeTV has a built in program guide powered by TitanTV allowing you to record any program you want straight to your hard drive, ready for viewing at another time. If you’re interested in archiving your shows, you can remove ads simply by right clicking on your recorded video and selecting ‘Edit’. In the following window you can skim through the recorded program, find the ads, and select them in the same way you would in iMovie. Once you have the ads highlighted, you select ‘Compact’ in the menu at the bottom and BLAMMO! Your ads are gone.
There are a number of other things you can do with your videos. The newest ability is one click AppleTV export! If you’ve got an AppleTV, this is a huge selling-point. You also have one-click iPod export, one-click Toast export or you can select your own options from a list of 27 formats, ranging from PSP to DV to H.264 (the format that the iPod and AppleTV use).
EyeTV does do an excellent job encoding video, but it can take a while to encode. If you want HD, you will honestly need Core Duo or better. If you have one of the fancier external boxes that does on-board recording, this will make your editing go much smoother.
All Elgato’s EyeTV units support HD Broadcasts and HD recording using ATSC antennas and will receive analog NTSC broadcasts until they are disabled.
Back to the hardware. Some tuners allow you to plug in external sources (component/s-video) which can be useful if you have an old camcorder, as you can record the tapes off, edit them, and burn them to DVD, or encode in any of the above formats. I prefer to hook up my Xbox and record Halo 2 matches for later review (and to make fun of my friends when I blow them up repeatedly!)
Also included is a full screen menu with Apple Remote integration. This is a brilliant feature, as you can control nearly everything from the other side of the room via a 10-foot interface, as with Front Row. You can view the TV guide, set it to record, and channel hop. If you aren’t a fan of the Apple Remote, or you need numbers for your channel surfing, Elgato does sell a separate, more conventional remote, though it’s also included in some packages.
A final note: if you do pick up an EyeTV, be warned; you would be well served to get an external HD to store your recordings on, as 1/2 hour uncompressed HD is about 1.5GB, and it easily racks up!
Overall EyeTV is a fairly easy-to-use app that allows you to watch live and DVR’d TV in HD. It does pretty much everything you could need it to do, and it does it well. Its full-screen menu, puts it ahead, as it is beautiful, and makes TV watching so, so good!
EyeTV is available with a tuner, starting at $149 from the Apple Store Online.
Did you see the news about a CEA-2017 standard for linking portable media players to the rest of the world? Isn’t that something we would want on our iPods?
Interestingly the spec refers Microsoft’s Media Transport Protocol. But hey, these days Steve and Bill are friends again, right?
ah, how useful this would be if it worked on windows too…
This looks awesome, especially the easy commercial removal feature.
Will this work with digital cable? Can it bypass my Comcast tuner box or will it only be able to record the output from the cable box?
@Ford
Your mileage may vary, but I highly doubt it. You can try to ask Comcast and MAYBE you will get lucky and get a knowledgable tech.
You can use it with digital cable but you will have to buy an infra-red blaster which eyetv supports. Basically, it is an infrared device connected to a USB port of your computer which will emulate your cable box remote. It will send out an infrared signal to change the channel on your cable box, at the scheduled recording time. I think eyetv supports two infrared receivers. Go to elgato.com and read their faq. You will be able to get regular cable and over the air HD that way, but you won’t get your cable HD channels.
I have eyetv with miglia tvmax, and love it. I did not go for HD option, as hard disc fills up fast with regular video itself. I think HD recording takes 4 GB an hour and not 1.5GB per half hour as mentioned in the article. Regular mpeg-2 recording takes that much. I would advice going for something that can encode in mpeg-4 and/or divx formats as you get the same quality for half the hard disc space. And its faster to export to ipod if you record in mpeg-4.
Best option for me was miglia tvmax. there is an issue with sleep but workaround is there on miglia forums. better option than eyetv 250. If you want over the air HD, eyetv hybrid is best option.
Sorry made a mistake in previous post. HDTV recording takes 8GB per hour!! I meant to write 4GB for half hour.
i wish they had support for older macs for eyetv! i want to make my old dual g4 a dvr… but alas, i cannot.
tim… if your G4 is more than 500mhz it is supported, it just won’t do HD. However, if you buy an eyeTV 250 or better, you should be better off, as it has an encoder built in.
I honestly can't see myself doing this without the encoder equipped models. Looks promising.
is there a way of using the miglia tvmocro as a receiver for the apple remote on older macs?
Hey Fraser,
when you mentioned recording halo, how did you accomplish this? did you just hook up the component cables directly up to the eye tv? please shoot me an email with your setup config, this would be greatly appreciated.
and the review was great, very informative!
Hey T-Rev, sorry don’t have access to your mail!!
The halo bit was added by an editor, but i can tell you exactly how it was done! You do exactly as you said, hooking it up through the EyeTV tuner (makes sure it has the correct inputs before you pay out for it) and simply selecting it as a source in the ‘Controls’ menu! Then hit record and you’re good to go!
Sorry for the delay in reply,
Fraser Drew
Would eyetv work with closed captions?
I’ve got this in my mac for 1 year, and is awesome. I know is also available for windows and is black
Biggest issue is them going to TV Guide next year for a EPG. You have to PAY for that. Every year. Shame on them for phaisng out TitanTV as a free option for people that have bought their product. Other than that it’s a solid product. Been using mine for a couple of years now.
any one run eyetv software to send photos or itunes to a tv via a ethernet cable direct from a imac please tell me if this is possible and how.
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