It finally seems to be here. Apple has had a cool, free transport stream recorder that people have been playing with as reported here on a lengthy thread. On the 34th page of that thread someone has a web link to an announcement from Elgato that they are introducing a $300 FireWire connected box to allow viewing and recording of ATSC HD on the Mac. I thought it deserved its own thread. Here is the link provided by rezzy:

http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv500

I have the USB product from Elgato for NTSC and it works well. I would bet they've done a good job with ATSC. I wonder if they use standard protocols for driving the box across FireWire so it would work with other devices like the Samsung T165? This would probably look quite nice on one of those new 30" displays being shown an WWDC.

SBryan, it won't be immediate, but I'll be getting one of these.

This looks very promising, but now they need to update eyeHome to work with HDTV as well.

Others have pointed out the lack of HDCP. Isn't this going to be a bit too limiting?

How does HDCP have anything to do with an OTA Firewire receiver? If it had QAM demodulation for cable reception I could see how it might be an issue. Realistically speaking though I doubt if the movie moguls would allow such a device to be sold (HDCP or not) after their pals in the FCC start to enforce the Broadcast Flag regulation next summer. I'm always prepared to be pleasantly surprised but I'm not counting on it.

Elgato updated its website with more info:

Q: What are the inputs on EyeTV 500?

A: EyeTV 500 is an HDTV ATSC product and only contains a terrestrial antenna input. It has no video encoding capabilities to capture from analog devices. That means it does not have S-Video nor composite inputs, and cannot change analog video into digital.



Q: Can I use analog video sources with EyeTV 500?

A: EyeTV 500 is a fully digital product. It does not have connectors for analog video. EyeTV USB has a composite video input port, EyeTV 200 has both S-Video and composite video inputs. Both EyeTV USB and EyeTV 200 can be used to digitize and record analog video.



Q: Can I use HDTV over cable or satellite with EyeTV 500?

A: No. You can only use HDTV over antenna with EyeTV 500.



Q: Does EyeTV 500 support closed captioning?

A: No, it does not at the moment. It will become available via a future software update.



Q: Does EyeTV 500 work in Europe and Australia?

A: No. The EyeTV 400 is the proper digital terrestrial antenna choice for international users.



Q: What is the range of bitrates of the HDTV MPEG-2 transport streams?

A: HDTV can go up to 18 MBit/sec of MPEG-2. HDTV broadcasters encode the video before broadcasting, and EyeTV 500 displays whatever is sent.



Q: Are widescreen images supported?

A: All aspect ratios are supported. The window size is adjusted on-the-fly if a channel switches from 4:3 to 16:9.



Q: What is the resolution of the HDTV image?

A: The full widescreen image is 1920 by 1080. You can view this at a smaller size if your screen is not HD ready. 4:3 content will be displayed normally.



Q: How does EyeTV handle the MPEG-2 streams it receives?

A: The MPEG-2 data the EyeTV hardware receives is not decoded or otherwise modified in any way. It is passed on to the computer directly. All PIDs belonging to the program in question are saved.



Q: Can EyeTV export to other video formats such as QuickTime or AVI?

A: EyeTV currently supports export to MPEG-2 program streams. There is no de/encoding involved. The transport stream is de-multiplexed and re-multiplexed into a program stream, but the MPEG data is not modified.



Q: Where can I buy EyeTV 500?

A: EyeTV 500 and other Elgato products can be purchased from a large number of Macintosh resellers throughout world, including the Apple Online Store.



Q: The EyeTV 500 product requires a "G4 500 MHz or better" processor. Why is that?

A: Decoding MPEG-2 video is a very CPU-intensive task. EyeTV will not be able to decode MPEG-2 content in real-time on a slower processor. It takes a dual processor G5 to display full size, full frame rate HDTV.



Q: The Apple DVD Player also decodes and displays MPEG-2 video, but its system requirements are lower than EyeTV's, and it even works on some G3 Macs. Why can't you do that?

A: The graphics cards and drivers that are built into Macintosh computers contain special features to support the Apple DVD Player. These features are used exclusively by the Apple DVD Player, they are currently not available to third parties and they have various DVD-specific limitations that make them unsuitable for EyeTV. Note that QuickTime does not use these features either. EyeTV's MPEG-2 decoder is about 10-20% faster than the QuickTime MPEG-2 component.



Q: Why is my Powerbook running so slow when I use EyeTV?

A: To lower power consumption and heat generation, the PowerBook G4 incorporates an automatic power management technique called bus slewing. Bus slewing is designed to run at high processor speed, bus speeds, and voltage when the demand on the processor is high, and to run at low processor speed, bus speeds, and voltage when the demand on the processor is low. Switching between different processor/bus speeds and voltages is achieved by a transition that operates seamlessly to the user and should not impact system or application performance.

The 12-inch PowerBook G4 allows the user to control bus slewing mode. The options for specifying either high, reduced, or automatic processor and bus speeds are located at:

System Preferences>Energy Saver>Show Details>Options>Processor Performance;

then select Automatic, Highest, or Reduced.

Slewing is enabled with the automatic setting. The default processor performance setting for the 12-inch PowerBook G4 is automatic. If the 12-inch PowerBook G4 detects a system temperature that is too high, due to high ambient temperatures or other factors, it will automatically force the system to reduced speed mode regardless of the selected setting.

When the 12-inch PowerBook G4 is in slewing mode, the processor, processor bus, and memory bus dynamically adjust their speeds based on the current needs of the system. The processor speed will switch between 1000 MHz and 766 MHz and the processor bus and memory bus will switch between 133 MHz and 102 MHz.



Q: What happens to a file when you export it as a QuickTime movie?

A: Exporting does not change the MPEG data in any way. It merely converts a transport stream into a program stream. We do this because QuickTime and Toast do not support transport streams directly. Again, the MPEG video/audio data are not decoded/re-encoded in any way. The output program stream contains an exact copy of the digital broadcast. There is no guarantee that broadcasters use DVD-compliant MPEG, and in fact many of them don't. Currently the only way to figure out whether or not a stream is DVD compliant is to see whether or not Toast decides to re-encode it.



Q: Why do you de-interlace when you export as QuickTime?

A: De-interlacing is a feature of the player. QuickTime doesn't de-interlace MPEG content at all, which can be quite ugly. The Apple DVD Player has the same problem. EyeTV de-interlaces on playback. VLC supports both transport and program streams and various de-interlacing options, you could try that to get a better feel for what's going on. Or just burn a DVD and watch it on a set-top DVD player, it'll look great.



Q: Does EyeTV include an IR remote control?

A: Yes it does.



Q: Does EyeTV 500 use FireWire?

A: Yes, it uses FireWire 400. Power and data both travel over the FireWire bus.



Q: How much space does it take to store an hour of widescreen HDTV?

A: HDTV is approximately 8GB per hour.











EyeTV Industry Recognition


Related Files



EyeTV 500 Software Updates and Documentation



EyeTV Software Updates





EyeTV 500 Data Sheet (.pdf)


EyeTV 500 QS Guide - US (.pdf)


EyeTV Manual (.zip)





For updates and documentation in additional languages, please visit our Support section:



All Software Updates

All Documentation







EyeTV Tip




Archive with EyeTV. Record television onto DVDs, VideoCDs and Super VideoCDs using
Toast 6 Titanium from Roxio

Mine came in today. I have a first look review at my Oklahoma HD site...

http://www.hdtvok.com/article.php?sid=1823

For now, I'm using it with a four year old G4/450DP and it's usable, though a bit choppy with 1080i material. I'll be getting a new dual 2.5Ghz G5 in the next month or so and will have a better idea of its performance. But for now, I'm pretty impressed with the product and can see a lot of potential... :)

I've run into a couple of small problems so far.

First, it might be that the antenna out doesn't work at all. I noticed that their other products feature it so maybe they included the connection, but it's not hooked up internally to anything. I just figured it was a pass-through connection so you could plug the antenna into another tuner. However, I'm unable to pick up any OTA channels on my Dish 6000 when running it through the EyeTV 500. It could also be a bad coax cable as well so I haven't written it off, but I'm probably going to get a splitter.

Second, when playing back video, either live or recorded on either of the two monitors attached to my Radeon 9000 Pro AGP card, the audio is very choppy (picture quality is pretty outstanding). I don't have that problem when playing video on my Radeon 7000 PCI card. This almost certainly is due to how antiquated my system is.

Dennis

I am very interested in getting the ElGato EyeTV 500. However I can't find any definitive information as to how it will deal with broadcast flags, once they are turned on.

Also, I am assuming I will be able to take recorded content and re-encode it using an encoder like FFMpegX to make anamorphic DVDs? Am I correct? Has anyone tried this?

I would love to play with a short clip. I realize the file sizes are huge, but if anyone is willing to send me a teensy clip that I could play with, I would appreciate it. I could give you an FTP site to upload it to or make other arrangements. If you can do this, just PM me.

-Sean

I just got an email back from Elgato support. It stated that under current firmware the EyeTV 500 has no broadcast flag protection. All it does is record the digital stream which may or may not have the flag embedded in it in the future, depending on the broadcast.

Theoretically this should not prevent recording with this device after the broadcast flag is implemented, right?

-Sean

Has anybody tried playing Eyetv recorded transport streams back through VirtualDVHS to a STB? That could eliminate the need to have the latest G5 hardware to playback full HDTV.

Currently, I am recording from a Samsung T165 to a G4 powerbook. But, I cannot change channels and so don't have anything close to a PVR. Eyetv would give me something closer to a PVR but my 1.5 G4 PB cannot play HD streams in VLC without dropping frames. I am curious if I could playback Eyetv streams through my T165 (via virtualdvhs) and save myself the cost of a dual G5 setup. Any thoughts?

This thing has hands down the best tuner of the PC based recorders compared to HiPix and MyHD. Absolutely rock solid on even lower signal channels. When the software transcoding issues are worked out we've finally got an HD PVR and it has built in editing features as well. It can and does allow you to pause live HDTV and record while watching prior recordings. :D However, it is likely time for a G5 upgrade if you don't have one as the software based playback is CPU limited and simulatenous record and playback really requires more than my Dual 500 can handle.

Here's what we still need:
1) Transcoding and join of older .ts/.trp recording from an outside app to EyeTV MPEG2.
2) Transcoding EyeTV to .ts/.trp
3) Ability to split a single block recording into separate programs

Has anyone tried the Mpeg Streamclip on a recording from the EyeTV 500?

It looks very promising. I would be interested to hear about it if anyone tries it. It is a free piece of software:

http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/

-Sean

Has anyone tried the Mpeg Streamclip on a recording from the EyeTV 500?


Unfortunately, it doesn't support the AC3 audio tracks in the eyeTV files. They indicate in their most recent edition that they plan to in the future.

I was able to download some sample transport stream files off the internet. They played nicely with VLC. But Mpeg Streamclip wouldn't recognize them. I guess the AC3 was the issue.

I also tried reencoding the stream using FFMpegX. The video reencoded fine, but it chokes on the audio. I guess it is the same issue.

Has anyone been able to convert an AC3 audio stream from a transport stream into another format? Is there any program out there that will do this now?

I am very close to ordering an EyeTV 500. My ultimate goal would be to re-encode recordings and burn them as anamorphic DVDs. Is this a reasonable goal?

-Sean

How is the scheduling of recordings and reliability when recording? I have a G4 Cube, and I might pick one of these up as an HD recorder to be used with my MyHD/HTPC for playback. If it could reliably record the transport stream, with no video decoding/display, it could be useful on old Macs.

Also, it's a shame that Apple doesn't open their MPEG2 acceleration API's. In the x86 world, a 700MHz Pentium is all that is needed for HD playback when using hardware accel. There is no reason a new G5 should be needed for this.

Also, I am assuming I will be able to take recorded content and re-encode it using an encoder like FFMpegX to make anamorphic DVDs? Am I correct? Has anyone tried this?

Transcoding is a rather painful process on my G4/450DP, taking about three hours to handle the video from a 55 minute clip. But it is possible using a number of tools, including FFMpegX, DIVA, VLC and others. The main problem I've had is that you have to do the audio and video separately and then combine them using something like Final Cut Pro HD. It could easilly take a day or more to go from a 1080i recording to an anamorphic DVD on my box and thus I haven't successfully finished something like that. :(

EyeTV's save as Quicktime Movie requires Apple's MPEG-2 Decoder component ($20 or included with Final Cut Pro). The coolest thing I've done, which took several hours was take a 55 minute raw clip and transcode it into an uncompressed Quicktime movie. The quality was stunning (even if I couldn't play it back at full frame rate), but the clip went from 7.8Gb to about 118Gb for video only. :)

I would love to play with a short clip.

Here's a clip you can play with:

22 second Raw Clip (http://www.fastpipe.com/movies/streams/olympics.m2t.zip) (37.5 Mb)

Basically, I recorded it, copied the raw clip from the EyeTV Archive folder (option-drag), renamed it from .mpg to .m2t, and compressed it in panther using the "Create Archive..." feature in Panther. This clip plays back fine in VLC and is essentially a transport stream saved directly by the EyeTV 500.

I'm kind of interested to know if the transport streams could be played back by the Roku box.

Has anyone been able to convert an AC3 audio stream from a transport stream into another format? Is there any program out there that will do this now?

It is possible to take AC3 from the EyeTV clips and save them as something else, e.g. AAC or MP3 using VLC, among other applications.

How is the scheduling of recordings and reliability when recording?

Generally, the scheduling and recording capability is excellent. I have run into issues when the signal strength wasn't good with my ABC affiliate where the stream would be corrupted. It plays back, but audio and video quickly go out of sync and it's virtually impossible to get them back in place without skipping forward and backward. I've never had a problem with it missing a scheduled program. The tuner is a bit better than my Dish 6000 overall which is to be expected given the difference in the age of the two chipsets.

I've recorded a couple of hundred gigs of programming with large differences in the streams my local affiliates are putting out. My NBC affiliate's recordings are about 6.21Gb per hour while my PBS and CBS affiliates are about 7.89Gb per hour. My ABC affiliate's programs are about 6.8Gb per hour. PBS and CBS are not multicasting (for this comparison) while NBC and ABC are, but ABC's streams are 720p, not 1080i. My ABC affiliate's ABC New Now feed is about 1Gb per hour.

The 1080i recordings are watchable (but a bit jerky) on my G4/450DP while 720p performance is excellent. 480i and 480p, along with 720p, allow you to do other things while the programming is playing in the background.

Dennis

Thanks for the informative post and the clip. My EyeTV 500 is on the way. I will have fun experimenting with your clip until it gets here.

Can you explain in a little more detail how you got the AC3 audio track out of the transport stream. You mentioned VLC, but I don't see how to do it with that app. I have yet to find an app that can handle it.

-Sean

ultimate,

Thanks for the clip. It also answered my question about playback through VirtualDVHS. If all you have to do is change the file extension in order to playback through virtualdvhs then you definitely do not need a dual g5 for playback (assuming you have a set-top with firewire). That puts me a lot closer to buying an eyetv. Thanks for the info.

Alex

Can you explain in a little more detail how you got the AC3 audio track out of the transport stream. You mentioned VLC, but I don't see how to do it with that app. I have yet to find an app that can handle it.

When you choose "Open File..." from the file menu, it displays a dialog. At the bottom of that dialog is a checkbox named "Advanced Output:" with a companion "Settings..." button. At the bottom of that dialog is a section labeled "Transcode options" that allows you to pick the output for Audio and/or video. mp4a is AAC and you can choose the "Encapsulation Method" in the first section. You'll need to play around with the settings a bit to get what you want.

I haven't been able to use that to get audio and video at the same time, but I have been able to use it to get audio and video separately. It's also possible to do all of that via the command line and supposedly you can transcode the video to a smaller size, like you would need for anamorphic DVD. I haven't quite figured out all the command line options.

BTW, one of the reasons I renamed the suffix on that file is that if you have Apple's MPEG-2 Decoder installed, the Finder will try to show a preview of any .mpg file, but since it can't preview a transport file it just spins for a while.

Dennis

One other thing. Someone mentioned using an older Mac to handle the recordings.

A friend of mine bought one of these last week and was thinking he's like to use it with a G3 iMac to record some of the Olympics coverage. When the EyeTV software is launched on a G3, it basically puts up a dialog saying it can't be run on a G3 and while the software stays open none of the options are available.

So, if you're thinking you might use an older G3 Mac with this device, that apparently isn't an option.

Dennis

I hate it when short sighted decisions are made for the user based on factors that aren't pertinent to the user. However, it is possible that there is a more substantial reason for the restriction to G4 and later. It is only with the G4 that altivec became available and even for just capturing the stream I suppose it is possible that altivec capability is required. If that isn't the case this restriction should be reported as a bug in the hopes that Elgato removes the restriction.

If a G3 system can't play back what it records, then I understand why they put in the requirement. However, a backdoor that would disable the lockout, available from Tech Support, could be provided so that users who properly understand the limitation can still use the product in a limited way.

- Mike

I agree that it would be nice to record with the EyeTV 500 on a G3, but lets face it G3s are getting rather old. My B&W G3 is nearly six years old now (and working hard as a mail server). The oldest G4s are getting close to five years old.

Mostly, I'm happy that it runs pretty well on my G4/450DP, which doesn't meet the minimum requirements. However, it does have 2Gb of RAM and a striped pair of 250Gb Serial ATA drives so that obviously helps performance.

Dennis

After much experimenting, I was able to re-encode the sample transport stream posted by Dennis and author it as a 16x9 DVD. The result looks pretty good on my home theater. Obviously not as good as the original, but far better than, say, a DVD authored from a ReplayTV file. Plus it is 16x9!

Here are the steps I took:

1. I used the advanced output option in the VLC client (available when selecting a file to open) to transcode the audio stream from AAC to MP2. I was not able to get VLC to separate the streams. Rather, it produced a new transport stream with the audio MP2 instead of AC3.

2. I used Mpegstreamclip to demux the MP2 file.

3. I used FFMpegX to re-encode the video from the transport stream to 16x9 DVD compliant mpeg2 video file (.mpv). I tried really hard to get FFMpegX to do both the video and the audio and author as DVD with one click, but it would always choke on the audio and I couldn't figure out why. However, it did complete the video re-encode.

4. I then used the tools section of FFMpegX to mux the re-encoded .mpv file with the mp2 file demuxed with MpegStreamclip.

5. I then used the tools section of FFMpegX to author the the new mpeg file as a DVD.

6. I burned the resulting image with OS X's Disk Utility and watched it on my home theater.

Note, I don't know if there is any syncing issues because the small clip Dennis posted just has music.

However, I am now very eager to get my EyeTV 500 (and a very large antenna!).

Thanks Dennis for posting the file and for your help.

-Sean

(edited for typos)

Would anyone be able to send me a copy of their EyeTV 500 preferences file?

I live in a deep fringe area. I am hopeful that I can pull in an HD signal with a long range UHF antenna I just got. However, they way the EyeTV 500 software works makes this very difficult.

It won't let tune to a specific channel. You have to do an auto scan first, which goes slowly through all 78 channels, only trying each particular channel for a few seconds. If it doesn't find a channel, you can't tune to it.

This makes it difficult or impossible to to fine tune my antenna, because I can't really check to see if a singal is coming in.

I am hoping someone can send me a copy of their preferences file so I can learn how to edit mine to make the EyeTV think it can receive a particular channel. Then I can tune to it and then fine tune my antenna?

Anyone? The preferences will by in your Library directory under Preferences and will end in a ".plist" (I think).

Thanks.

-Sean

Originally posted by seank
After much experimenting, I was able to re-encode the sample transport stream posted by Dennis and author it as a 16x9 DVD. The result looks pretty good on my home theater. Obviously not as good as the original, but far better than, say, a DVD authored from a ReplayTV file. Plus it is 16x9!


Nice job! Authoring a good 16x9 DVD from an HD TS is one of the things I have tried on my Windows PC, with mixed results. I was hoping Mac tools would have better results, and it sounds like your output was good. I'll have to duplicate that with my PowerBook.

It would be really nice to have a tool that takes a TS in and outputs a DVD image, automating the demux/remux..

The EyeTV 1.6 software was released earlier this week and it greatly enhances the functionality of this box. It supports transcoding the raw transport streams into the following formats:

3G - for viewing on mobile devices
AVI - for viewing on Windows PCs
DV Stream - for video editing; both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios are supported
MPEG Program Stream - for burning direct to DVD
MPEG Elementary Streams - for use in DVD authoring software
MPEG-4 - for viewing on certain consumer electronic hardware such as network media players
QuickTime Movie - for playback on computers

So far, I've only used 4x3 and 16x9 DV, but am impressed with the output. In addition, similar to iMovie, it can generate a new iDVD project that seems to work flawlessly for output to DVD, at least with 4x3 video; I haven't tried kludging together a 16x9 project yet, since iDVD isn't supposed to support it.

It also adds a signal strength indicator so you can tweak your antenna for the best reception.

Dennis

Just received my EyeTV 500. Hooked it up to the cable wire via the "antenna out" connection to see what QAM channels I could get -- unfortunately only four -- CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox. Still, better than nothing I suppose.

Did a test recording of six minutes in duration and exported the recording from EyeTV in "Toast" format. The file is about 513MB in size. Toast 6.07 opens up (per the EyeTV option) and immediately quits unexpectedly. Opening up Toast manually and dragging the exported file onto its window give the same results.

What's up with this? I had expected to dump my recordings to SVCD or DVD to watch them on the living room TV...

Running EyeTV 1.7 software (firmware update on EyeTV 500 box performed on first run) on a dual 1.25GHz G4/2GB RAM/OS X 10.3.6.

Any console messages? What does the crash log look like (In the Console Application, look at console and then look under ~/Library/Logs/ open CrashReporter and select the Toast crash log

Ladd, I think you have to hook the cable up to the "Ant Out", not the "Ant In." I dunno whether they deliberately mislabeled it to keep people from futzing with it until 1.7 was released, but I recall the website says "Ant Out" is "CATV In"... Could that be the problem?

Originally posted by edesilva
Ladd, I think you have to hook the cable up to the "Ant Out", not the "Ant In." I dunno whether they deliberately mislabeled it to keep people from futzing with it until 1.7 was released, but I recall the website says "Ant Out" is "CATV In"... Could that be the problem? Yes, it is "ANT OUT" -- I mis-typed. I have edited my original post to reflect reality. Thanks for catching my reporting error.

Originally posted by Ladd
Just received my EyeTV 500. Hooked it up to the cable wire via the "antenna out" connection to see what QAM channels I could get -- unfortunately only four -- CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox. Still, better than nothing I suppose.

Did a test recording of six minutes in duration and exported the recording from EyeTV in "Toast" format. The file is about 513MB in size. Toast 6.07 opens up (per the EyeTV option) and immediately quits unexpectedly. Opening up Toast manually and dragging the exported file onto its window give the same results.

What's up with this? I had expected to dump my recordings to SVCD or DVD to watch them on the living room TV...

Running EyeTV 1.7 software (firmware update on EyeTV 500 box performed on first run) on a dual 1.25GHz G4/2GB RAM/OS X 10.3.6.

This is a known issue with both elgato and Roxio, or at least those in their respective booths (MacWorld) knew about the issue. Nick of elgato said the latest betas they got were better (though it crashed on him too), and according to the guy in the Roxio booth said an update was just weeks away--especially aware of this issue. I had Toast crashing on me with one of the output formats but can't remember which. And, my latest exports don't sync audio correctly--think I need to downres in Streamclip before using Toast.

edited for anecdote

Originally posted by gaderson
This is a known issue with both elgato and Roxio, or at least those in their respective booths (MacWorld) knew about the issue.
Thanks for the info. I don't know whether to be relieved that it's an application issue (and not something I'm doing wrong), or irritated that that the EyeTV 500 device simply doesn't do what is clearly stated on their web site and data sheet -- and had for the four weeks previous as I contemplated this purchase ("Create DVDs, Video CDs or Super Video CDs of your recorded television shows to play on standard DVD players. (Toast 6 Titanium required)".

Glad to see that they are working on the issue. Don't know if going from "Toast crashes immediately upon attempting to import file" to "Toast imports file fine, but audio doesn't sync up in output" is an improvement to be celebrated though.

I hope I don't sound like a whining noob, but the EyeTV 500 wasn't a $9.95 purchase and I simply expect a multi-hundred dollar Mac peripheral to do at least what is stated in the specifications, Marketing vs. Engineering wars notwithstanding.

Don't know if going from "Toast crashes immediately upon attempting to import file" to "Toast imports file fine, but audio doesn't sync up in output" is an improvement to be celebrated though.

There is a bit of marketing speak in all of this, but you have to keep in mind that El Gato makes like half a dozen PVR type boxes and I'm sure most of them work just fine. The 500 model is different than the others iin that they aren't doing anything with the incoming MPEG-2 stream sent by the TV stations. So the fact that this hasn't worked for the six months that I've had my EyeTV 500 has been a royal pain in the arse. :)

But today, with the delivery of my iLife '05 box by the UPS man, I see light at the end of the tunnel. I've been exporting a few shows -- just 30 minutes or an hour but whole shows -- using Apple Intermediate Codec to HDV Quicktime movies. I can drop those right into iDVD and an hour or two later I have a decent looking anamorphic DVD or disk image that I can watch to my hearts content. This process isn't particularly fast, but so far seems faster and much more predictable than exporting to 16x9 DV and then importing into DVD Studio Pro.

Once El Gato figures out the AIC stuff, I would expect this to be a very efficient and workable solution.

Dennis

Yes, Elgato makes several products. I would have less problem with the EyeTV 500's export to Toast issue if the claim was a generic one that accidently included EyeTV 500, but that's not the case. The web page and the data sheet for the 500 specifically claim compatibility.

Anyway, if you've had your 500 for six months, you've forgotten more than I know about the subject.

I got a reply back from Nick at Elgato regarding my question of "if Toast doesn't accept HD files captured by the EyeTV, by what method CAN I get files onto DVD".

He replied:
"Export to "DV Stream", and Toast will accept that file for DVD production.

Unfortunately, DV files take up about 8 times the space of MPEG-2, so you'll need a lot of temporary HD storage. The conversion from MPEG to DV and then back to MPEG also takes time."

I have done this and it works. Export as "DV Stream 16:9" (no changes to options), import into Toast 6.0.7 (Video Tab: DVD Video), burn to DVD-RW, sneakernet over to living room DVD player and TV.

Up next: testing to see if 5.1 audio is preserved by the above method...

Nope, no 5.1 audio in the resulting DVD.

And the video is darker, resulting in loss of detail in the dark areas compared to the original, captured and played by the EyeTV software on my Cinema Display.

I have no idea where the 5.1 audio was lost -- in the export to DV or the encoding done by Toast to make the DVD.

Test: January 26, 2005 broadcast of "Alias"

EyeTV info on the recording:
Video = MPEG 2, 1280 x 270, 59.94 FPS; Audio = Dolby Digital 5.1, 48 kHz

EyeTV .mpg File Size: 5.63 GB

Exported as .DV 16:9 file size: 12.25 GB

I didn't keep notes, but I would guess that EyeTV exported the DV file in about 1 or 1.5 hours (MDD Dual 1.25 GHz G4). Toast encoded and burned a 1x DVD-RW in about 5 hours, with approximately 4 of that being the encoding.

I'm pretty sure that DV doesn't support ac3 audio so you are only sending 2 channels of sound to Toast.

-Aman

Originally posted by amanpatel
I'm pretty sure that DV doesn't support ac3 audio so you are only sending 2 channels of sound to Toast. Your "pretty sure" beats my "I can only guess". I suppose there must be some program you can import the .DV file into to check, whatever it is (DVDSP?), I don't have it.

I'm positive that DV doesn't support AC3 audio and pretty sure that neither does HDV. However, it is possible to demux MPEG-2 and perhaps sync up the AC3 track in either Final Cut or possibly in DVD Studio Pro. The problem I always ran into is that when I did that, namely exporting to 16x9 DV or whatever, and then trying to sync that up with the AC3 track always resulted in audio and video being out of sync.

Dennis

I am trying out the EyeTV software. It is a lot better than VLC in decoding MPEG2-TS. I am playing them on a 1.25 G4 eMac with no other program running. I am going to do my own tests on a 1.42 Mm at the King of Prussia store over the weekend.

The EyeTV editor is very good.

A version is needed that supports CableCard and 5C.

[quoteThe EyeTV editor is very good.[/quote]

Editor tip: Use Headphones or Loud volume.

It's amazing the little audio blips you get by not cutting before an ad starts or out of spot. The frame may be black, but the audio may still be there.

Originally posted by ultimate
the AC3 track always resulted in audio and video being out of sync. Same noted here.
I used ffmpegX to demux the EyeTV .mpg, resulting in a number of files, among them an .mpv and an .ac3 file. Put those two files back together using Sizzle resulted in a DVD that DID have 5.1 audio, but it was at least one second out of sych with the video.

Originally posted by Joseph S
[quoteThe EyeTV editor is very good.

Editor tip: Use Headphones or Loud volume.

It's amazing the little audio blips you get by not cutting before an ad starts or out of spot. The frame may be black, but the audio may still be there.

Part of the problem is also the inexact nature of not editing 'frame accurate' so, I haven't figured out if it cuts up-to where you select, or including what you select. Anyone?

As you stare at the screen: Left arrow frame is cut, Right arrow frame is kept

I found a tool to measure frame rate on my eMac 1.25 G4 with 1 GB RAM. It is the Quartz Debug application found in the Developer Tools package in the latest XCode release.

Player: EyeTV

720p 75% CPU

Aladdin 13.7 to 14.5 Mbps
fullscreen 42-45

O.C.
fullscreen 40-45


1080i 90% CPU

Shrek (Robin Hood scene) 15.5 to 18.0 Mbps
fullscreen 28-30

Matrix Reloaded (first fight scene against against agents, "upgrades") 12 to 15 Mbps
fullscreen 23-25

Full frame rate usually achieved with small and half views. The normal view yielded a frame rate at the midpoint between full frame rate and the frame rate for full screen

It would be great to get frame rates for the 1.8 G5 and the dual 1.8 G5 and up.

For my Dual G5 2.0 (512 gig RAM) using Eyetv as the player the results are as follows:

Alias
Full screen - ever so slightly under 60 frames with 40-50 %cpu

The O.C.
Full screen - ever so slightly under 60 frames with 40-50% cpu

Frontline (PBS)
Full screen - ever so slightly under 30 frames with 40-50% cpu

ER
Full screen - ever so slightly under 30 frames with 40-50% cpu

The size of the player did not make a difference. Oddly enough, when the Eyetv controler came on the screen (when you move the mouse in fullscreen mode) the frames would spike to 70 (for 720p material). The Quartz debug frame rate meter is pretty cool looking!

Alex

Dual 1.42 G4 (2 Gig RAM) using EyeTV:

Without a Trace (1080i)
Full screen - 30 frames, 40% cpu

24 (720p)
Full screen - 60 frames, 42% cpu

PBS demo screen
Full screen 30 frames, 42% cpu

These are all running on a secondary monitor through a Radeon something at 1024x760 @60Hz

My first post to this forum... here it goes.

I've been playing with HDTV for about a year now. I started off by building a P3 system with a Fusion II HD card and a little antenna. It never worked extremely well; it would always have audio sync issues and drop frames, and the interface was horrible. It did pick up all the local digital stations here in Madison, WI.

This past fall, we got Charter HD cable with the Moto 6200. I've used iRecord on my TiBook to capture the open HD channels over FW, and it works well, although my PB can't quite play them back. I also purchased a Sanyo LCD XGA projector which i connect with component video to display a 110" image on my wall. DVDs look OK, but no where close to HD. The only thing is that Charter doesn't have our local FOX or PBS stations in their HD tier. I still use my P3 system (VIA DVI) to watch (and record) football games, and now 24 on Mondays.

I've been recording every episode of 24 so far this season, and my goal is to put them onto DVD in some form. I've been debating whether to keep them in HD or make them actual DVD video discs. When I record the show from my PC, each hour long episode is about 8GB, in 720p60. So I couldn't burn the acutual TS files to DVD-R discs.

I've played around with EyeTV (I have the USB model), and found from this forum that you can open TS files by holding the Control key and opening the file. This tricks EyeTV to think that the file is the actual live feed coming in, so you have to 'record' to get the file into the EyeTV list. From there I can edit out the commercials, and save back to a .mpg file, which seems the same format as the TS/TP transport streams. EXCEPT.. once the show is recorded by EyeTV, it is a much smaller file size than the .TS file was originally. Like I said, starting with an 8GB episode of 24, once I import into EyeTV and edit out the commercials, I'm left with a 45 minute, 2.7GB file!! I can't figure this out, and I'm pretty sure my local FOX47 station isn't simulcasting a SD program. The quality looks fine, and the audio is still 5.1. So, if anyone knows how EyeTV reduces the file size of TS files, I'd love to know.

This means that now I can fit a whole episode to a DVD-R with room to spare. But I really don't want to keep around 24 discs for a single season.

So I've been trying to scale down and re-encode these to DVD files. Right from EyeTV, if you send the 720p episode to Toast, it chokes. You could export to 16x9 DV, but then you lose the 5.1 audio and some quality. I have, however, had success with the latest version of ffmpegX 0.0.9s. It finally recognizes TS files correctly, and does a nice job with mpeg2enc to make a VIDEO_TS folder which you can just drop onto Toast. I use the preset "DVD mpeg2enc" with a couple changes. First, set the audio to Passthrough. If i left it as AC3, it would give me most dialog out of my right channel when playing with DVD player, so don't make it re-encode the AC3 audio. Second, change the aspect ratio in the video tab from "DVD" to "DVD 16x9" so it comes out as actual 720x480 instead of 640x480. On my TiBook, it took about 5 minutes to encode a 1 minute test clip, but I have access to a dual 2.5 G5 at work, so I will probably do it on that :D

From here, I should be able to fit four episodes per 4.6GB DVD-R and have the complete Season 4 on six DVDs before anyone else. It'll just have a little FOX47 logo in the corner :rolleyes:

Adam

The Fox bit rates are really awful. The best I've seen is on Point Pleasant at around 4GB without commercials and sports around 6GB with commercials. The answer probably lies either in a source material with little data or overcompression. Based on the responses from Fox it appears the source is the issue at least on dramas.

That said, on faster machines are you saying the EyeTV "re-record" works as well as a normal OTA/QAM Recording??

When I've tried it on my now overwhelmed/underpowered Dual G4 with .ts (HiPix) or .mts (VDHS) I get a jittery mess thanks to frame drops.

Sounds like you've had good luck having EyeTV 1.7 process into .mpg format the .ts files recorded previously by another application (then running that result through ffmpegX).

Have you any tips for how to process a native, originally recorded in EyeTV .mpg? I tried working on a recording of Alias folowing your ffmpegX method described above and ffmpegX stops with a "failed" error immediately. :(

Test: January 26, 2005 broadcast of "Alias"

EyeTV info on the recording:
Video = MPEG 2, 1280 x 270, 59.94 FPS; Audio = Dolby Digital 5.1, 48 kHz

EyeTV .mpg File Size: 5.63 GB


Drop above EyeTV 1.7 .mpg onto ffmpegX
use preset "DVD mpeg2enc"
change "autosize" in Video Tab from "DVD" to "DVD 16x9"
set "Audio Codec" in the Audio Tab to "Passthrough"

Click the "Encode" button and I get an immediate "Failed" error.

I'm now trying the "DVD ffmpeg" preset with your additional settings; that has started to precess and I'll know in an hour or so if the audio syncs up.

Thanks for taking the time to post the results of your tests! :)

Originally posted by gilldo21
I've played around with EyeTV (I have the USB model), and found from this forum that you can open TS files by holding the Control key and opening the file. This tricks EyeTV to think that the file is the actual live feed coming in, so you have to 'record' to get the file into the EyeTV list. From there I can edit out the commercials, and save back to a .mpg file, which seems the same format as the TS/TP transport streams. EXCEPT.. once the show is recorded by EyeTV, it is a much smaller file size than the .TS file was originally. Like I said, starting with an 8GB episode of 24, once I import into EyeTV and edit out the commercials, I'm left with a 45 minute, 2.7GB file!! I can't figure this out, and I'm pretty sure my local FOX47 station isn't simulcasting a SD program. The quality looks fine, and the audio is still 5.1. So, if anyone knows how EyeTV reduces the file size of TS files, I'd love to know.
Adam

Adam-

Before I got the EyeTV 500 I was doing the same thing. See this post: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4988609#post4988609

Joseph S: Yes, it is just a pure digital copy of the stream, so no different than a live recording. Try again. I have a dual 1G G4 that does this perfectly. The stream you are opening needs to be in the same folder as the eyetv archive - and it sometimes takes a couple tries to get them to open correctly. When it works you will see a little dialog that says something like "autotuning" come up for a sec... then you can hit record... I think it helps to set the device to eyetv 500 (it resets itself if you do not actually have the device)

Adam, could you try the process again? I have converted quite a few shows (not "24") with this method and have always gotten files that are the same size. You are correct that they are still transport streams, and simply changing the extension makes them playable in VirtualDVHS(even the edited ones!)

My suggestion would be to not bother with the conversion to dvd. There are a few solutions already for playing transport streams out to the display of your choice(your projector), and many more to come... I currently use a samsung T165, but really want a networked player (LinkPlayer2) for this purpose. Hard drive space is so cheap now, and why spend all that time just to throw away pixels?

Z

Nope, no joy.

Using the "DVD ffmpeg" with all of the other settings gilldo21 described still gives me a VIDEO_TS folder where the audio is about 1 second out of sync with the video. :-(

Have you any tips for how to process a native, originally recorded in EyeTV .mpg? I tried working on a recording of Alias folowing your ffmpegX method described above and ffmpegX stops with a "failed" error immediately. :(


If I try to use ffmpeg on a raw file from the EyeTV archive folder, I also get a failed header error right away. However, if you export from EyeTV to a Program Stream (.mpg), it should open right up and encode fine with "DVD mpeg2enc". I'm acually doing an episode right now in the background.

I have had problems exporting from EyeTV after taking out commercials. Sometimes it just never finishes exporting (stuck at 100%), and other times it stops midway through, leaving a small file exported.
I've used v1.7 on a Dual 2.5, and it never finishes saving the export, but with version 1.6.7 on my TiBook, it can export a full episode (45min) just fine.

Adam

Originally posted by gilldo21
If I try to use ffmpeg on a raw file from the EyeTV archive folder, I also get a failed header error right away. However, if you export from EyeTV to a Program Stream (.mpg), it should open right up and encode fine with "DVD mpeg2enc". I'll give that a try right away. Does this method of export/convert preserve the 5.1 audio?

Originally posted by gilldo21
Like I said, starting with an 8GB episode of 24, once I import into EyeTV and edit out the commercials, I'm left with a 45 minute, 2.7GB file!! I can't figure this out, and I'm pretty sure my local FOX47 station isn't simulcasting a SD program. The quality looks fine, and the audio is still 5.1. So, if anyone knows how EyeTV reduces the file size of TS files, I'd love to know.Adam, this appears to be a problem with our local Fox broadcast. More than half of the broadcast stream is NULL packets, and the EyeTV software records only the basic PAT, PMT, video and audio PIDs. You chop 15 minutes which gets rid of 2 GB, then EyeTV filters out more than 3 GB of NULL packets - leaving your 2.7 GB file. I just posted an analysis in the Madison, WI HDTV thread over here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5100140#post5100140

_arock

Rats -- that doesn't work either, but the process barely got started as the export doesn't complete. Using the "Alias" test file noted above, I select it and attempt an export to Program Stream. The progress bar completes its journey in about 10 seconds and just stays there -- the export doesn't change even if I wait for hours. The exported file is 256K and that size never increases during a wait of any length. Clicking the "X" at the end of the progress bar brings on the Spinning Beach Ball of Death and a force quit of EyeTV is required.

I have tested this export procedure with a different EyeTV file that contains 5.1 audio with identical results. Interestingly, a EyeTV recording of a PBS show that is listed as simply "digital audio" exported just fine using the suggested method. I am running that through ffmpegX now just to see what happens there.

Bummer on the possible 5.1 audio export incompatibility...

The PBS file that is only "digital audio" that was succesfully exported as "program stream" this morning has finally been processed by ffmpegX and burned to DVD. The DVD looks fine and the audio synchs up properly.

PBS Program: "Renoir to Rothko: The Eye of Duncan Phillips"

EyeTV Info:
Video: MPEG-2, 2920x1080, 12.94 Mbps, 29.97 fps
Audio: Dolby Digital, 48 kHz, 384 kbps

Still no luck at getting an EyeTV "program stream" export to work properly on a recording that has 5.1 audio in it.

Originally posted by Ladd
The PBS file that is only "digital audio" that was succesfully exported as "program stream" this morning has finally been processed by ffmpegX and burned to DVD. The DVD looks fine and the audio synchs up properly.

PBS Program: "Renoir to Rothko: The Eye of Duncan Phillips"

EyeTV Info:
Video: MPEG-2, 2920x1080, 12.94 Mbps, 29.97 fps
Audio: Dolby Digital, 48 kHz, 384 kbps

Still no luck at getting an EyeTV "program stream" export to work properly on a recording that has 5.1 audio in it.

What version, etc.? I've exported the 'lost' pilot, and a few Arrested Development episodes (no export problems). When loaded into Streamclip, Streamclip says they have DD 5.1 audio.
This was with 1.6.7 and 1.7, maybe 1.6.5 too. I'll look again, but, I'm pretty sure that is the case for me.

I'm using EyeTV 1.7 -- it was released a few days prior to my 500 arriving, so I downloaded and installed 1.7.

I'll look over the information on the sample recordings to check again if there is anything reported there that is different between them other than 5.1 audio.

OK, here's my review of test files recorded from various OTA stations and what exports as "program stream" and what won't. Looks like "1280x720" and/or "59.94 fps" is the key to the export not working, not 5.1 audio...

EyeTV 1.7 info on test recordings that DID export OK as "program stream":

1. Video: MPEG-2, 1920x1088, 15.6 Mbps, 29.97 fps; Audio: DD5.1, 48 kHz, 384 kbps
2. Video: MPEG-2, 1920x1080, 16.7 Mbps, 29.97 fps; Audio: DD , 48 kHz, 384 kbps
3. Video: MPEG-2, 1920x1080, 13.0 Mbps, 29.97 fps; Audio: DD , 48 kHz, 384 kbps

EyeTV 1.7 info on test recordings that did NOT export OK as "program stream":

4. Video: MPEG-2, 1280x720, 7.8 Mbps, 59.94 fps; Audio: DD5.1, 48 kHz, 480 kbps
5. Video: MPEG-2, 1280x720, 17.0 Mbps, 59.94 fps; Audio: DD , 48 kHz, 384 kbps
6. Video; MPEG-2, 1280x720, 13.0 Mbps, 59.94 fps; Audio: DD5.1, 48 kHz, 384 kbps


Note:
1 = clip from 50-1 WB50 Pistons at Wizards game; 1920x1088 NOT a typo
2 = clip from 9-1 WUSA NCIS
3 = 1 hr broadcast of 26-1 WETA PBS "Renoir to Rothko: The Eye of Duncan Phillips"

4 = clip from 45-1 FOX45 American Idol
5 = clip from 73 WTTG FOX5 Phil the groundhog predicts six more weeks of winter
6 = 1 hr broadcast of 45-1 FOX45 24

New Question: How to add stations to existing programming list?

I looking for a way to add additional channels to the existing list of channels received by my EyeTV 500.

I get 38 OTA digital stations with my EyeTV 500, with 32 of them having useful prgramming. There are eight PBS stations, six of which are Maryland Public Television (MPT). Of these six MPT stations, some broadcast all the time but others are morning-only or evening-only. This means that when doing an "initial setup" channel scan in the morning, I won't have the PM-broadcasting stations in the list of stations received. And if I do a channel scan in the evening to pick up the evening-only stations, I lose the morning-only stations. I have yet to figure out what, if any, overlap might be available midday so I could get all of them, but that wouldn't solve the following varient.

As I additionally have a rotator on my antenna, moving the antenna to a different direction allows for even more stations to become available (it's nice to live up on top of a hill!). But scanning when the antenna is in the second orientation means I lose all 38 stations that I get with the channel-scan when the antenna is in the original orientation.

There seems to be no way to have multiple lists of stations, such as Antenna Orientation A, B or C. In the case of the AM-only or PM-only broadcast stations, I don't see a way to manually enter a station into my programs-received listings and let me just remember that some stations just won't be available in the morning or the evening.

Is there any way to have all these stations available in my program listings?

New Question 2: Work-around requested for EyeTv 1.7 narrow Program Listings drop-down window.

On the EyeTV 1.7 controller, the Program Listing drop-down window is too narrow for the names of the stations I receive. Since longer names are abbreviated in the drop-down window, it is impossible for me to accurately select between different stations that have similar names.

Example:
I receive eight PBS stations, six of which are Maryland Public Television (MPT). Of these six MPT stations, while there is some overlap in programming due to all being PBS affiliates, they don't necessarily have the same programming on at the same time of day. So it is useful to be able to tell these stations apart in the drop-down program listing window on the controller.

As all of these stations start with the letters "MPT-DT", I need to put some descriptor after this name so I'll know which stations are which, and which stations are HD or SD. Unfortunately, if a station is named "MPT-HD Annapolis" it becomes difficult to distinguish from "MPT-SD Baltimore" or "MPT-HD Frederick" as the names are truncated in the middle when they appear in the drop-down menu. Everything after the MPT and before the last few letters is gone, replaced by "...".

Beyond not being excited at having to memorize what "MPT...ore" or "MPT...ick" means, since I lose any SD or HD designation after the MPT, I literally can't tell the difference between the SD and the HD versions of the same channel.

Unless Elgato implements some variable-width and/or user-adjustable window feature in a future release of the EyeTV software, I'm guess I'm stuck with attempting to work around this abbreviate "feature". Any advice as to how this might be done would be most appreciated.

Originally posted by Ladd
New Question: How to add stations to existing programming list?

I looking for a way to add additional channels to the existing list of channels received by my EyeTV 500.

Is there any way to have all these stations available in my program listings?

Yeah, we all want this, though I think some have used other's tuning lists to add stations. I seem to remember someone opening up their tuning list prefs and editing them in a text editor. I'll drop mine on BBEdit and see what I get.
My local PBS stations always note the various stations. They have a 'placeholder' screen for the HD channel, but, I usually disable the SD channels in my setup list.

Originally posted by Ladd
OK, here's my review of test files recorded from various OTA stations and what exports as "program stream" and what won't. Looks like "1280x720" and/or "59.94 fps" is the key to the export not working, not 5.1 audio...

EyeTV 1.7 info on test recordings that DID export OK as "program stream":


Ok, I'll really need to check, since all the recordings I've exported have been 720P programs with no problems (Arrested Development, and lost).

Originally posted by gaderson
I seem to remember someone opening up their tuning list prefs and editing them in a text editor. I'll drop mine on BBEdit and see what I get. That's an interesting idea. It would be nice if it was that easy.

I usually disable the SD channels in my setup list. [/B] Good idea.

RE: How to add stations to existing programming list?

I have received a reply from the indefatigable Nick from Elgato:

--------------------------------------
Currently, there is no manual channel adjustment for EyeTV 500.

This is something we're working on for an upcoming software update, so you and some other users with the same problem will be able to save channels inbetween tunings, and to adjust other settings.

I'm sorry that this feature isn't ready yet.

There also are ways to update EyeTV's plist files, but you'll need to know XML, and I don't have a tutorial to give. Still, that would be a way if you need the changes now. Look in the following files:

-com.elgato.eyetv.devices.plist

-com.elgato.eyetv.plist

-com.elgato.eyetv.world.plist

In /Users//Library/Preferences/

-com.elgato.eyetv.plist

--------------------------------------

So looks like there may be a way to work around this issue.

Originally posted by Ladd
RE: How to add stations to existing programming list?

I have received a reply from the indefatigable Nick from Elgato:

--------------------------------------
Currently, there is no manual channel adjustment for EyeTV 500.

There also are ways to update EyeTV's plist files, but you'll need to know XML, and I don't have a tutorial to give. Still, that would be a way if you need the changes now. Look in the following files:

-com.elgato.eyetv.devices.plist

-com.elgato.eyetv.plist

-com.elgato.eyetv.world.plist

In /Users//Library/Preferences/

-com.elgato.eyetv.plist

--------------------------------------

So looks like there may be a way to work around this issue.

I opened up the plist file, and their's nothing about tuning in it, or at least that I could make out. But, I opened the Autotune.log file and it's a timestamped list of tunings that might get something out of it. It looks like the world.plist is the file we need to work on.

Something I also found out. I am having lots of problems with scheduled recordings. Different padding, checking signals, CoreAudio problems, etc. So I recently did an 'Archive and Install' and though I still have problems (no recordings at all now), I did go back to 1.6.5, and when switching to the drive I'm archiving too I now also have access to the QAM tuner.

I got around to playing with the Autotune "re-recording" function yesterday. It does now work with my machine without stutters. Currently, working on fixing a Desperate Housewives recording that was screwed up by the inept station employees. They cut the ending off in the original run and failed to flip the switch for the first segment of the re-run. This might be the first combination QAM and OTA recording in history. ;)

Combined the two .mpgs plus a filler .mpg for padding at the start with the "Split & Concat".app and opened the file in EyeTV.

If I buy the Cinema Wide 30 inch monitor and a dual G5 1.8's can I use this to display an equivalent HDTV image that I get on a "regular" HDTV monitor...say my 42 inch plasma.....that fills the 30 inch cinema wide. Will I have to run it at some lower resolution or have the video in a window and not the whole screen.

It would help me to justify the price on this sytem if I could also use it to view all my HDTV broadcasts over my cable.


thx

You will probably have black bars on the top and bottom. I believe the 30" is 16:10.

Just set up my EyeTV 500 v 1.7 with an Apple 30" Cinema Display and a Dual 2.5 Ghz G5/6800 Ultra with 500 GB of HD. This combo makes a great small scale HDTV setup for smaller areas. Titan TV works reasonably well to find and schedule HDTV recordings. I'm using both a Channel Master over the air outdoor Yagi antenna to pull in 3 SDTV and 5 HDTV digital stations (ABC,NBC,CBS,FOX,PBS,WB) and a RF cable connected to my raw Comcast cable to recieve clear QAM signals (Discovery HDTV and IFC, the History Channel and National Geographic in SD Digital Cable).

So far everything seems to work well. 720P (1280 x 720) and 1080i (1920 x 1080) broadcasts look great in a native sized windows. The 30" display scales 720P and 1080i up to 2560 x 1440 on the 2560 x 1600 display...with black bars above and below, the equivilent of 1440P. The results are not as sharp as a native window, but of course the picture is better for viewing from further away. 480i and 480P signals do not scale up well and are better watched in a native sized windows.

The screen brightness and viewing angle are both excellent. I detect no smearing of video as described on some LCD screens. The optical Toslink audio from the G5 is amplified by a Logitech THX 5.1 surround system, for room filling sound. Not the same as my home theatre with Sony ES reciever and Bang & Olufsen Red Line 140's and HSU subwoofer, but still nice for a smaller room. Fan noise is a bit distracting on the G5...I'm planning to move the CPU into a ventilated cabinet below my work surface to reduce the noise.

In conclusion, my intention of equiping my library/home computer studio with a smaller HDTV setup seeems to be working out as planned. The added cost of the EyeTV 500, second HD to store recorded HDTV and of course the extra cost of the 30" monitor (over a more reasonable 20" or 23" display) were not small. The extended use of my main computer as a recordable HDTV helps justify the extra cost.

Hopefully Apple or another company will produce a Firewire 800 recordable HD DVD in the near future to archive my growing HDTV collection of recorded programs.

The way I calculate the cost to add a recordable HDTV is as follows. Since I was about to buy a high end G5 for PhotoShop anyway, the cost to go from 23" to 30" was about $1300, to add the second HD $300 and the eyeTV500 $300. So for $1900 in addition to a great Dual G5 workstation class computer, I get a superb HDTV that can record and store HDTV programs. Most stand alone 30" LCD's cost more than $1900 and are limited to 1280 x 720 resolution. The added benifit of a recordable setup is what drew me to this setup. Time shifting HDTV makes it even more delightfull...especially to archive the best programs.

Hope this helps anyone thinking about a way to add recordable HDTV to an exisitng or new G5 setup.

Yes, I do get small bars above and below the video window when viewing in full screen mode. The EyeTV is quite flexible in the display of recorded or live SD and HD video. You can set it to automatically switch the window size to match the native resolution. This is a bit distracting when surfing as the window resizes itself for each channel change.

As I stated above, the video is clearest when viewed at its native size. At 720p or 1080i at full screen setting the video is scaled up to 2560 x 1600p and includes the black bars above and below. The viewable portion is therefore 2560 x 1440P. The fullscreen option is less clear but fills the screen nicely for viewing from 5 to 6 feet away.

For the absolute clearest image when view from seated just in front of the monitor, I place the native 720p or 1080i image centered on a black desktop, with the toolbar and dock hidden. I have toyed with the idea to create a 2560 x 1600 custom desktop image of a darkened classic movie palace that would be visible behind a centered native window. The Dual G5's are hot enough to keep your popcorn warm too!

May the force be with you.

I just ordered one of these things. I'm hoping it was a good move.

I was deciding between getting the EyeTV 500 and a MyHD 130 and went this route. I assume there are no issues playing back the transport streams recorded with the EyeTV on a PC. Ideally, I'd like to do this all on the Mac but I'm not going to buy another G5 solely for this purpose. My cheapo Dell HTPC with TheaterTek will presumably be fine for this. Has anyone had problem playing back streams generated from the EyeTV?

There are at least preliminary indications from the courts that the FCC has exceeded its authority with its Broadcast Flag initiative. Has there been any word from Elgato about continuing to produce and sell their HDTV product? There had been some indication that Elgato intended to stop production some time before the BF regulation went into effect this summer. I suppose they might remain cautious since Congress could act in a manner similar to what the FCC has tried to do. But one of the reasons for the FCC's action was that earlier efforts to get something like the BF in Congress had not been successful.

I have made a couple of feature requests of ElGato, ways to improve their EyeTV application. Thought I would share some of them here as I think this community would benefit from them. I would encourage anyone else who would like to see any or all of these features, to contact Nick Freeman at ElGato support (support@elgato.com) and share this with them.

1) Incorporate Virtual DVHS functionality into EyeTV, in order to make EyeTV capable of playing back (and recording) non-flagged content on a TV with i.Link support.

2) Access via the SDK to IR codes received by EyeHome box, or at least the ability to run AppleScripts, shell scripts, etc. That way, specific IR codes (including those from other remotes BESIDES the EyeTV remote) could be used to do things on the Mac, including issuing serial port commands to devices, etc. I have a KeySpan USA-49WLC usb to 4-port serial adapter that this would be excellent for.

3) Access via SDK or other mechanism to allow us to write scripts for IR Blaster support, eg. to tune external set-top boxes?

4) Better support for multiple EyeTV devices in the software, eg for simultaneous recordings on different channels, or in my case, the 200 recording something from analog (cable) and the 500 recording OTA HD. I know there have been some improvements in 1.7 but it's not quite where they want it to be yet.

Good suggestions, but why would we want to limit ourselves to non-flagged content?

-Sean

Originally posted by seank
Good suggestions, but why would we want to limit ourselves to non-flagged content?

-Sean

I could envision 5C-flagged content recorded by EyeTV directly to special hard drives such as the QuickView Expander by Maxtor which would be 5C compliant.

I guess we better not buy that kind of hard drive then, huh?

-Sean

Originally posted by seank
I guess we better not buy that kind of hard drive then, huh?

-Sean

That would be one of the potentially "compliant" ways of recording 5C (copy-once) programming using a computer. The plain Maxtors I have now won't. I am sure the rumored Apple HD Hub would be necessary as it would probably enable HDCP and 5C.

quote:
Originally posted by seank
I guess we better not buy that kind of hard drive then, huh?

-Sean


the idea of embedding the DRM into the drives just raised a scary thought.

presumably, the default action for a read/write request would be to check if a flag would
allow the data to be read/written to the disk is true and fail the request if the flag were not set.

how hard would it be for a virus to falsely unset the flag and prevent all disk access??
(for example, the DRM shouldn't apply to my Quicken files, but suppose the flags were
set to NO access).

Not sure if anyone else noticed, but EyeTV 1.7.1 is out. Supposedly, it has an iMovie HD preset that could be useful to us. One other thing I noticed that seems new is that the way you set dates in the get info window of a scheduled recording has a little pop-up month.

Dennis

Not sure if anyone else noticed, but EyeTV 1.7.1 is out. Supposedly, it has an iMovie HD preset that could be useful to us.
The Good: You can edit and add smoother transitions
The Bad: You will lose DD 5.1

The settings for Toast and DVDSP export are the same.

Annoyances remaining:
1) No way to change to specific default recordings or any recordings to start /end "x" Seconds before/after
2) No way to Join/Split with Independent title without using 3rd party app to split/concat and rerecording
3) No means to schedule recordings with multiple tuners (can manually start multiple recordings)
4) Altering the start time still changes the stop time rather than increasing/decreasing the duration
5) Updating process to repair .eyetvi files fails repeatedly

Joseph,

By 'The Bad' above, you just mean, if we opt to take our recordings over to iMovie, right? e.g the 1.7.1 upgrade won't do anything to EyeTV 500 recordings and playback with DD 5.1 passthrough, right?

Thanks,


Thom Brooks


PS: I receive the Edirol UA-1X tomorrow, according to the tracking page. Can't wait to see how it compares to the Sonica...

By 'The Bad' above, you just mean, if we opt to take our recordings over to iMovie, right? e.g the 1.7.1 upgrade won't do anything to EyeTV 500 recordings and playback with DD 5.1 passthrough, right?


Yeah, but I really would rather edit in iMovie HD or FCP/FCE than EyeTV and keep the audio if possible. Not all stations give enough for a good transition into and out of breaks.

Still broken is the inability to export 1280x720/59.94 fps recorded programing. When using "export to Toast" or "export as Program Stream" (the only way I know of to preserve 5.1 audio) export options, the export never happens.

I semi-happy to wait until they fix this, but if there is ANY way to get these recordings exported in a form that I can convert to DVD in the interim, I'ld love to hear it.

The only obligation they have in return for their license is to provide a free OTA signal.
Export as elementary streams, drag video file to Toast and it will associate the .ac3 automatically. Never tried the export to toast. You need to update Toast to the latest version too.

Originally posted by SBryan
There are at least preliminary indications from the courts that the FCC has exceeded its authority with its Broadcast Flag initiative. Has there been any word from Elgato about continuing to produce and sell their HDTV product? There had been some indication that Elgato intended to stop production some time before the BF regulation went into effect this summer. I suppose they might remain cautious since Congress could act in a manner similar to what the FCC has tried to do. But one of the reasons for the FCC's action was that earlier efforts to get something like the BF in Congress had not been successful.

That really is an excellent question and one I would like to see answered before jumping into the dVHS swamp. A product that stops selling will not continue receiving software updates for long. What a shame for that to happen to EyeTV 500 just as it's getting established.

Meanwhile increasingly attractive digital receiver/dVHS combinations are coming to market, such as LG's LST-3410. People are using it to grab video streams via FireWire with mixed results, but it seems well received versus Samsung's now defunct T165.

This July FCC deadline creates frustrating uncertainties. I hope the courts take action soon.

Originally posted by Joseph S
Export as elementary streams, drag video file to Toast and it will associate the .ac3 automatically. Never tried the export to toast. You need to update Toast to the latest version too. I tried that and you are correct -- it is possible to export 1280x720/59.94fps/5.1 audio programming using "elementary streams". Unfortunately, either in the EyeTV 1.7.1 export or the processing by Toast 6.0.9, the audio is out of sync (late) by about one second.

Using last week's episode of LOST as a test, the program looks and sounds good after being dumped to DVD, but with the audio off by that much, it's unwatchable. :(

Probably the one issue holding back the EyeTV 500 more than the FCC is a lack of good transport stream playback options. Sure, there's the ill-fated Roku PhotoBridge, but judging from all the negative commentary in AVS and Roku forums that device appears to be a long way from workable. Then there's the new Buffalo PC-P3LWG/DVD High-Definition Wireless Media Player with Progressive Scan DVD, but nobody seems to have one yet and the product info doesn't mention transport streams. Acoustic Research (RCA) recently announced its Digital MediaBridge, but even less is known about that one than the Buffalo Media Player.

People want a way to watch HD video on their TELEVISION SETS! Sure, using a dual G5 to playback on a computer monitor is ok for some but that's hardly a mainstream solution. People want to be able to use their new 72 inch plasma to watch HD content, not a 17, 22 or 30 inch computer monitor.

We need a reliable TS playback box to get this HD revolution going. It's hard to see how EyeTV 500 could take off until that's available.

Machound:

I completely agree - I don't want to watch TV on my Mac. And there are already a couple solutions... I have been using my Samsung T165 for playing back transport streams to a front projector for months. Then I got the I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer2. It is not perfect, but when it works for me it works well. It is even better for the PC users right now(they seem to spend more time working to upgrade the PC server software). It does play transport streams, sometimes. And they say they are working on making support for them better... It also upconverts DVDs...

A couple threads on the AVLP2:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=484807
(the official FAQ)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=459759
(this one is huge - 131 pages! but there is great info buried in there)

Good luck,
Zach

Machound:

For folks not wanting/able to use their TV as a monitor for their (primary) Mac, I agree that an HD-capable STB supporting TS would be handy. But at such a low price, the Mini does seem like the most logical solution to me right now... not as a primary computer, but just as a HTPC in addition to my current computer. Besides, if people already own an EyeTV 500, then odds are they already have at least one Mac. (And this is a Mac HTPC thread, after all! :) )

Folks with Mac minis are reporting successful playback of HD content, some with dropped frames and some without. If your TV supports a VGA, DVI or HDMI input with a decent resolution, then the TV can be the computer's screen. If your TV only has component inputs, then there have been some success stories ( http://www.machtpc.com/archives/2005/02/09/component-video-arrives/ ) along those lines as well. The Mac mini also has a composite/SVideo adapter available, but at the quality of that kind of connection... almost not worth it, IMO.

If you have a TV with i.Link, then the EyeTV 500 recordings can easily be played back via Virtual DVHS, using a Mac mini or even an old G3 with firewire. It's not horribly difficult to do. And as I mentioned a page ago... the more folks who let ElGato know that they'd like the feature, the more likely they are to incorporate i.Link playback/recording support in EyeTV.

Eventually, the hope is that Apple will open up hardware-based MPEG decoding, at which point machines with even lower CPU speeds could handle HD content on-screen. (And again, that screen could be a TV with the appropriate inputs.) But I'm not holding my breath.

The EyeConnect software is ElGato's move to replace the EyeHome with UPnP devices, especially important because the EyeHome does not support HD content. The current crop of these devices may not be quite 'there' yet but I expect we'll see something fairly soon. It would also only make sense if the EyeTV software were able to act as a UPnP client as well, in a future version. This might help pave the way towards sharing multiple EyeTV video archives.

So between AVC/Virtual DVHS, EyeTV on-screen playback, UPnP devices & possible future EyeTV support, and the remarkable number of different ways that Macs can be connected to a TV monitor... I'd say that a *second* Mac (like a mini, as HTPC) is still a pretty good option at this time. And then you've always got a second computer, in a pinch!

Zmatzkin, How have you managed to keep your T-165 running? I see so many of them being sold as refurbs. Unfortunately, Samsung seems to have given up on this product line, which is a shame. Lots of former T-165 owners seem to be switching over to LG LST-3410 now. That should make some good T-165 prices for someone who doesn't mind taking a chance on a device with a mixed reliability record and no future support.

The AVLP2 sounds like another option if they can get more of the bugs worked out. Please keep us posted regarding Mac aspects of using an AVLP2. Thanks.

Originally posted by unithom
For folks not wanting/able to use their TV as a monitor for their (primary) Mac, I agree that an HD-capable STB supporting TS would be handy. But at such a low price, the Mini does seem like the most logical solution to me right now... not as a primary computer, but just as a HTPC in addition to my current computer…. Folks with Mac minis are reporting successful playback of HD content, some with dropped frames and some without.

Agreed. That's exactly what I am thinking about. I read a number of the threads from people who are using their Minis as a media center but I seriously doubt they are playing back 1080i TS without dropped frames. I downloaded the 5-minute LOTR 1080i TS sample from the Electronic Frontier Foundation EyeTV 500 review (http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/eyetv500.php), but frame rates are horrible on my 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4. I doubt a 1.5 GHz Mini would be able to triple the throughput of my PB to get continuous frames.

If your TV supports a VGA, DVI or HDMI input with a decent resolution, then the TV can be the computer's screen.

The problem is overscan. TVs will never make good computer monitors as long as the upper and lower segments get chopped off. While this may not impact widescreen movie playback much, it certainly makes working on a computer difficult when you can't see any of the menu bar.

If you have a TV with i.Link, then the EyeTV 500 recordings can easily be played back via Virtual DVHS, using a Mac mini or even an old G3 with firewire. It's not horribly difficult to do. And as I mentioned a page ago... the more folks who let ElGato know that they'd like the feature, the more likely they are to incorporate i.Link playback/recording support in EyeTV.

Again I agree. Unfortunately, FireWire seems to be a feature that TV manufacturers are dropping from their newer models, even at the high end. It's been the selling point for Mitsubishi screens, but obviously not enough of a selling point to encourage other manufacturers to add i.Link. Even Mitsubishi is dropping i.Link. None of the Sony flat panels I am considering have i.Link.

Virtual DVHS seemed so exciting when it was first reported on MacFixit over two years ago, but people who use it still describe it as a "demonstration" rather than a "solution." Maybe someday Apple will take the stealth cloak off vdVHS, but there's been not a hint that will occur in OS Tiger, unless Steve is planning another of his "oh, and by the way" remarks.

Eventually, the hope is that Apple will open up hardware-based MPEG decoding, at which point machines with even lower CPU speeds could handle HD content on-screen. (And again, that screen could be a TV with the appropriate inputs.) But I'm not holding my breath.

One wonders what all Mr. Jobs' obfuscation regarding the lack of a market for a digital media hub is about when he refuses to work with a strong Mac supporter like ElGato. It's hard to avoid speculating what that motivation might be.

I'd say that a *second* Mac (like a mini, as HTPC) is still a pretty good option at this time.

Maybe. It's probably a good option if you have a TS decoder or a TV with i.Link. I'm not sure how good of an option it is for direct output to a TV; early reports from people using them as digital hubs aren't that impressive. Mac Mini hints at better things to come in the "the year of high definition"… maybe.

Originally posted by MacHound
Zmatzkin, How have you managed to keep your T-165 running? I see so many of them being sold as refurbs. Unfortunately, Samsung seems to have given up on this product line, which is a shame. Lots of former T-165 owners seem to be switching over to LG LST-3410 now. That should make some good T-165 prices for someone who doesn't mind taking a chance on a device with a mixed reliability record and no future support.

I dunno, mine has worked exactly as advertised. I have not touched the firmware yet, as I have had no broadcast flag problems. I don't plan on needing any future support...

But I have moved on to recording mostly with the EyeTV 500 and playing back mostly via the AVLP2(when it works). I fall back on the T165 when I have a stream that will not play on the AVLP2...or I want to record 2 shows at once...

Zach

Unfortunately, FireWire seems to be a feature that TV manufacturers are dropping from their newer models, even at the high end.
I don't know enough about this to see where the firewire trend is going, but I'm happy that I found something that works for me. I think it makes perfect sense for the TV to do the 'heavy lifting' and decode the TS itself. Perhaps in the future, more TVs will have UPnP capabilities directly onboard, and an RJ45 jack. But until then, firewire is more than sufficient for my purposes.

None of the Sony flat panels I am considering have i.Link.
Just out of curiosity, how many of the TVs that you're considering have an onboard digital tuner, as opposed to just the ability to display HD content? (eg HD-capable vs HD-ready)

The problem is overscan. TVs will never make good computer monitors as long as the upper and lower segments get chopped off. While this may not impact widescreen movie playback much, it certainly makes working on a computer difficult when you can't see any of the menu bar.

Huh?!?!

http://www.unithom.com/avstuff/no_overscan_here.jpg
(image is 2272 x 1704 pixels)

I have to say thanks to avramd who was a big help with finding the proper resolution settings for this TV (which is an LCD and in dot-for-dot mode, 1360 x 768).

One wonders what all Mr. Jobs' obfuscation regarding the lack of a market for a digital media hub is about when he refuses to work with a strong Mac supporter like ElGato. It's hard to avoid speculating what that motivation might be.
Well, if by 'refuses to work with' you mean, 'refuses to make MPEG decoding features of the GPU hardware publicly available to third-party programmers via APIs,' then Apple is essentially refusing to work with *anybody*. But I have no idea whether this is strategic ("By not releasing this, we'll always have the edge!") or legal (eg they licensed the technology ONLY for use with their DVD player... but if I paid $30 for the MPEG2 codec, why can't my third party software take advantage of that?) or political (???). I've just made an inquiry of ATI to ask them whether any support is available directly, as well. We'll see what they say. ;)

Mac Mini hints at better things to come in the "the year of high definition"… maybe.
Yeah. If there is indeed an HTPC-oriented 'v2' of the Mac mini with bigger and better feature set, optical out, any kind of T*Vo like abilities built in, etc. then I'll see how it stacks up to the abilities of the EyeTV product line. If I think it'll expand my abilities without restricting any of the current abilities, I'll sell the current Mac mini and get the new model.

But until then, I think ElGato is doing a fine job (on the EyeTV product line anyway, skip the EyeHome) and it looks like they're heading in a promising direction with the EyeConnect software as well.

Zmatzkin, Does your T-165 run as hot as others have written? I wonder if the T-165 might still be a reaonable option for someone who ONLY wants to do TS output, not audio, DIVX, photos or anything else.

I would have thought an EyeTV 500 type receiver with TS playback would have broader interest than an input-only device. Perhaps low price & complexity were the deciding factors for the current design. "Build the receiver and let people figure out how they want to play stuff back."

... which brings me to my previous point: if you're going to mess around with vdVHS to play TS streams on a TV (notwithstanding Mac MIni's TV/DVI output), then why not use the T-165 or LST-3410 for reception too?

I seem to be missing an important piece of the puzzle. Is EyeTV 500 really that much more convenient than setting software timers to start/stop vdVHS recordings via your T-165? (My guess is your answer is 'yes.') I can appreciate that leaving your T-165 on all the time would shorten its lifespan and waste a lot of power versus EyeTV's bus-powered design.

Apparently I am talking myself into buying an EyeTV 500 sooner than later. Thanks to everyone for chalking the path through this HTPC maze.

---------

EDIT: Responding to Unithom's latest post... Thanks for the reference to avramd's thread. Very technical but interesting:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=500389

Are you still getting getting 1080i playback without dropped frames, as you wrote on 2-9-05? How reliably does your firewire-to-Sharp connection work now? Did you get your DVI 'jumping DisplayConfigX settings' problem sorted out? I'm just so curious.

I was looking at Sony's KDE-42XBR950 plasma & KDL-32XBR950 LCD. Both have a fairly good pictures from their built-in tuners... not Faroudja quality but ok for an all-in-one design. Apparently Sony's DVI port has similar issues as Sharp's. I have lots more reading to do before I buy a HD display. I prefer to find one with good scaling and connectivity. It's a daunting task.

Maybe following the path others have taken makes more sense than trying to do HTPC on a Sony. It sounds like you finally hit the sweet spot with your Mac --> Sharp LC-37GD4U at its native resolution, if I am reading your previous post correctly.

Originally posted by MacHound
Zmatzkin, Does your T-165 run as hot as others have written? I wonder if the T-165 might still be a reaonable option for someone who ONLY wants to do TS output, not audio, DIVX, photos or anything else.

It may be. I've had no problems with my T165, and did try it with VirtualDVHS once.

Originally posted by MacHound
I would have thought an EyeTV 500 type receiver with TS playback would have broader interest than an input-only device. Perhaps low price & complexity were the deciding factors for the current design. "Build the receiver and let people figure out how they want to play stuff back."

... which brings me to my previous point: if you're going to mess around with vdVHS to play TS streams on a TV (notwithstanding Mac MIni's TV/DVI output), then why not use the T-165 or LST-3410 for reception too?

I seem to be missing an important piece of the puzzle. Is EyeTV 500 really that much more convenient than setting software timers to start/stop vdVHS recordings via your T-165? (My guess is your answer is 'yes.') I can appreciate that leaving your T-165 on all the time would shorten its lifespan and waste a lot of power versus EyeTV's bus-powered design.

Actually it is much more convenient than a T165. The T165 has only 6 spots for timers, and it also has the 'bug' that it gets it's time over PSIP--I dread the months after a time change when I have to juggle the timer settings. Along with the 5-10 minute offsets of the various stations.

And, the eyeTV does stream over Firewire. My JVC 30k sees the eyeTV, and I can tune to the eyeTV, if the eyeTV is tuned to a channel. But, the stream doesn't appear very stable, I had drop-outs when playing around, I'll need to record and see what happens.

Originally posted by gaderson

And, the eyeTV does stream over Firewire. My JVC 30k sees the eyeTV, and I can tune to the eyeTV, if the eyeTV is tuned to a channel. But, the stream doesn't appear very stable, I had drop-outs when playing around, I'll need to record and see what happens.
Wait, are you saying the feature request I made of ElGato is already implemented, somehow? e.g. does the EyeTV *software* allow you to stream previously recorded program content, from disk, to the firewire bus, a la vdVHS playback? If so, HOW?

Or do you just mean that during the course of initially recording a program, the EyeTV 500 *hardware* sends the MPEG stream it's tuning down the firewire bus to the computer (and presumably other peripherals such as yours) for recording to disk / display?

I suspect the latter but wish strongly for the former.

Originally posted by unithom
Wait, are you saying the feature request I made of ElGato is already implemented, somehow? e.g. does the EyeTV *software* allow you to stream previously recorded program content, from disk, to the firewire bus, a la vdVHS playback? If so, HOW?

Or do you just mean that during the course of initially recording a program, the EyeTV 500 *hardware* sends the MPEG stream it's tuning down the firewire bus to the computer (and presumably other peripherals such as yours) for recording to disk / display?

I suspect the latter but wish strongly for the former.

It's the latter. The 500 streams what channel it's tuned to, and my JVC 30k can pick up the stream. Since playing off the hard drive is all software I'm not sure how feasible your request is. I though others have just renamed the extension and been able to stream with the various DVHS apps.

Originally posted by gaderson
It's the latter. The 500 streams what channel it's tuned to, and my JVC 30k can pick up the stream. Since playing off the hard drive is all software I'm not sure how feasible your request is. I though others have just renamed the extension and been able to stream with the various DVHS apps.

GADERSON, Please post a diagram of how you have your firewire connected to computer & TV. Are you splitting the FW signal to your computer & TV with a Firewire hub? What else do you have in the FW chain? Can you connect the EyeTV 500 directly to a TV via FW and use it as your main tuner?

A $300 HDTV tuner that hooks up to a computer when you want it to record, but which works fine for channel surfing without the computer, might have broad appeal. Somehow there's got to be a catch.

If I understand unithom's request, he wants ElGato to leverage Apple's Virtual dVHS software API's in an easy-to-use interface. It's a nice idea, but who can say if Apple will allow it?

UNITHOM, if it's not too much trouble, please post your progress in getting your Sharp screen working the way you want. In the 'Custom Resolution settings for Mac -> Sharp 37 LCD' thread you wrote (on 2-16-05) "I'm so frustrated at this point...." In response, I asked:

Are you still getting getting 1080i playback without dropped frames, as you wrote on 2-9-05? How reliably does your firewire-to-Sharp connection work now? Did you get your DVI 'jumping DisplayConfigX settings' problem sorted out? I'm just so curious.

Sorry to be a pest, but I'm trying to decide how much time to budget in looking at Sharp's 37 inch screens. A follow-up post would be greatly appreciated.

A core group of people having success can get this Mac-HTPC bird off the ground.

If I understand unithom's request, he wants ElGato to leverage Apple's Virtual dVHS software API's in an easy-to-use interface. It's a nice idea, but who can say if Apple will allow it?
I don't see why not. They are public APIs, Apple wrote those and the sample application to encourage developers to use those APIs...

Kevin

Originally posted by MacHound
UNITHOM, if it's not too much trouble, please post your progress in getting your Sharp screen working the way you want.

Once again, the TV is the Sharp LC-37GD6U and the setup is here, though it needs a little updating: http://www.unithom.com/avstuff/

First of all, the TV itself is great. I haven't seen any bad pixels. I *may* have seen some of this 'pixel rain' others have mentioned (solid color banding in certain gradient threshholds / areas of contrast), but not enough to have cared to go seriously looking for it, determine my firmware version, etc. I got the three year warranty, so I've got time... and there is a known fix, free of charge, they send a guy out.

The only complaint I've had so far was about the lack of discrete input IR codes, but the guy at the AV shop showed me a trick there concerning the 'channel up' button before hitting the Input button a certain number of times (when programming macros on my Home Theater Master MX-500 remote.) In the near future, I hope to be using the serial port to control this anyway.

avramd posted a better list of resolution settings which, when I used them, gave me a nice clear picture with little to no fuzz, and it worked the first time (instead of rebooting multiple times in frustration.)

Also, the firewire issue was a simple one to solve, it was just a matter of switching the order in which the firewire was plugged in vs. when to launch the software (before or after). Plus it seems like after the TV 'saw' the i.Link device on the bus the first time (actually the Virtual DVHS app), it remembered it was there and it became easier to do subsequent playback instead of getting the 'no i.Link device attached' message.

The Virtual DVHS software, while not the most elegant thing out there, works just fine. And there is a small community of users that have been making modifications and improvements to it, helper apps, etc. because it's open source and redistributable in the license. The author of the app has even offered comments and helpful suggestions on the AVS forum thread about Firewire Recording from the Mac (remember, most Apple released apps are usually faceless, no authors mentioned.)

As gaderson mentioned, it IS just as simple as changing the file extension of the recording -- once you know which recording it is, and you've set the proper 'media folder' of the vdVHS app, and you don't accidentally forget and click on the file in column view, etc. Because ElGato doesn't really expect the user to go fishing around too much inside of their media library folder, its subfolders are not nearly as nicely labeled as, say, those of iTunes. Instead, they're really long hex strings. My request for ElGato to roll the vdVHS functionality into EyeTV was simply one of convenience. But it doesn't take that much longer to find and view something, once you've had some practice. And I've had no problems viewing my recordings on the TV, even after using EyeTV software to edit out the commercials.

re: your question about 1080i and dropped frames, I don't think I've viewed enough of my 1080 recordings yet. I know there have been some conflicting reports, but there are a LOT of variables involved, including but not limited to:

* Which tool was used to perform the analysis, or if it was just done by eye
* The bandwidth of the clip in question, and whether the same clip (like the LOTR one) is being used across the board
* Making sure nothing else was running on the machine, no third party enhancers, etc.
* Which machine the user has (eg the 1.25 vs 1.42 mini, or exactly *which* 'dual G5' someone has, what graphics card or chipset they are using, how much RAM is installed, disk RPMs, 2.5" vs 3.5", etc.)
* Whether the media being played back was on the same drive as the /tmp directory (where the transport stream is being decoded) or on a separate HD (an ElGato programmer said that this could yield a slight performance increase; it only makes sense.)
* How much rapid shuttling around you're doing when you might see dropped frames, vs. watching the program straight through (if it can cache ahead), etc, etc.

Anyway, I returned the borrowed 1.25 mini to the friend I borrowed it from, and my 1.42 arrives sometime next week. Once I get it, I'll try and provide some feedback about the pros and cons of playing back HD content from within EyeTV vs. streaming it to the TV via FW.

If you've been following the comments about the M-Audio Sonica Theater USB sound output device, then you're already aware that this method for passing surround is far from perfect, but is one of the few products that actually DOES register with the system as a 'digital audio output device' to pass 5.1 and DTS. An M-Audio programmer I spoke to claims that some newer, far more kick-butt products are in the pipe right now, but for the moment... it can take some very painful voodoo to get it working right.

So that, for example, is one reason *not* to watch something on the computer's screen, if the show has surround and I don't have 20 minutes to mess with the setup to make it work. Similarly, the whole 'Apple forces ElGato to decode the transport stream in software, taxing the CPU' is another strike against that method, whether the CPU is actually capable of handling the job itself or not, etc etc.

Sorry I can't be more helpful right now... stay tuned.

Anyway, I returned the borrowed 1.25 mini to the friend I borrowed it from, and my 1.42 arrives sometime next week. Once I get it, I'll try and provide some feedback about the pros and cons of playing back HD content from within EyeTV vs. streaming it to the TV via FW.

Thanks in advance for the follow-up.

re: your question about 1080i and dropped frames, I don't think I've viewed enough of my 1080 recordings yet. I know there have been some conflicting reports, but there are a LOT of variables involved

I tried the LOTR segment on my 17 inch 1.33GHz PowerBook G4, reading the 1080i file from my internal HD and also from my LaCie Big Disk Extreme. Both tests were done immediately after a hard boot with no other programs running in the background. I saw no difference in the dropped frames either way. The sound was perfect but only every third video frame played. Granted, most HD content is not 1080i, and LOTR may have a higher bitrate than some 1080i content, but this test showed that my PowerBook is not up to the task of HTPC playback except possibly via FireWire / vdVHS. I assume the Mini isn't that much faster than my 16 month old PowerBook.

Also, the firewire issue was a simple one to solve, it was just a matter of switching the order in which the firewire was plugged in vs. when to launch the software (before or after). Plus it seems like after the TV 'saw' the i.Link device on the bus the first time (actually the Virtual DVHS app), it remembered it was there and it became easier to do subsequent playback instead of getting the 'no i.Link device attached' message.

So you must unplug & plug your FW cable back in each time you turn on your TV, or did I misunderstand?

Originally posted by MacHound
GADERSON, Please post a diagram of how you have your firewire connected to computer & TV. Are you splitting the FW signal to your computer & TV with a Firewire hub? What else do you have in the FW chain? Can you connect the EyeTV 500 directly to a TV via FW and use it as your main tuner?


I have the eyeTV 500 hooked up to my G4 MDD with a 6-pin to 6-pin in one FW port, and a second 6-pin to 4-pin cable to my JVC 30k to the otherG4's port. It won't really do what you want, since it needs the software on the Mac to tune to a channel.

Originally posted by MacHound
A $300 HDTV tuner that hooks up to a computer when you want it to record, but which works fine for channel surfing without the computer, might have broad appeal. Somehow there's got to be a catch.

Well you can channel surf, but, you'd still need a Mac to work the hardware, and something to decode the ts. So, there is a catch, it's much more expensive than one of the stand alone STB with firewire, which are becoming more and more rare, so if you find a T165 at a good price, get it! The M*AA has done an excellent job in seemingly pressuring all makers of tuners with firewire out (ok may not cable...yet) to go out of production. (According to an old post they made sure that Panasonic stopped making their tuner/DVHS set, since it actually worked!)

Originally posted by MacHound
If I understand unithom's request, he wants ElGato to leverage Apple's Virtual dVHS software API's in an easy-to-use interface. It's a nice idea, but who can say if Apple will allow it?

That shouldn't be a problem since they've realeased the stuff in the SDKs (there are already a few projects modding VirtualDVHS). The SF-Bay Area HDTV Users Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HDTV-in-SFbay) had one of its first get-togethers at Apple, and the DVHS-aware FW and FCP guys were there, and they noted working with other companies so that they could interface through FW/DVHS, but, indicated that they wouldn't work on anything themselves. This was very soon after JVC released their HD camcorder, and it was not easy to get the footage to a Mac, but, they had it streaming over FW to an older Sony HDTV, along with some (Discovery?) clips streaming off a Powerbook.

Thanks, Erik. Going with an HD display that has i.Link / Firewire inputs seems to obviate the need for an external TS decoder to a large extent. That probably explains why T165's are going for $200 on Ebay.

UNITHOM, I've been looking at the 37 versus 45 inch Sharp displays. If the 45 inch display had true 1080p input that would make it an easy decision but, unfortunately, Sharp decided to include only 1080i source. Perhaps the 37 inch screens remain a viable alternative given their much lower price.

How well does Sharp's automatic i.Link switching feature work on your 37 inch display? Do you have any trouble reestablishing contact with your screen, as JeanMarc described in another thread?

Originally posted by jeanmarc
The other minus is a Mac issue, which is the purpose of another thread I started: when the Mac looses contact with the display if not in sleep mode, it does not reconnect once the contact is reestablished. I am sure there is a fix. Please help!

Originally posted by MacHound
How well does Sharp's automatic i.Link switching feature work on your 37 inch display? Do you have any trouble reestablishing contact with your screen, as JeanMarc described in another thread?

I have had no problems with playing back i.Link content, it easily switched to the new source.

However, I did have an issue when changing resolutions (on the borrowed mini).
The symptoms of my issue were, I had it all set up with a digital signal source from the DVI connection, then I switched away to another source and when I switched back, the TV would only see the analog portion of the signal on the DVI.

My hope is that once my new mini arrives, I will use the newer settings posted by avramd and avoid this problem. I'll keep you posted.

Unithom, thanks for the info. And, responding to another discussion we had a few days ago:

Originally posted by unithom on 3-2-2005
For folks not wanting/able to use their TV as a monitor for their (primary) Mac, I agree that an HD-capable STB supporting TS would be handy.... Eventually, the hope is that Apple will open up hardware-based MPEG decoding, at which point machines with even lower CPU speeds could handle HD content on-screen. (And again, that screen could be a TV with the appropriate inputs.) But I'm not holding my breath.

We've been looking at this issue with consumer's eyes. From ElGato's perspective, why should ElGato be responsible for figuring out and supporting all the various video cards Apple selected for its computers when Apple itself doesn't provide that support? If any program should be able to play MPEG2 transport streams optimized to Apple's hardware, shouldn't QuickTime be the program to do it?

EyeTV software should be able to send its TS to QuickTime so QT can figure out whether a Mac's NVIDIA or ATI card can do the TS decoding. Perhaps Apple views the situation differently, though: if we let current G4's decode TS at full frame rates then consumers will be less likely to upgrade to a G5. (I hope I'm wrong, because there is a really nice thread in these forums discussing the relative merits of sticking with a Mac versus building a Windows based HTPC.)

Does anybody know one way or the other if QuickTime 7 will facilitate hardware TS decoding?

Originally posted by MacHound
Does anybody know one way or the other if QuickTime 7 will facilitate hardware TS decoding?

Well, when I 'harassed' the guy at the "Tiger, QT 7, etc." booth at MacWorld, it think 'reading between the lines' that QT would better handle HD MPEG streams. Whether transport streams...I've been asking at the last three MacWorlds and mostly got the run-around. But, with H.264 and other stuff it appeared that QT would be more accommodating to us. Hopefully enough of us have been asking so they'll soon get the clue! (But, most of this seemed to indicate software codecs, not hardware.)

The first time I started asking around at MacWorld about working with TS I got no where. Most were quite happy to show me ways to master HD, to create content, but, once it goes to broadcast they were no longer helpful. Next were the Huris and such to work with the streams from the JVC HD camcorder. All along the QT people--at least the ones there--did know of TS, but, wouldn't commit to anything. The last one they seemed to even be thinking of adding support.

Check the (Friday 3/11) news page on Xlr8yourmac (http://www.xlr8yourmac.com), someone has created a program with many interesting features:


Automated infrared cable box/satellite control using the ZephIR or
IRTrans.
Get EyeTV app to see all your archive locations at once, even if they're on different drives--- merge all scheduled programs onto the current archive, and access any recording from any drive for all EyeTV functions.
Manage moving media and programs between archives-- access all your
archives from a central location.
Select multiple programs to export at once (compared to the current
on-at-a-time method).
Export of audio-only files (eg. AIFF export, export to iTunes).
Export information from all or selected programs/recordings as a
tab-delimited text file, for the purpose of label creating, or importing
into a database.
Set compression rates individually per program.
Creating a new program / viewing and changing program data can be done with a drawer that is continuously visible (rather than EyeTV's method of opening a window that sits on top of your main window).
View more information in List view than current EyeTV app, with sortable & re-arrangeable columns.
Copy and paste data from the list view.
Customizable toolbar.
Different window views for recordings & programs, each tailored for the kind of info you want to keep track of for each one -- and view handles let you allot more screen space to one or the other depending on what you're doing.

Fix dates of repeating programs so they actually show up in order they will be taped (current EyeTV app sorts them based on when the first
occurrence was recorded, rather than what is coming up next).
View data rates & sizes of recordings in List view.
Select a number of recordings and the app will tell you the sum of the sizes in GB (for example, for seeing what will fit on a DVD).
Playlists/categories for grouping types of programs, favorites, etc.
More data functions, like viewing within date range, etc.
Advanced searching capabilities, with the ability to save searches.
Bigger movie thumbnail than EyeTV, with Quicktime play controls and
ability to set poster frame (only available for non-Mpeg2, because of a
limitation in Quicktime).
Indicate channel for S-Video/composite recordings (For digital cable box or satellite, to remember what channel to set the cable box to).
Export program data to iCal.
Channel change reminders in iCal (for cable box / satellite owners who donít have infrared control)
Set chapter points in DVD Studio Pro exports (current app only exports chapter markers to Toast for some reason).
Export to Mpeg2Works.
Reveal recording file in Finder (jump to the actual Mpeg file).
Open recording with Quicktime Player (for non-Mpeg2) or VLC.
Create aliases to Mpeg files with descriptive file names.

Create backup of and/or rebuild channel description file (currently you have to manually re-enter station names if your preferences are lost for any reason).
Export data to Filemaker
Export to separate movie library program I'm building, which prints DVD labels, has IMDB lookup, many other functions.

He's looking for beta testers:
Graham Jones
info(at)vidcan.com"

Pardon my crosspost:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=5338620#post5338620

On the heels of the feature list / beta tester request above, I got excited about one feature in particular:

Create aliases to Mpeg files with descriptive file names.

I did some testing with Virtual Digital VHS (vdVHS). While it does not support aliases, I made a feature request for softlinks instead, which do work with vdVHS. Also for the softlinks to have the ending .m2t on them so they'll work properly.

I made some changed to vdVHS so it would recognize new files as they were added (refresh button, etc) and added a menu with key equivalents, Play - P, Pause - H, Stop - S. This was so I could control playback via keyboard while i.Link playback had taken over my TV.

So instead of waiting for ElGato to add vdVHS support, I kind of went the other direction. More info and links in the post I mention above, including in the download link. Hope it's helpful.

Well, I joined the EyeTV 500 club. So far I'm impressed, but I'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of that annoying 24 hour religion channel. A simple "delete channel" button would be nice.

You can "inactivate" the channel. On the tuning page there is a more info or something like that option. At that point you can enter a name and/or inactivate the channel via a checkbox. This screws up your QAM numbering, but shouldn't do anything for OTA.

Originally posted by Joseph S
You can "inactivate" the channel. On the tuning page there is a more info or something like that option.

Thanks. Somehow I didn't see that checkbox until you pointed it out to me.

By-by televangelists! Don't come back tomorrow.

Multi tuner rocks!

Arrested Dev started after 7:30 and lasted until ?? DH started at 07:59 and the show ended at 09:01:30. Yet, I kept recording until 09:02:00 while Boston Legal started recording earlier at 09:00:00. Didn't miss the end of Arrested Dev, the start of Desperate Housewives, the end of Desperate Housewives, or the start of Boston Legal! :D

Too bad no 3rd tuner here to catch the trashy Spring Break shark show. ;)

Originally posted by Joseph S
You can "inactivate" the channel. On the tuning page there is a more info or something like that option. At that point you can enter a name and/or inactivate the channel via a checkbox. This screws up your QAM numbering, but shouldn't do anything for OTA.

You can also hold down the 'option' button and just click on the channel to 'deactivate' it. But, when far down the list it does a weird 'self-scroll' thing--keeps scrolling to put the one you deactivated to the bottom of the window.

please bear with my newbie questions, as i have only been in the Mac world for about 48 hours.

i'd really like to start using my new G5 for HDTV recording and archiving.....i am currently using 2 jvc dvhs decks paired up with comcast 6412 hd dvr's, but i am excited about the prospect of using something like Eyetv500 to edit out commercials, etc, with my g5 (it's the dual 2ghz).

so i have a few questions.....if i hook up my cable signal to the eyetv500, will i only be seeing the local HD stations and sd stations? are the movie channels still encrypted if you subscribe to them?

does the eyetv500 have the capability out outputting to a dvhs deck via firewire?

will downloaded HD content play on the eyetv500?

thanks
oleus

so i have a few questions.....if i hook up my cable signal to the eyetv500, will i only be seeing the local HD stations and sd stations? are the movie channels still encrypted if you subscribe to them?
You will only get QAM stations that are not encrypted with 5c. This usually includes local OTA HD stations, local SD digital stations, plus a few cable promo stations. I've heard good reports on Comcast users not having 5c encryption and being able to record them. Check local thread. If you can do this via firewire, you should be able to do this via EyeTV.

does the eyetv500 have the capability out outputting to a dvhs deck via firewire?
No, virtual DVHS or VLC may be able to accomplish this task with eyetv files though. Don't own a DVHS and don't plan on it unless the Sox opening game with ceremony is on InHD or ESPNHD. Hoping to hold out for Bluray or cablecard Tivo. Or moving to a place with satellite line of sight.

will downloaded HD content play on the eyetv500?
Yes. However, you will have to concat .00x files to a single file with something like split&concat.app.

hmm...since i am doing a good deal of dvhs archiving already with my hd dvr cable boxes, maybe Eyetv500 isn't really what i'm looking for. especially if it's only going to be able to record HD from the local OTA channels.

i guess what i'm really looking for (downloading HD episodes of tv shows i've missed over the last couple of years) can't really be discussed here.

Originally posted by oleus
hmm...since i am doing a good deal of dvhs archiving already with my hd dvr cable boxes, maybe Eyetv500 isn't really what i'm looking for. especially if it's only going to be able to record HD from the local OTA channels.

This isn't really my area, but the stuff you've already recorded to your DVHS decks, is that in HD? If so, you should be able to transfer it from the DVHS deck to the G5, edit out the commercials and then transfer it back. There's an 80-zillion page thread here on using that technique with various Firewire-based cable boxes and DVHS decks.

It sounds to me like that's what you want to do rather than getting an EyeTV 500. I love my EyeTV 500 for OTA recording, but it seems like the cable systems limit their content too much for it to be useful in that scenario.

Dennis

ultimate -

what you descibed is exactly what i am interested in doing (the material on the dvhs tapes i have and want to edit from are in HD), i just don't have any sort of HD-ingesting/editing/outputting software for my new mac and am doing my research to make sure i know what to install befoe doing so.

if anyone here has any suggestions for me it would be much appreciated.

There is a virtual VHS software that Apple released as a demonstration. You have to register (for free) as a developer, then you can download it.

You might also look at MpegStreamClip available here: http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/mpegstreamclip.html

-Sean

Originally posted by oleus
ultimate -

what you descibed is exactly what i am interested in doing (the material on the dvhs tapes i have and want to edit from are in HD), i just don't have any sort of HD-ingesting/editing/outputting software for my new mac and am doing my research to make sure i know what to install befoe doing so.

if anyone here has any suggestions for me it would be much appreciated.

You can use DVHSCap or VirtualDVHS to transfer from DVHS tape to the Mac, from the Firewire SDK from the Apple Developers web page. Then, you can use the EyeTV software to edit. This should work provided that there are no 5C restrictions on the tape such as copy once.

hey guys thanks for the info

So can EyeTV be used for generic MPEG playback and/or editing? I downloaded some HDTV clips from elsewhere and have had no luck importing them into EyeTV (1.7.1) using the Control "trick". I understand that this would be unsupported, but I haven't had a lot of luck with MPEGstreamclip and VLC saps a lot of processor power.... I'm interested in swapping out my cable box for one with a Firewire port and decent editing/playback capability is the only thing holding me back.

Please excuse my novice status at all of this, but I really need your expertise.

I have a G5 and a 30" cinema display. I purchased the EyeTV 500 for the sole purpose of watching live cable TV on the display and later to use for recording, etc.

I had Comcast out to install an HDTV box and activate HDTV service on a regular TV elsewhere in the house. After the tech left, I ran the set up assistant on the Mac and viola! It worked perfectly. The remote worked and the channel numbers were the same as the other TVs in the house. The next day it was no longer working. Had Comcast out again - this tech said I needed an amplifier. Fine, he installed the amp and I ran the set up again. Only this time, it's not the same. I get about 40 TV channels and 40 music stations. All of the channels start with an "SOP Service" number and are not the same channel numbers as the other TVs in the house.

In the midst of all of this, I got ahold of a supervisor at Comcast, who gave me his direct office number. I have since called twice and left messages, but he hasn't returned my phone calls.

My terribly uneducated guess is that the EyeTV 500 needs to be pinged since it worked perfectly at one point shortly after activation.

FWIW, I have learned that my Comcast service outputs a 256 QAM.

Any advice y'all have would be greatly appreciated!

Even if EyeTV 1.7.1 + Toast 6.0.9 support the export and burning of HD material, it's not very efficient.

I took two episodes of Lost (both in HD) and selected each in turn, 'Burn to DVD.' This created a quicktime file at 1280 x 720. Bringing two of these into Toast and clicking Burn took FOREVER.

First, it said 'preparing' for about an hour or two. Then it had to encode each episode. All in all the entire process took about eight hours on a 1.8 Ghz iMac G5 (on 'Highest' performance setting).

Is this realistic?

I'm following the other thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5446352#post5446352) (about archiving using iLife 05) hoping that it will yield a faster method, but haven't had any replies to my latest questions yet.

This brings up a question I have for the more experienced users here.

I have been using MPEG2 Works to produce compliant files from my Replay for burning directly to DVD and SVCD (without re-encoding) with much success, has anyone tried this excellent package with files from the 500?

I have a 500 on the way and haven't read anyone mentioning it here or the burning thread.

I just ordered and downloaded MPEG2 Works 4. From the Read Me file, it says,

Batch conversion, export2QT is incorporated now in the main appz, re-written DVD Converter [now VOB converter - PAL<>NTSC conversion of VOBs], advanced DVD authoring and MPEG2 multiplexing, much more efficient then the old one [author DVDs from EyeTV/ReplayTV/WinFastTV2000XP/Instant DVD Recorder MPEG2 files without re-conversion and burn them from Finder /eliminates the needs of separate burning and authoring application/], the only solution on a Mac to multiplex and author DTS audio tracks with .m2v, pop up help windows are now added in English for all levels of users to plainly understand.

So, I'm pretty excited about that! I'll let you know how it works out once I've given it a try.

I hate to be a stick in the mud but on the mpeg2 works 4 web site it says:

- ReplayTV MPEG's conversion to DVD/SVCD ready MPEG2 movies [does NOT work with EyeTV HDTV files]

Heh. D'OH!

Oh well.

Originally posted by unithom
Even if EyeTV 1.7.1 + Toast 6.0.9 support the export and burning of HD material, it's not very efficient.

I took two episodes of Lost (both in HD) and selected each in turn, 'Burn to DVD.' This created a quicktime file at 1280 x 720. Bringing two of these into Toast and clicking Burn took FOREVER.

First, it said 'preparing' for about an hour or two. Then it had to encode each episode. All in all the entire process took about eight hours on a 1.8 Ghz iMac G5 (on 'Highest' performance setting).

Is this realistic?

unithom,

Sorry, I can't answer your question, but reading your post has me wondering something. Hope you don't mind the question. Can these "HD DVD's" (not literally HD DVDs) you seem to have created (if I am understanding you correctly) be played by a standard DVD player? In particular, will the Apple DVD Player play them? Because if it can, it would be doing so with the aid of the video hardware. For your G5, this may not be such a major plus. And certainly your process is no efficient way to play black HD. But what it would do, for us "lesser" mac owners is allow a glimpse, first hand, of what hardware accelerated HD playback looks like on our machines.

My gut tells me that these DVDs you've created are probably using some MPEG4 Quicktime encoding rather than MPEG2 and so the answer to my question is probably "no". But I had to ask anyway.

Thanks.

Erm, nope. This is still straight-up MPEG2, standard DVD technology. And if you play ANY DVD on a Mac, it's using Apple's proprietary access to the GPU on the video card.

I think that the excessive length of the conversion process was how long it took for the computer to decode, scale down, and re-encode the video, and remux the video and audio together. In other words, to throw away enough info to get the picture down to 640 x 480 and add black bars top and bottom. When I view stuff like that on my DVD player (which does not upconvert), and change the view mode on my TV to further 'zoom in' so the image will fill the screen, it looks like total crap compared to the original, crisp resolution.

I haven't tried bringing the HD-sized video (@ 1280 x 720) into DVD Studio Pro 3 (which I have access to at work), but even if I were successful in doing so, it wouldn't be a realistic option for most Mac HTPC enthusiasts here... the cost is pretty prohibitive.

I probably don't have all the details right, but my understanding of the 'widescreen' authoring process (on a Mac, at least) involves setting a flag on your quicktime movie that signifies the 'anamorphic' screen resolution, e.g. the pixels are not square, but rectangular. In other words, you pack the same amount of information into a 640 x 480 picture, but *something* (not sure if it's the DVD player or the display device) sees that the flag bit is set and stretches the picture. Or, your eyes see it and you manually adjust the view mode on your HD TV to stretch the picture, whatever. I know that when you author a 'widescreen' version of your content in DVD Studio Pro, there's options for creating two versions of the menus, and even templates for apps like Photoshop so you can see that your graphics look correct. (eg so circles don't look like ovals, etc.)

Right now, the DVD media is behind the curve; content producers (networks, production companies, etc.) are filming directly to digital media with HD resolutions, 720p or 1080i, and broadcasters (OTA, cable, satellite) are all capable of delivering it to the home. The customer is capable of recording it (DVHS, EyeTV 500, HD PVR/TiVo/etc) to play back later... all of this with NO discernable quality loss.

And yet the digital video disc, with its currently limited media capacities of 4.7 / 9.4 GB is currently unable to distribute any of this content. Even if you were able to burn the HD content directly to disc, with this limited run time in mind, I don't think any DVD players currently exist that could play it back. Or that if they do, it's certainly nonstandard.

Until the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray spec war ends (and man, if Apple really does end up bundling blu-ray burners with the new G5's rumored to be coming very soon now... I sure hope blu-ray is the defining standard, industry-wide) then it won't really be realistic to expect to see any new players hitting the market. Or if they do, lots of confusion and consumer hesitation. (Remember Betamax vs VHS? DivX vs DVD? etc.)

Until that's all worked out, I don't know what else to do besides either down-rez the stuff I record, or keep buying more HD's.

unithom,

I think I misunderstood what you were doing. I thought you were burning true HD video to DVD. I understand now that you were downconverting it to a resolution that fits within the MPEG2 DVD standard, and then burning it.

Interesting you mention the possibility of importing HD video into DVD Studio Pro. In doing so, assuming it actually did the import correctly and everything went as hoped, I presume you would then end up with a Video_TS folder that Apple DVD Player could play from. I certainly agree this is an impractical way to archive and store HD video, but I would still be extremly curious to know this was even possible. Not that I am requesting you try it, but if you happen to try it, by all means let us know the results.

Incidentally, regarding the notion of putting HD material on a current (i.e. non HD) DVD, it could be done fairly resonably using Divx I believe. You could probably store over a couple hours. I don't know, however, if the few Divx capable DVD players on the market will play back HD Divx. But I suspect that at least some could. Of course, Divx compression is no doubt more lossy than something like MPEG Part-10 or WMV9. But at least you could put a whole movie on a disk.

Anyway, thanks for your thorough reply.

Originally posted by mkoesel
Interesting you mention the possibility of importing HD video into DVD Studio Pro. In doing so, assuming it actually did the import correctly and everything went as hoped, I presume you would then end up with a Video_TS folder that Apple DVD Player could play from. I certainly agree this is an impractical way to archive and store HD video, but I would still be extremely curious to know this was even possible. Not that I am requesting you try it, but if you happen to try it, by all means let us know the results.

In order to use the HD video recorded with an EyeTV 500 or even just a transport stream, you still have to go to an intermediate format, like the Apple Intermediate Codec, and then re-encode to a DVD-compliant MPEG-2 using DVD Studio Pro's built-in compressor. I've been able to use EyeTV to split the MPEG-2 into separate audio and video tracks, thus preserving the AC3 audio, but never able to get them back in sync using DVD Studio Pro.

In short, there's nothing gained by using DVD Studio Pro over iDVD 5. For my money, having done 40 DVDs from HD material in the last month or so, iDVD is a much faster application for creating these DVDs of down-res'ed HD content. It does seem to take a while longer, but "intelligently" encodes to MPEG-2 depending on how long a program is. An hour long HD program downrezed by iDVD will look as good as most commercial DVDs, but slightly worse than the original HD program. DVD Studio Pro might be slightly faster in encoding, but the quality seems better in iDVD. My one Toast-created movie of a basketball game didn't look as good as any of the one's I've saved using iDVD.

If you want to save the original HD program at its original quality, you have to split the file into multiple pieces and then save those data files to multiple DVDs. Alternatively, as someone noted, you can just keep buying hard drives until one of the HD DVD formats wins out. :)

Dennis

unithom, et al

MPEG 2 Works 4 does not directly handle eyeTV streams, but should work after you have run them through MPEG Streamclip. Got my 500 in yesterday so I will let you all know if I meet with any success using this combination. In theory it should allow us to avoid reencoding, but we all know how theory translates into practice with these processes.

I got an EyeTV 500 last week but to my disappointment it does not pick up any channels on my cable system. I thought it would pick up at least the local TV stations from the cable. I do get one digital channel on my antenna but I am near mountains and that is the only one I can receive.

So here's a stupid question. I don't have digital cable, I only have analog. I guess I assumed that the cable company broadcast the digital signals to everyone and the only difference is that the digital subscribers had a cable box to decode them. Am I wrong, so that if I sign up for digital cable (only about another $10/month) I might see some channels with the EyeTV?

Should I expect to see the local broadcast channels "in the clear" on the cable system, or is that something that the cable company (Cox) gets to decide about? Is it possible that they could encrypt everything just because they feel like it?

Thanks!

I believe the cable companies are mandated to provide the local channels in the clear but I'm not too familiar as I don't have cable access in my area (satellite and OTA only).

Channels rebroadcast in clear QAM are not covered under the "must carry rule" so many cable companies encrypt the crap out of them to make certain you are paying for their set-top box.

I see five channels on my carrier but they are pretty useless (they are not local stations). If you are in a challenging reception area you will need a good outdoor antenna or a cable provider who provides local stations in clear QAM.

Regards,

Michael

Originally posted by hdtripper
I got an EyeTV 500 last week but to my disappointment it does not pick up any channels on my cable system. I thought it would pick up at least the local TV stations from the cable. I do get one digital channel on my antenna but I am near mountains and that is the only one I can receive.

So here's a stupid question. I don't have digital cable, I only have analog. I guess I assumed that the cable company broadcast the digital signals to everyone and the only difference is that the digital subscribers had a cable box to decode them. Am I wrong, so that if I sign up for digital cable (only about another $10/month) I might see some channels with the EyeTV?

Should I expect to see the local broadcast channels "in the clear" on the cable system, or is that something that the cable company (Cox) gets to decide about? Is it possible that they could encrypt everything just because they feel like it?

Thanks!

In many major metro areas, the cable companies are providing the HD channels for local broadcast stations at no additional charge. They are typically unencrypted QAM and are not necessarily mapped to commonly-known channel numbers. Of course, all of this varies by cable company and by locality.

Unfortunately, the cable company CSRs typically do NOT understand this, and instead believe that you cannot receive any HD channels without a cable STB. I even wonder if they are deliberately trained to promote their revenue-generating offerings and play dumb to the unencrypted QAM.

Five cable co. employees told a friend of mine here that he could not get HD without a cable box. He now watches many local HD channels using only his HDTV internal QAM tuner. I mention this because it would be difficult to get an accurate answer to this question from any CSR types. I would check the Local Reception area in this forum to see if anyone else has experience in your area. If you find none, perhaps start a thread there and ask.

So, in theory you could receive unencrypted QAM if your cable company had those channels appearing on their cable plant that serves your site.

At first, I also thought that the clear QAM thing was the way to go; I have analog cable, but digital is broadcast on it as well, so I had hoped to see some of the local stations on there.

I got one ABC 'all news, all the time' channel, an NBC 'all weather all the time' forecast thing, a new local channel which (ironically!) shows old shows like the Lucy show, Honeymooners, etc. all day long (in glorious digital SD! Woot!) and I think Fox in actual HD. Which is nice, if you like Nascar. (Personally, I'll watch anything if it's in HD and surround.)

Bummer that you live in the mountains; you've used antennaweb.org already, right? The answer should always be: Get a Bigger Antenna! :D I started with a silver sensor from Zenith / Sears for $40, it pulled down maybe 65% on average in our 'urban jungle', I got fed up and put up an 8' terk 'red zone' rated antenna on the roof of the condo building. Now we get more channels, including PBS-HD with surround (Austin City Limits rocks) and 99% reception most of the time.

Or if that's just not an option, after you exhast trying to reach your local cable engineers, maybe think about exchanging the EyeTV 500 for a 200 for the time being, or just getting the 200 in addition; I have both and I use the 200 to record stuff when the 500 is tied up, or to record stuff like BSG which is only available on cable, Sci-Fi channel, etc. (Wish I had access to the HD version though!!!) I've used the EyeTV 200 to record analog cable for a while now and it does a pretty good job...

Good luck!

Well, I don't actually live "in the mountains", I live more "near the ocean". Santa Barbara is on a narrow strip of land a few miles wide between the coastline and a mountain range. We have one DTV station in town but it's not broadcasting HDTV yet, and the mountains pretty much keep us from getting anything else. Antennaweb.org doesn't show any other DT stations receivable (zip code 93110) so I don't think a bigger antenna would help.

Well, I can't complain, it's a nice place to live, just a little backwards in the HD department. Eventually I'll get a real HDTV set, we do have several HD channels on cable.

Originally posted by msayer
unithom, et al

MPEG 2 Works 4 does not directly handle eyeTV streams, but should work after you have run them through MPEG Streamclip. Got my 500 in yesterday so I will let you all know if I meet with any success using this combination. In theory it should allow us to avoid reencoding, but we all know how theory translates into practice with these processes.

Except Streamclip has problems handling TS with AC3 muxed in. I've read thought the 'iDVD' thread and think you can have Streamclip downres the video and split off the audio, and then Toast can match them back up--I think you'd need DVD Studio to sync up an AC3 stream.

Also trying to figure out how to get a DVHS-able TS from eyeTV. If you export 'primary stream' DVHS chokes--usually at the first edit point (I've tried to fix in Streamclip, but, no go). So, I usually have to dig through the Hex-labeled folders and copy the .mpg from the 'Archive' folder and rename the extension to m2t and then I can export to DVHS--what a pain. (Hopefully with Automator in Tiger I can make this easier--and the 3rd-party software in the works.)

You might want to double check that you plugged cable coax into the OTHER jack on your EyeTV 500.

I didn't realize I had to do this at first.

-Sean


Originally posted by hdtripper
I got an EyeTV 500 last week but to my disappointment it does not pick up any channels on my cable system. I thought it would pick up at least the local TV stations from the cable. I do get one digital channel on my antenna but I am near mountains and that is the only one I can receive.

So here's a stupid question. I don't have digital cable, I only have analog. I guess I assumed that the cable company broadcast the digital signals to everyone and the only difference is that the digital subscribers had a cable box to decode them. Am I wrong, so that if I sign up for digital cable (only about another $10/month) I might see some channels with the EyeTV?

Should I expect to see the local broadcast channels "in the clear" on the cable system, or is that something that the cable company (Cox) gets to decide about? Is it possible that they could encrypt everything just because they feel like it?

Thanks!

Thanks very much for the helpful comments. I am using the ant out jack, in fact it does find one channel, but it is blank. One time I got some bursts of audio on that channel that sounded like every radio station on the dial playing at once, so maybe that is a digital audio channel.

Does anyone know what the "exhaustive scan" option means for the Auto Tune feature? Aside from taking much longer, like an hour, it didn't find any more channels.

One other question, on my single OTA channel, even though the signal strength is steady at 85.8%-87.8%, and the signal quality is 100%, I get frequent video dropouts and glitches that cause the audio to be out of sync with the video, while watching live TV. I fix it by pressing the jump forward button which skips forward through a couple of seconds of video and syncs it up again with the audio. Do you think this is a problem with the transmitter? They are pretty new to DTV and have only been up for a few months, and are not broadcasting HDTV yet. I wonder if they are screwing up their signal. The strange thing is that it doesn't seem to happen at night, only during the day. But the signal strength is the same.

so...i downloaded and installed the Firewire pack from the apple site referenced earlier...also installed the VLC player....with this (and a 6pin-to-4pin firewire cable), i should be able to output video to one of my dvhs decks, right?

Originally posted by oleus
so...i downloaded and installed the Firewire pack from the apple site referenced earlier...also installed the VLC player....with this (and a 6pin-to-4pin firewire cable), i should be able to output video to one of my dvhs decks, right?

EyeTV is a better software player than VLC. DVHSCap or VirtualDVHS can be used to send a .m2t file to a DVHS deck.

so will dvhscap or virtualdvhs output AVI files via firewire, or do i have to convert it to m2t before proceeding? is that something i need eyetv for?

Originally posted by oleus
so will dvhscap or virtualdvhs output AVI files via firewire,

No

or do i have to convert it to m2t before proceeding?

Yes: mpeg2, transport stream (packetized)

is that something i need eyetv for?

I don't think you *need* it for that, but since it can 'open quicktime movie' with the control key held down trick, then maybe you could 're-record' the files (assuming quicktime can handle them in the first place) into EyeTV. Whose software is a free download, and whose hardware you wouldn't need for this operation (assuming it worked.)

Otherwise I'm not sure which utility to reccomend for the conversion, but I know there's a lot of them out there, and someone here will probably be able to recommend a good one.

so..if i download the EyeTV software, is there a need for VirtualDVHS or DVHSCapture?

ok guys...i downloaded the eyetv software. dvhscapture, and virtualdvhs. the dvhscapture is recognizing the DVHS deck so everything is good there. still having problems getting the hi-res AVI files to play in eyetv or virtualdvhs. from an earlier post it sounds like there is a "hold control" trick for this but i've fooled around with that and nothing is happening.

what exactly is the trick with converting an AVI file to something i can output with one of these tools to my dvhs deck?

thanks

I'm not sure if this is well-known (I couldn't find it searching these forums) but all playback of HDTV files via EyeTV on a G4 is displayed at quarter resolution (see email from Elgato support below).

Based on many threads and reviews, I was under the impression that you could output true 720p on a Mac mini (albeit by pegging the CPU and dropping a few frames). Apparently, this is not the case. However, the scaling must be pretty good for people to not have noticed.

I guess this doesn't affect those who watch via another device (Roku, Buffalo Linktheater, Windows) since the recorded file maintains full resolution.

Let's hope Apple has something up its sleeve for HDTV playback...

--------------------------

"Thank you for contacting Elgato Systems.

For EyeTV 500 HDTV content, only a Dual G5 can display it at full resolution and frame rate.

Anything less will display the video at quarter resolution, and that can't be turned off.

EyeTV 1.7.1 has slightly confusing reporting of this, if you use Command-I during playback.

The next version of EyeTV will indicate quarter-resolution with a "1/4" mark in the Command-I display. Your iBook or Mac mini would always display that 1/4, since the image will always be displayed in quarter resolution.

The original file recorded to your hard drive will always be in full resolution.

Expect the next version of the EyeTV software soon.

Nick Freeman
Customer Support

Elgato Systems LLC"

Interesting. And surprising. I, too, have a hard time believing that no G4 owner has noticed the lower quality of the video using El Gato software, especially since there are plenty of accounts of people who've compared it to VLC's playback on their machines.

In any case, my understanding has been that the big bottleneck for HD transport stream playback (and high resolution video playback in general) on current hardware was the decoding, rather than the act of blt-ing the decoded frames to the screen. Indeed, having experimented with playing HD AVI files encoded via DivX (downloaded from the DivX site) in Quicktime 6.x, I find my mini can play them back at full resolution, albeit with the ubiquitous disclaimer that "some frames are dropped on occasion".

I suppose El Gato's rationale was that by easing the amount of data the processor has to move to the video hardware, they free up some CPU cycles to allow decoding to happen at speeds more palatable to the human eye. This also probably explains the slight performance differences when playing back the same file in VLC and the EyeTV.

OK, so who is going to be the first to encode an EyeTV HDTV stream in H.264 and report the results? :-)

Anyone know how much horsepower is required to play back and H.264 quicktime file at HDTV resolution?

-Sean

Originally posted by mkoesel
Interesting. And surprising. I, too, have a hard time believing that no G4 owner has noticed the lower quality of the video using El Gato software, especially since there are plenty of accounts of people who've compared it to VLC's playback on their machines.

At least in my case I think it is because my 17" display can't display all the pixels in a 1080i stream anyway - so even scaled it still looks darn good. Also, I don't watch much Tv on my mac, I stream to a networked player...

Despite Apple's promise, it looks like my Tiger copy will not arrive until Monday...I am so bummed...

Zach

Originally posted by seank
OK, so who is going to be the first to encode an EyeTV HDTV stream in H.264 and report the results? :-)

Anyone know how much horsepower is required to play back and H.264 quicktime file at HDTV resolution?

-Sean

I am trying it on a 30 sec 1080i clip and it has been going for at least 30 minutes exporting....and its only half way through!!!! This is on a Dual 1Gig G4 with 1.75GB of ram.

Ooopppsss...the first test I did was at the default settings and that gave me a clip that was 32864/kbps...needless to say it would only play at 8fps...I am now testing one at about 4500/kbps to see if that makes a difference.

No go with the dual Gig G4...I get at the most 20fps on the 720p. Forget the 1080p.

Bummer...:(

While you're at it and I'm waiting for the Dual 2.3 to arrive...

I've got some 4:3 HDTV Upconverts to 1080i (but still 4:3 AR) from EyeTV of some CBS shows I'd like to convert to H.264 and burn to DVD to save some HD space for real HD programming. What's the best way to do this? Any way of eliminating the station's blue side bars for black ones in the process?

Originally posted by Joseph S
I've got some 4:3 HDTV Upconverts to 1080i (but still 4:3 AR) from EyeTV of some CBS shows I'd like to convert to H.264 and burn to DVD to save some HD space for real HD programming. What's the best way to do this? Any way of eliminating the station's blue side bars for black ones in the process?

I exported my 1080i 4x3 basketball game recordings from EyeTV to DVD by going to Apple Intermediate Codec on the video. You simply change the aspect ratio from Automatic to 4x3 under the video menu. Then, I set a custom size for the output, 640x480 in my case, but 1440x1080 also works and it crops the sides off. Then I created DVDs in iDVD for each the games that I was archiving.

To go to H.264, there are some pre-sets in the output, but I didn't look closely and haven't tested. Personally, if I wanted to save HD content and it were small enough, I just put the raw transport streams on a DVD. I've investigated splitting large files, so a two hour video could fit on several DVDs, but haven't taken the time yet to see if it actually works. There are unix command line utilities called split and concat that do just that.

Dennis

If the Dual Layers were cheap enough I would just burn them to DVD-R. Unfortunately, the bitrates put these at about 4.7GB per hour minus the commercials. I'll probably fool around with the intermediate codec considering these don't have DD 5.1 anyways. Will probably try to go intermediate to H.264 from that point when the new machine arrives. Thanks for the tip on dumping the blue bars.

Although I really want to pick up two more for perfect OTA PVR scheduling, I have to budget for the Dual G5 bill on its way.

Anyways, while looking to see if there was a BF update, I saw they now have listed Refurbished units for $249 and ecost.com has them new for $309 before the $50 rebate.

Amazon also has them for $319 before the rebate.

I ordered a second EyeTV 500 -- those refurb prices were just too hard to beat!

In other news, however, my Sonica Theater USB has kernel panicked three times under the new 1.6 driver and OS X 10.3.9. I am waiting to upgrade to Tiger until I hear some better news from folks about its performance.

However - when I wrote to them, I included what app was running at the time of the crash. And of course, it's always EyeTV since I leave the mini on 24/7 -- it's a dedicated HTPC, after all.

Their tech support wrote to me:


The EyeTV program crash cannot be tested without EyeTV's hardware and
software which we do not have. Try doing a disk permissions repair and
contact EyeTV's tech support for troubleshooting EyeTV.


(Repair permissions didn't help.)

I tried to explain to them that this is ridiculous, since you don't need the hardware to play back recorded programs, that the software is freely downloadable, the crashes have happened when I wasn't recording from the EyeTV, etc.

But whatever; I've asked ElGato whether they think it would be worthwhile to send M-Audio a loaner EyeTV 500 unit to use in their test setup.

Originally posted by unithom
I ordered a second EyeTV 500 -- those refurb prices were just too hard to beat!

In other news, however, my Sonica Theater USB has kernel panicked three times under the new 1.6 driver and OS X 10.3.9. I am waiting to upgrade to Tiger until I hear some better news from folks about its performance.

However - when I wrote to them, I included what app was running at the time of the crash. And of course, it's always EyeTV since I leave the mini on 24/7 -- it's a dedicated HTPC, after all.

Their tech support wrote to me:



(Repair permissions didn't help.)

I tried to explain to them that this is ridiculous, since you don't need the hardware to play back recorded programs, that the software is freely downloadable, the crashes have happened when I wasn't recording from the EyeTV, etc.

But whatever; I've asked ElGato whether they think it would be worthwhile to send M-Audio a loaner EyeTV 500 unit to use in their test setup.

Have them send on to DigiDesign too. I've noticed a few threads where people are having trouble with their audio when using the eyeTV hardware. I had lots of problems with audio with the previous DigiCoreAudio drivers--though no kernel panics. I just installed the updated drivers, and haven't seen much.
Tests: I've had the audio cut out on me several times, when a 'compact' finished in the background while I was editing another program. Otherwise it just seems to have crashed and when I try and watch a channel or a recorded show, it plays for a second or so and then freezes. Quitting the Digi app usually solves the problem, but, sometimes I have to restart eyeTV.

Originally posted by Joseph S
I saw they now have listed Refurbished units for $249 and ecost.com has them new for $309 before the $50 rebate.

eCost raised their price to $329 minus rebate. Provantage.com still has them for $305.92 - rebate, but I am waiting for an RMA issue to get sorted out on a DOA HD enclosure I bought from Provantage before placing any more orders with them.

On another subject, I am about to make a feature request to ElGato. One nice convenience would be for the EyeTV Programs window to show the number of megabytes a program takes up on your hard drive, as well as the video dimensions and bitrate. It shouldn't be that hard to program in. Yes, we can open the EyeTV folder and figure out which subfolder corresponds to a particular recording but that's not convenient.

Does anybody else think this would be useful information to have visible? Any other related requests for the Programs window?

I'm not sure how much time we have left to submit EyeTV 500 feature requests, but this one should apply equally well to the other EyeTV products too -- at least the request for display of file size info.

Heh, how about everything that Graham Jones is working on for his new app? ;)
I'm told he is still chugging away on it (companion for EyeTV).

Besides, the EyeTV app itself supports all of the devices, so I don't think anything on their software would 'just stop' being developed, even if there were some kind of issue about the broadcast flag affecting one of their devices.

Anyway, 1.7.2b28 is the latest I've seen but am told that v1.8 is right around the corner, in fact I thought it was supposed to be released this week (of which today and tomorrow are left...)

So maybe you should stay tuned, in case a new version will already incorporate some of your suggestions...


Thom Brooks
Chicago, IL

Originally posted by MacHound
On another subject, I am about to make a feature request to ElGato. One nice convenience would be for the EyeTV Programs window to show the number of megabytes a program takes up on your hard drive, as well as the video dimensions and bitrate. It shouldn't be that hard to program in. Yes, we can open the EyeTV folder and figure out which subfolder corresponds to a particular recording but that's not convenient.

Does anybody else think this would be useful information to have visible? Any other related requests for the Programs window?

Um, it's already there (as of v. 1.7). If you use the drop-down menu on the 'Programs' window and set it to '[by] Size' you get a listing of your programs by size. Though yes, it would be nice to see that info when it's in other listings. Also, it would be nice for it to guess at sizes so it can warn you when you're low on hard drive space. As for other infos, not sure there's enough room in the GUI for something like that.
Anybody try Spotlight to see if you can search for programs in the 'Archive'?

I am hoping for something like this in Programs window entries:

Nova
59 mins, 5/4/05 11:59 AM, 7.6 GB, 1080i wide, 17.6 Mb/s

Newshour with Jim Lehrer
59 mins, 5/5/05 6:29 PM, 1.8 GB, 480i std, 4.17 Mb/s

Broadcast flag dead for now. :D Keep the assembly line going at el Gato.

Originally posted by Joseph S
Broadcast flag dead for now. :D Keep the assembly line going at el Gato.

Hurray!

Does this mean we better get our (second, third, fourth) EyeTV 500 before ElGato pulls the plug on the $50 rebate?

I really think three tuners is the sweet spot but I'll probably end up with three on one and a fourth for travel. With three you can record two stations at the same time, using the third to pick up the gaps where networks like ABC and NBC screw around with start stop times.

With two you basically can only record (ABC or NBC) with Fox/CBS unless you want to babysit for the 30sec overruns/early starts on ABC/NBC.

Wow, I can definitely tell the changes from the downrez'd edition on the G4 to the new G5. On the G4 my ALCS recordings had flashing pixels in the NYY (blue) and BOS (red) fake LEDs in the "Fox Bar." This really shouldn't have been happening because they were a constant blue or red color. Playing back on the MyHD I didn't see this and I don't see them on the G5 either. Looks so much better on the 20" screen too.

Update:
I'm seeing QAM dropouts with Tiger and the new G5 running 1.7.1. Not sure if it's the firewire or the local cable. Considering cable is currently having issues with several channels while they try to shove 3 HD PPV stations on the feed my guess is it's them or a combo of the above. Doesn't seem to occur with the OTA stations.

On the other hand, I can have two live HD feeds playing back and my processors aren't getting above 60% even while at the same time doing a secure multipass wipe on an old 200GB HD. The Dual Dual Core is going to be one powerful machine when it gets here. This G5 is more than powerful enough for flawless HD playback.

Originally posted by Joseph S
I'm seeing QAM dropouts with Tiger and the new G5 running 1.7.1. Not sure if it's the firewire or the local cable.

I am curious how you have your three EyeTV 500's connected? Are they in a serial chain or do you use a FireWire hub? Do you have your external HD on the same FW bus as the 500's?

I'm trying to determine how best to connect my next 500 when it arrives. So far I've kept my EyeTV 500 on my FireWire-400 bus and my HD on FW-800. I know with DV recording this makes all the difference between smooth capture and dropped frames. I'm wondering if it's really necessary to separate source and destination devices to different busses with TS recording.

I use a firewire hub with each (only two so far) connected to a different port on the hub. Had the same setup with the G4 without issues under 10.3.9. If deep sleep is no longer an issue with Tiger I may just get a firewire 400/800 card as well.

Thanks for the info. I think I'll pick up a 6-port IO Gear FW-400 hub for $45. Daisy-chaining gets old fast.

FW-800 hubs are still pretty expensive. I located an 8-port 1394b hub by NitroAV through FirewireDirect.com for $159 U.S. Belkin makes a 3-port 1394b, web price $86-124, but that only gets you two usable ports. FW-800 remains a niche market.

Warning:

Stay away from 1.7.1 and Tiger for critical recordings!

I just had a botched Desperate Housewives and American Dad on OTA as well. Don't know if it's firewire drivers, port, or the app, but it's not stable here on OTA or QAM. I'll look through the logs later, but just a warning. I'm going to have to repartition one of the drives to run 10.3.9 so I can hack a Panther install on the new system. :(

FYI, EyeTV v. 1.8 should be out "any hour now." I received an email from ElGato Friday stating they planned to release it by day's end. Apparently there was some delay. I'm not sure what's fixed in 1.8 but hopefully your Tiger woes will soon be over... at least from the EyeTV standpoint.

Grey's Anatomy went fine following it up, but American Dad and DH "lost signal" at the same time and hung at 46 min into DH and 16 min into American Dad. It seems to never refind the signal and the recording continues with nothing tacked on post error. The chances of signal being lost on two different stations on two feeds is not likely. This is the same thing that was happening with QAM the previous days doing only single recordings.

Update: 1.8 is done. It states it is Tiger compatible, we shall see. Not sure I'd trust it for Alias, yet, seeing as it is a no re-run program. There is a new OSD using the embedded digital guide info. No full guide, just the current station, station name, show name, and what's up next on the station. For some reason, it still say's "Live Recording" instead of taking that info and sticking it into Title, Episode, and Summary.

The display resize now seems to cause an epileptic seizure inducing effect resizing the window. I really hope they put an end to the resizing crap soon. It's really annoying when you change channels in window mode to have the window changing almost every single time you change a channel.

The "Show Info" window continues to insist on changing the stop time by an equal amount when you try to start a show one minute early. Wish this would be an option or eliminated, far too often I've missed this and lost the ending of a show.

The "Save a Clip" function now actually includes a feature I asked for ages ago, but only partially implemented. It asks if you want to rename all clips if you try to rename one clip to say "Without a Trace" on a clip cut from a 2h CSI/WAT back-to-back recording. It still doesn't save clips in their own directory though as one would expect considering they are separate listings on the program list. Still no split/join or start/end "x" seconds before/after. Hopefully, the add on app will add this for us.

There's a glaring bug I've found as well. When you try to highlight text in the title box, you may find that the blue highlight is cut up in segments rather than the normal blue from start to end of text to be cut. It may not hightlight all of the text sometimes either. This tends to occur at the end of the box where you likely put in the episode name because it couldn't be entered prior to recording.

Click once to eliminate the full highlight, Click and drag for segment you want to highlight. Seems to work maybe 30% of the time at best.

I've hit another graphic bug while editing the "Grey's Anatomy" broadcast. When going back to check the cut points I noticed a couple of times that I get gray boxes instead of the actual i-frame data. Currently duplicating before cutting. This was eerily reminiscent of the Sept/Oct corruption issues I had that caused edits with premature endings. Not taking any chances.

No announcement yet on the Elgato site re: the 1.8 firmware update.

Please post the URL from where you downloaded your copy.

Although it isn't named as such, they're apparently still calling it a test version. They say it should be out soon.

1.7.2b29 is the latest version I've seen...

EyeConnect 1.0 is now available per Macupdate.com . Not sure how we're supposed to get the free license though for purchasing during MacWorld SF.

Someone should start a sticky for EyeConnect compatibility. This current thread is getting pretty long for that purpose.

Does the "U" in UPnP really mean universal?

Macupdate's synopsis states, "EyeConnect has been tested intensively with the following UPnP AV devices: The D-Link DSM-320 MediaLounge, the Philips Streamium SL400i, and the Philips Streamium MX6000i. Since any UPnP AV compatible devices will be recognized by EyeConnect, field reports from users with other devices are especially welcome."

Has anybody here used EyeConnect with one of these media devices yet?

1.8 is on the website. It has a different creation date, but it still has the text highlight bug in it.

Make the title for example - "Family Guy - S4E2 - Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High (OTA Unwatched)"

Play around with click and drag highlighting at certain points and you should see the same thing I do. Partially highlighted text on selections that start in the middle, more toward the end of the title.

Has anyone else had scheduling problems with their EyeTV 500 since upgrading to 10.3.9? I'm not sure it's specifically related to that upgrade or Quicktime 7 since they were both around the same time, but I've missed a few shows.

Last night, for instance, NCIS on CBS didn't record while I was watching a DVD. I suspect it may have something to do with DVD Player grabbing the optical out, but either way I mssed the show and there was no live TV window open. Another time, my recording started about 40 minutes late, which made the whole thing worthless.

I just rebooted for a first time in a couple of weeks so I'll see if maybe there's something else going on...

Dennis

I did have a few shows show up with 0 seconds recorded. I quit and relaunched EyeTV and haven't seen an issue since (this was a week or two ago, just after upgrading to Tiger).

Under 1.7.1-ish releases (and some 1.7.2b's) I was getting 0 second recordings on a Mini 1.42/1gb/80gb, 10.3.9. If I tried to delete the recording, the file was busy. Trying to play the recording, the file was 'damaged.'

After quitting and relaunching I could usually delete the program in question. Then I would usually resort to live recording. If I was home. So I have a few recordings missing the first five minutes or so.

I think it may be 10.3.9, I have not gone to QT7 (still 6.5.2)
I may upgrade to Tiger now that 1.8 is out, though.

It would be nice to hear from ElGato if they had been able to successfully duplicate the issue, isolate it to a specific release, and eliminate it in the new version.

Every night since Conan went HD, I record The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Late Nigth with Conan O'Brien, mostly so I can save out the musical guests to DVD or just to save the music into iTunes.

Last night, after upgrading to EyeTV 1.8, I noticed it was recording, but the on-screen remote didn't indicate that it was recording. Since I share my HDTV with a regular HD satellite/ATSC receiver, I sometimes rely on the flashing record button to tell me that things are working normally. Very odd...

Tonight will be the real test as I have scheduled recordings of Lost, Revelations and CSI: New York.

Dennis

That's sort of what I had with 1.7.1 and Tiger, but in the middle. It would lose the stream and never regain it. Essentially, it keep going recording nothing for 0 seconds from the point of the error.

I haven't seen it with 1.8. Tonight's the big test for me as well with Lost and Alias simultaneous at the top of the hour and then continuing back to back.

However, I've also stopped stacking the tuners on each other and moved one off the FW powered hub and onto the front firewire port of the G5.

Any recommendations for PSUs for the EyeTV's themselves? I'm getting at least one of the firewire isolator cables to prevent a bus power steal from my Firewire Drive multidrive enclosure during sleep mode/power off and was thinking of doing the same to "protect" my 1394a ports from being fried as well.

Well, I've been getting '0 seconds' recordings all along. Generally this is when trying to record back-to-back programs. I've found that re-installing 10.3.9, I can then record all programs. But, JUST rebooting it will revert to: recording the first, skipping the second (0 seconds), recording the third, etc. So, I 'installed' 1.8, and now the first recording is not recorded and the second is. Once, I get my drives set-up and Tiger installed I can see what that combo gives me.
Been in contact with Elgato all along, and have been using many betas, but, still the same strange results. I've even messed with the 'padding' times and that sometimes effects it.

I had this 0-second recording phenomenon happen to me once about three weeks ago with 1.7.1 and OS 10.3.8. I thought it was just a fluke since it hasn't occurred again since. Now, after reading that this issue is affecting people so often with 1.8 and OS 10.3.9 I'm not in a huge rush to 'upgrade' my software from a combination that still works well for me.

I need some help building out a recording setup. Here's what I've got:

PowerMac G5 dual 2.0
Motorola 6412 (Comcast)
NEC 50XR4 (monitor, no tuner)

I'm really pissed at Comcast and will be dropping their service after sweeps. The quality of their service has plummetted in the past 4 months so they won't be getting any more of my money. However, I have become addicted to recording HD content. I want to be able to record HD content via OTA but I don't know how I should set things up.

I considered the LST-3410A (coupled with a Silver Sensor antenna) to capture the content and use the firewire port to transfer the data to the Mac. After doing some research here, I ran across the EyeTV 500 and EyeConnect products. The extra choices and capabilities have my head spinning.

So, here's my end-game. I'd like to be able to:
1. Record a SD or HD channel (on either a STB or the Mac directly).
2. Watch another channel on my NEC while the recording is active.
3. Stream recorded content from a STB or the Mac to the NEC.

What combination of EyeTV, EyeConnect, UPnP AV products and/or STBs would you recommend to accomplish this goal? If this belongs in another thread, let me know and I'll start one up.

cr

Cremes,

You appear to be one of the lucky people with a computer that can handle 1080i decoding without dropping frames or downscaling. Your computer's optical audio output simplifies your setup for Surround Sound.

If you connect your NEC to your Mac by a DVI cable you should able to see a desktop on your monitor. Tiger reportedly improves matters by supporting more native resolutions and allowing you to disable overscan. Other threads in these forums can step you through the process of optimizing your video connection.

Audio output should be as simple as plugging an optical cable from your Mac to your DD receiver. (DTS output may be another matter -- see threads on that subject.)

With the EyeTV 500, you can record one show on your Mac while you watch another program on your STB, or you can watch and record at the same time on your Mac. You will just need to tell your NEC display which video source to use: Mac or STB.

The difficulty most of the rest of us are having is with Mac Minis, older PowerBooks and other non-dual G5 Macs. Recording from the EyeTV 500 is the easy part. Playback from a single CPU Mac without an optical audio socket is were the greater challenge lies.

Cremes,

I can't answer most of your questions. But as far as the EyeTV 500 goes, as long as you are able to lock in the OTA signals, you wil lbe hard pressed to find a more elegant solution to recording HDTV on your mac.

Also, be aware that the EyeTV 500 only does HDTV. No SD at all.

-Sean

EyeTV does SD as well as HD, it just won't do analog OTA signals, only ATSC.

OK, I guess that is correct. Another way to put it is that it does digital only, not analog. So for the most part, it does not do traditional SD.

-Sean

I'm grateful for the responses so far.

I don't know if I'm so pleased with the idea of connecting the G5 directly to the NEC to watch the shows though. It's kind of awkward putting a dual G5 next to a wafer thin plasma screen up on the wall. :)

Anyone have experience or background with the UPnP AV devices? I can definitely provide an ethernet or wireless connection to a set-top-box that can connect to the TV...

Also, is it safe to assume that I can split the signal from the antenna to feed both the EyeTV and the STB receiver?

A longer DVI cable might do the trick at a modest cost. But you asked the question we'd all like to know. Who's going to be first to take the plunge on a UPnP device and which one?

You shouldn't have any problem splitting the signal once or a few times. I've got multiple branches off my aerial coax with no perceptible loss of quality.

Interestingly, I did have loss of PQ during yesterday's wind storm. The shaking of my aerial created lots of digital breakup on my LG 4200a STB reception. I did not notice any disruption on my EyeTV 500 but the wind had settled down somewhat an hour later during that recording session.

Originally posted by MacHound
... But you asked the question we'd all like to know. Who's going to be first to take the plunge on a UPnP device and which one?...
Are there any UPnP compatible devices yet that support HD resolution? Specifically are any of the first units capable of connecting to an HD screen and play a transport stream at full resolution? Perhaps even more important, are there DRM encumberances that might make them frustrating to use?

Originally posted by MacHound
But you asked the question we'd all like to know. Who's going to be first to take the plunge on a UPnP device and which one? Ah ha... got it.

Well, I know what I'm going to be researching then. :)

I'll share my results with the group once I take that plunge.

cr

My research has gone well. It looks like Roku Labs is the only outfit right now offering any kind of true HD playback. It's a UPnP AV client (as of the latest betas) so it seems to fit the bill. It handles MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, Ogg for music playback. It also handles MPEG2 transport and program streams for video playback.

Take a look at http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2783 for some more info.

If/when they get UPnP AV video support added, I'll probably invest in this box. (Unless I find a better box in the interim!)

cr

Keep in mind that UPnP cannot do live TV, in case that is a requirement.

There is another thread here -- the one on using the Mac Mini as a DVR -- that has a couple posts from people using UPnP devices. They sound like cool devices but the lack of liveTV capability kills them for me.

Originally posted by mkoesel
Keep in mind that UPnP cannot do live TV, in case that is a requirement.

There is another thread here -- the one on using the Mac Mini as a DVR -- that has a couple posts from people using UPnP devices. They sound like cool devices but the lack of liveTV capability kills them for me. Good point. This isn't a show-stopper for me since I intend to use the Mac purely as a DVR to replay recorded shows. The "live" feed will go through a regular HD STB. Presumably the UPnP box could sit on top of the receiver and act as another input too.

cr

Yes, I've been reading about UPnP on the Roku for many months but it never seems to materialize. You might want to do a search in these forums to read what others say about Roku. This company is long on promises and short on delivery.

Originally posted by cremes
My research has gone well. It looks like Roku Labs is the only outfit right now offering any kind of true HD playback. It's a UPnP AV client (as of the latest betas) so it seems to fit the bill. It handles MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, Ogg for music playback. It also handles MPEG2 transport and program streams for video playback.


Hey cremes: I have been using the IOData AVLP2(networked DVD) for true HD playback of my EyeTV HD content over my network for months now...and have mentioned it a few times in this very thread. here is a FAQ: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=484807

They call it UPnP, but it does not quite work with EyeConnect. I just use IOdata's server(or one of the other ones available) and put aliases in my movies folder...

The Buffalo Linktheater is a similar product based on the same chip, and does seem to work with EyeConnect. They are a little behind in their firmware updates, though, and I am not sure if they have HD transport streams playing smoothly as of yet... see this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=495915

Zach

Here's a nice comparison of the IOData versus Buffalo players:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=534482&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

Also check out the new Zensonic and SnaZio products. Here's a couple of SnaZio links:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5568971#post5568971
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?postid=5580022

Suddenly we're going from too few media players to (almost) too many. It's good to see Mac support for all of these players. But which one is best with a Mac? Which makes best use of EyeTV 500 transport streams? Which has the best written & debugged firmware? Which, if any, will "just work" for HD over a 802.11g wireless network?

Second week and a row it crashes on Desperate Housewives and American Dad. :( This time with 1.8 and Tiger. Last week it recorded nothing, this time it crashed outright. Had a perfectly stable recording system under Panther, now it seems to be a crapshoot. About to head on vacation and I'm doubting this will be stable.

Found another bug:
My second currently "live recording" via a manual recording is currently recording CBS but the station listed in the "Show Info" is ABC.

Stay with Panther for recording!

Huh, mine crashed 12 mins into Housewives as well - but i have had no oher problems so far with Tiger...weird. This was also with 1.8...

Z

I'm dumping my Music Partition onto the Tiger Partition and installing Panther on it to hack my way into a Dual 2.3 running Panther. I just don't trust this setup at all right now at all and I need to be able to "Set it, and forget it."

I'll send them the crash log, but I'm going back to 1.7.0 and Panther.

I had some issues last night as well, I had to reboot when EyeTV (1.8) hung hard (force quit wouldn't work). On reboot, it continued recording Housewives (hmm, I'm not sure how far into it it was...) but now Tiger won't recognize my M-Audio Transit! I unplugged and replugged it back in but still no good. I didn't want to reboot again and lose more recording so I'm not sure if that would have worked.

I just tried out the new UPS as well. Both 10.3 and 10.4 continue to record in EyeTV 1.7.0 while on the UPS with the native Energy Saver settings. Appears like I can get 8-15 minutes while recording two shows, plus cable modem, plus, gigabit switch, plus router, plus USB and FW hubs. Probably 30 min if I didn't need all the other stuff hanging on. Should be perfect for the summer brownouts.

Will probably pick up a Firewire 800 PCI card and stick the EyeTV units and FW hub on it for the time being while I use the native 800 port on the back without 400 devices. Maybe when EyeTV 1.8.2 and 10.4.1 are out I'll go back to Tiger and the native FW bus. Need a stable reliable solution at this point with season finales on the way.

Note: The DH episodes from yesterday and the week before are being re-run this Sat. Of course, this requires the local stations not to screw it up. Unfortunately, they won't be protected by Lost at 8/7c, because the lost re-run is the SDTV recap show. :( At least I have the start of the prior week's show to add on and re-record if they screw it up and I can get the ending.

Originally posted by zmatzkin
Hey cremes: I have been using the IOData AVLP2(networked DVD) for true HD playback of my EyeTV HD content over my network for months now...and have mentioned it a few times in this very thread. here is a FAQ: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=484807

They call it UPnP, but it does not quite work with EyeConnect. I just use IOdata's server(or one of the other ones available) and put aliases in my movies folder...

The Buffalo Linktheater is a similar product based on the same chip, and does seem to work with EyeConnect. They are a little behind in their firmware updates, though, and I am not sure if they have HD transport streams playing smoothly as of yet... see this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=495915

Zach

I just received an email from Nick at ElGato stating:

Unfortunately, we have found that the Buffalo LinkTheater can only play lower-bitrate 1080i content, so it's not a perfect solution for EyeTV 500. The exact reason for this limitation is currently unknown by us. We don't have a solution for IOData support. Our belief is that true HDTV players that support UPnP AV will be coming over over the next 6-12 months. As they do, then we will test them to see how well EyeConnect supports them.

That seems to summarize the situation quite well, I believe.

Looks like 10.3 and 1.7.0 are out of the question. It was still recording 3h + past the start of primetime on a scheduled record.

It doesn't respect the timepoints anymore with the new firmware. When I set a manual recording to start in one minute and stop in two minutes it just started recording immediately. Will try deleting the prefs and other usual fixes to see if I can get this solved. All other editions of the newer MPEG component and app have been zipped up. Then again it didn't crash. :D

FWIW, I had some timing issues under 10.3.9 and 1.7.1/1.8 that I never did really figure out.

Worse still, I had kernel panics under Tiger and had real problems getting past some firewire conflicts with my iSight, which I seem to have fixed. All was pretty good tonight with 24 and CSI:Miami, but for some reason my recording of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno failed as a zero length recording.

I just upgraded to 10.4.1 so I'm not going to panic yet... :)

Dennis

You're right it's doing the same thing with 1.8 in 10.3.9. Ugh. I need this thing stable again by Friday and it's not looking good.

If you really need stability... I'm rock stable with 10.3.8 and 1.7.1. I don't know if you can downgrade a dual 2.7 G5 to 10.3.8, though.

Just FYI: I cannot say it enough times, "iSight bad!"

One of my machines is an iMac G5 1.8 / 250 / 1.5gb, 10.3.9, EyeTV 200 with latest firmware and 1.8. No problems with it, with ONE EXCEPTION: Under 10.3.9 + 1.7.2b(something), pre- the EyeTV firmware update, I had all sorts of issues. Firewire hard drive kept falling off the bus, the kernel kept generating messages like, 'device has gone away' re: the EyeTV 200, so of course I was missing programs...etc.

Felt the iSight, whose green light was off, and it was warm to the touch. The instant I removed the iSight from the bus, things got a lot better for me. Hard drive hasn't had a pip since; EyeTV 200 has worked marvelously as well.

Wish I could say, "But it's an Apple product! It should be 100% compatible! Yadda!" but that's not the case. Nick confirmed that iSight has been a problem for many firewire devices. This was before the firmware updater 1.0.3 for iSight (April 15, 2005), however. I have not tried since then... was more concerned about stability for my recordings! ;)

Now if we could only fix the issues we're having with our Mini + EyeTV 500 and those '0-second' recordings... :(

HTH,


Thom Brooks
Chicago, IL

I never liked 1.7.1. I don't think 10.3.8 would be a wise move either due to possible cooling questions. I have removed the warm iSight for now and have the FW 800/400 PCI card in my possession.

I'm getting flaky bus performance running the PCI FW800 running at 400 as well. I'm probably going to keep the EyeTVs on the native bus, unplug the iSight, and unplug the Apple display's firewire port connector.

Thankfully, with broadband and Timbuktu I will be able to correct scheduling issues as long as there isn't a kernel panic. If one does occur, a nice 15 minute power outage from the Enron emulating folks would help overcome the UPS and force a restart. :D

Correction: It doesn't seem to be an issue with the PCI FW800 card at all. The problem is the local NBC station is temporarily running at half power during a repair and the cable company has terrible antennas. :( Works fine on the other QAM stations and if I use OTA stations.

We know the G5s are poorly grounded on the whole, but it doesn't help that my building's wiring job makes it worse.
1) Ground loop hum on the FW2 port corrected with FWdepot port isolator
2) Ground loop hum on the FW1 back port only - Same solution
3) Removing the port protectors instantly induces screeching on AM radio broadcasts on the Kitchen radio or FW2 HD enclosure bridgeboards.

Originally posted by unithom
Felt the iSight, whose green light was off, and it was warm to the touch. The instant I removed the iSight from the bus, things got a lot better for me.

I bought the iSight just recently because I was having problems with my G5 using my Canon ZR DV camera. I'm pretty much convinced now that it's an issue with the Firewire bus on my G5. Things are stable now with the iSight plugged into the front of the G5 and the EyeTV plugged into a hub that's plugged into the back. My Firewire 800 hard drive is turned off for now.

Dennis

There are defintely a bunch of things screwy with the 1.8 release. I'm currently doing manual override on recordings of Alias and Lost tonight doing QAM and OTA simultaneously just in case.

Well, I just stopped Lost on QAM and also on OTA and started QAM and OTA for Alias. If I go to "show info" on the current recordings, it's actually telling me it's being recorded from the

"Composite Video Input" (for both, although opening each shows they're recording on the appropriate QAM and OTA stations)

Don't have one, but somehow it thinks it is recording from it, twice.

I hope nobody takes offense... Have you tried deleting com.elgato.eyetv plist files?

My recurring recordings, e.g. those set up to record weekly like Lost, have been working fine, except for shows broadcast by my local NBC affiliate. Today I rescanned, but more importantly I changed the channel for those recordings on that channel and now it all seems to be working fine now.

That said, after I scanned, EyeTV crashed and when I relaunched it came back with the set up screen and none of the recordings saved on my hard drive. When I quit and relaunched again all was good.

Dennis

I hope nobody takes offense... Have you tried deleting com.elgato.eyetv plist files?

I've deleted them often. That of course means another 20 minute QAM scan and 5 min OTA scan then a QAM renaming channel task for TitanTV.

It turns out only the OTA Alias stills says it was recorded on the "Composite Video Input." The QAM recording has the right QAM channel. Other stuff doesn't update right anymore like the signal meter. It tends to now give readings only from one tuner. I noticed the highlight bug in Mail.app today as well so it may be system wide and not limited to EyeTv. Found another issue where EyeTV puts out an infinite okay dialog game if you play a TS in VLC and keep it open where the last move is EyeTV crashes.

Great news for G5 owners:
I can now "Update" files without or with corrupt .eyetvi files!!!! Yeah. Corrupt recordings may continue to rise from my dead archives. I had a 1% success rate with the Dual G4s in 10.3 over the past year, but 100% so far with the Dual G5s.

Okay so I joined the EyeTV club this week after deciding the MythTV/HD-3000 was more time and money than I wanted to spend.

After two days of looking at the box I found the time to plug it in last night and was able to tune QAM channels from Time Warner Cable. It found about 70 channels, but as I went through them most were black so I de-activated them. I did the same for the "preview" channels, etc.

So I am left with the 4 major networks, PBS, TNT. I see I will have to do some work on the Titan guide site. It doesn't seem to have the correct program information for the sub channels. I see the correct channel names and programs listed under the "Digital OTA" section but not the Digital Cable section.

Recording seemed to work fine. I scheduled a show last night and it was waiting this morning.

Some things on my todo list include:
1. Get a second tuner (non HD). Going to try and get the EyeTV 200 or ConvertX today if I can find it in town.
2. Find a media player solution that just works (LinkPlayer2, Buffalo LinkTheater, something new?)

I would be interest in hearing how the dual or triple tuners work with the EyeTV software and does anyone use tuners of different types? I need to be able to record analog cable channels also.

John

I just read that the EyeTV ATI USB doesn't have hardware encoding so I guess I will look at the EyeTV 200 or the ConvertX instead.

Hi, John, Welcome to the ElGato owners club!

My second EyeTV 500 hasn't arrived yet so I can't comment about dual 500s from first-hand experience.

I think you will find EyeTV 500 comes into its own for ATSC reception more than cable QAM. The tuner's OTA sensitivity is excellent. I have no trouble receiving any of our twelve local stations, even though most are transmitted at low power from 40 miles away. Obviously a decent antenna helps a lot with OTA. This receiver is at least as sensitive as my LG 4200a STB, which is supposedly the most sensitive of any STB on the market. Only once did I see any dropouts and that was during a gusty wind storm.

I, too, am still looking for a workable media player for 1080i. I'm waiting to hear more via PM from the Mac guy who's been writing about I-O Data AVPL2 in these Forums. One poster at Apple Discussions wrote glowing remarks about it. If you and I each end up getting an AVPL2, we'll be Mac owners numbers 3 and 4. Could become a movement! :)

I'm afraid I can't help much with the decision about EyeTV 200 versus ConvertX. For OTA-only I have no desire to receive analog channels. With cable I can see there's more of a need for analog reception. Hopefully the day will come when EyeTV 500 is all you need -- but that's up to Time-Warner and its customers.

Well with the price of the EyeTV 200 almost that of the 500 I think I might just go dual HD tuners and one analog cable. I think I will just get the ConvertX (maybe refurb). I can't think of two non OTA shows that are on at the same time so one tuner would work fine.

I choose QAM because I have it and doesn't cost any extra for the HD stuff right now. I have to have digital cable to get the ESPN Full Court package and the Kentucky Basketball games, so the HD cable is just a bonus. I had no issue getting the QAM to work and I get TNT HD and Discovery HD in addition to all the OTA HD channels. I just need to get the guide fixed.

Keep the updates going when you get the second tuner working, I wasn't able to find much online about that subject.

John

I just placed my order for an I-O Data AVPL2 player. I'll let you know how it works out, along with my two 500's when the second one arrives..

Originally posted by MacHound
I just placed my order for an I-O Data AVPL2 player. I'll let you know how it works out, along with my two 500's when the second one arrives..

Excellent! I suppose I will feel quite guilty if you don't like it...

actually, for all that it does(even with it's shortcomings), I think it is a bargain...The Buffalo Linktheater is $100 more , isn't it?

Zach

I'll be thrilled with AVPL2 if I can get decent HDTV playback from my present Mac without all the nauseating stutters. Eventually compact Macs will be fast enough to do this without need for external hardware add ons. In the meantime our family will be able to enjoy time-shifted HD nature shows and all the other great programming we used to miss.

Thanks for leading the way.

Hi guys - I too am an EyeTV 500 owner looking for the mythical STB to stream recorded HD (1080i) .TS -- please post back your exeperices with the AVPL2.

As for the EyeTV 200 vs. ConvertX Mac:

Plextor ConvertX Mac
USB2, or 1, running on USB1 will make it output mpeg1 only.
DivX Hardware Compression
No Remote
Same as PC model
Needs AC adapter
Lower Cost

EyeTV 200:
FireWire
no DivX
Remote control
More expensive

Well I ordered the ConvertX Mac version this morning. I already have the EyeTV 500 and might get a second one so the USB2 was fine. I have the remote from the 500 so I didn't need that either. So the extra $100 just didn't seem worth it for the 200.

As for the media player (STB) I was wondering if it would be possible to play HD recorded streams from the EyeTV 500 on a non-HD STB (something like the D-Link or Netgear or even the EyeHome). I understand none of these play TS streams, but I was thinking more or a conversion in software on the server side.

My hope is that I can have HD media players on the HDTVs but a non HD player on the other TVs (which are cheaper) and still be able to watch all the shows on all TVs.

Do any of the current media server software do this already?

John

Timbuktu shows DH reruns and Lost Journey went a-ok by run lengths. :D Not about to playback over the net to be sure though. Now, I need it to do DH finale (1/2 shots) and the Lost/Alias finales. Everything else it catches will be a bonus. Timbuktu threw a wrench in before, make sure OS X's firewall is off! I was able to connect, but nothing showed up on the PB until I altered the settings on both. Unfortunately, I forgot about the Preakness today. :(

Another vote for the mythical 1080i upnp device.

Well, I got my second EyeTV 500 and I did some simultaneous recording of two shows with excellent results. Only one of the shows was HD while the other was ED. It's so great being able to capture TV on multiple channels like this. It's all transparent to the user -- just schedule the shows you want and EyeTV takes care of the rest. I'm really pleased with how well it works.

On another note, it now appears I won't be able to report on my soon-to-be-delivered I-O Data AVPL2 as my Fujitsu plasma TV died today. It's less than two months old. The display shows no power whatsoever. I'm not sure how long it will be to get a repair or replacement. I'll post back when I know more.

EyeTV apparently crashed in the last minute of Grey's Anatomy finale! :(

Edit:Check that. It got the whole show. It flippin' plays over broadband. Unbelievable. Not well, but well enough for me to see it completed before crashing. I'm floored.


It's all transparent to the user
It's good and bad. I love how you really only need one schedule, but there would be a benefit to being able to schedule by tuner such as if you don't have QAM and OTA on both. However, once this thing quits crashing on me again and I get to add a third tuner to the mix, I'm set. The G5 plays back perfectly at full screen and it edits so much quicker than before. My recent use of the .eyetvi "updating" procedure saved three "Lost" episodes from the Fall and I have the Pat's season opener following their 2nd Superbowl and Game 5 ALCS end to repair. I don't know why it didnt' work on either of my G4 machines, but it works great with the G5.

The Java MPEG2 repair tool is great for fixing errors created by doing split/concat mixes of EyeTV records where the local butchered parts of both the rerun and the original. The older Streamclip couldn't see beyond the first segment of the file.

OT: The log is showing some jackass is trying to root my machine as well. Any suggestions? It's in the DMZ so I can access it via Timbuktu. Windows sharing is off. SSL is on

Here's the error: DirectoryService[38]: Failed Authentication return is being delayed due to over five recent auth failures for username: root

I'll probably ask Netopia what I need on to connect, but this is a bit annoying. The machine is practically stripped to basics to allow for maximum HD storage for now.

Could this be triggered by the screen saver asking for PW and getting nothing? Maybe a building shake or something is causing the trackball to shift?

Could this be triggered by the screen saver asking for PW and getting nothing?

You can generate a bunch more information from DS like who is calling by running the following from the command line:

% sudo killall -USR1 DirectoryService

This will start logging all API calls to DS to syslog. However, this will only log for 5 minutes and then timeout. If you need a longer window to track down the issue, you can create a file at the following location:

% sudo touch /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/.DSLogAPIAtStartup

and then kill DS

% sudo killall DirectoryService

That should keep the log going indefinitely. Once you've figured out what is generating the bad auths, you can delete that file and killall DS again to stop.

Kevin

Does anyone know if I-O Data has plans to support MPEG 4 in networkable DVD players like the AVLP2? Wouldn't it probably would be worth waiting for this capability? After all, MPEG 4 is that latest standard, is now supported by Apple QuickTime 7, and it far more advanced than MPEG 2. I can see a shift to this format coming. Of couurse, a shift to HD-DVD also is coming.


Geo
--
OUR HT SYSTEM
HDTV: Pioneer PDP-4304 43-inch Plasma
COMPUTER/CD-R/DVD-R: Apple PowerBook G4-1.2GHz/Matshita UJ-816 (Mac mini upgrade planned)
AV RECEIVER: Pioneer VSX-912K 6:1 A/V Receiver
STB/DVR: Motorola DCT 6412 Digital Video Recorder
DVD: Sony DVP-NS725P DVD/MP3 Player
VCR: Sony SLV-N900 Video Cassette Recorder/Player

MUSIC: Apple iTunes, iPods, networked Macs,
Ethernet (10/100), Airport/Airport Express (WiFi 802.11b/g)
hard-wired to Pioneer AV Receiver and speaker system

SPEAKERS: 6:1 (7:1 Virtual) Surround
Monitor Audio Radius 225 (Center)
Boston CR77 (2-Mains)
Boston A60 Series II (2-Surrounds)
KLH HT9900 (2-Bookshelf Rears)
KLH HT9900 (Passive Subwoofer)

REMOTE CONTROLS
Pioneer XXD3056 AV Receiver Remote
Comcast DCT-6412 Remote

HDTV/DVD SERVICE: Comcast, Blockbuster Online

CONNECTIONS
Fiber Optical (DVR to AV-Receiver and DVD to AV-Receiver)
Mini D-Sub/DB15 (TV1 to Macintosh)
HDMI-DVI (TV2 to STB/DVR)
S-Video (TV3 to VCR)
Composite Video (TV4 to VCR/NTSC - Unused)
Component (TV5 to DVD)

Does anyone know if I-O Data has plans to support MPEG 4 in networkable DVD players like the AVLP2? Wouldn't it probably would be worth waiting for this capability? After all, MPEG 4 is that latest standard, is now supported by Apple QuickTime 7, and it far more advanced than MPEG 2. I can see a shift to this format coming. Of couurse, a shift to HD-DVD also is coming.

There is no ultimate format... only what's available and what might be coming. With no actual published H.264 content, aside from Apple's few samples, H.264 is still in the "coming" category, IMO.

I-O Data's AVeL Link Server software could undoubtedly be made to transcode H.264 to MPEG-2 for playback, but the value of doing so would be questionable and CPU requirements would be intense. On the Windows side, AVeL Pro software can do several different format conversions... provided you have a fast enough computer to run it.

Quoting from the Buffalo thread where someone wrote, "AVLP2 will be introduced in the US and Europe as announced. They will be doing another version later this year that will add support for H.264 (based on the SMP8630 chip)."

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=495915&page=51&pp=20

Whether this is correct information about H.264 and the timing of its release I cannot say. Frankly, I'd be surprised to see any non-Apple manufacturer consider H.264 a priority when Windows doesn't support it and there's no content to play. The equation might change if hordes of people began clamoring for playback of H.264 content from a hypothetical iVideo store.

My AVLP2 is due to arrive tomorrow. I'll be pleased if I can just get reliable MPEG2 playback, with FF and Reverse that works as expected, no audio lip synch problems and not too many other frustrating quirks. A box that does one thing well beats another that does several things poorly.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if anyone can deliver a media player that does MPEG2 and H.264 playback effortlessly. I'm not holding my breath for that.

In the Windows world, the Nero Digital codec is available. It is MPEG-4 Video ISO 14496-2/H.264. Quality is considered quite good albeit long encode times. See doom9.org, it is a very good source for codec info.

I'm going back to version 1.7.2b28 of the EyeTV software -- 1.8 has crashed on me the last three times it has attempted to record "Lost". The first two times it quit after 11 seconds of recording; the third was after 8 minutes.

Unfortunately, I've been unable to duplicate this behavior with any other recording, thereby failing to narrow down the cause.

I've tried tests of scheduled recordings from 1 to 5 minutes in the future, with and without EyeTV running. I've tested with the Mac being asleep and having EyeTV wake it up. I've checked to see if my screen-saver might have interacted unfavorably and/or if the machine has tried to go to sleep during a recording, but I've been unable to duplicate the problem.

The crash log is Greek to me (although I note that it says that "Thread 3 has crashed"), but here's what it says anyway if it makes sense to someone:

Date/Time: 2005-05-18 20:00:27 -0400
OS Version: 10.3.9 (Build 7W98)
Report Version: 2

Command: EyeTV
Path: /Applications/Utilities/EyeTV/EyeTV 1.8/EyeTV 1.8.app/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV
Version: 1.8 (1.8)
PID: 2223
Thread: 3

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x0922c000

Thread 0:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90007878 mach_msg_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900073f8 mach_msg + 0x38
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c16e0 __CFRunLoopRun + 0x350
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c5e6c CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 0x148
4 <<00000000>> 0x92885f60 0 + 0x92885f60
5 <<00000000>> 0x9288903c 0 + 0x9288903c
6 <<00000000>> 0x9289c9f0 0 + 0x9289c9f0
7 <<00000000>> 0x928ad708 0 + 0x928ad708
8 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0002d8c4 _ZN12LApplication16ProcessNextEventEv + 0x84
9 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00006920 _ZN9CEyeTVApp16ProcessNextEventEv + 0x30
10 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0002d688 _ZN12LApplication3RunEv + 0xb8
11 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00005bdc main + 0x8c
12 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00004820 _start + 0x1cc
13 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00004650 start + 0x30

Thread 1:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90007878 mach_msg_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900073f8 mach_msg + 0x38
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c16e0 __CFRunLoopRun + 0x350
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c5e6c CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 0x148
4 com.apple.audio.CoreAudio 0x907494b8 _ZN10HALRunLoop9OwnThreadEPv + 0x104
5 com.apple.audio.CoreAudio 0x907492ec _ZN9CAPThread5EntryEPS_ + 0x30
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 2:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90007878 mach_msg_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900073f8 mach_msg + 0x38
2 com.unsanity.ape 0xc000a954 __ape_internal + 0x90b8
3 com.unsanity.ape 0xc0001328 __ape_agent + 0x40
4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 3 Crashed:
0 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0012d858 _ZN7TSDemux10AddPacketsEPvli + 0x238
1 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0014e2b8 _ZN21TSCaptureDeviceThread16RunExceptionSafeEv + 0xc8
2 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000633d8 _ZN11EyeTVThread3RunEv + 0x58
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000ede60 _ZN8LXThread13ThreadWrapperEPS_ + 0xb0
4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 4:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90007878 mach_msg_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900073f8 mach_msg + 0x38
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c16e0 __CFRunLoopRun + 0x350
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c5e6c CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 0x148
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00167020 _Z15IRReceiverStartPv + 0x60
5 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 5:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90018e18 semaphore_timedwait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000e9d4 _pthread_cond_wait + 0x268
2 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000f001c _ZN14LXLowCondition4WaitER10LXLowMutexRK11LXTimeStamp + 0xac
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000f0648 _ZN19LXLowRecursiveMutex4WaitER14LXLowConditionRK11LXTimeSta mp + 0x78
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000ec5ec _ZN8LXThread18WaitAroundCriticalER14LXLowConditionRK11LXTime Stamp + 0x2c
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000ee4b8 _ZN8LXThread10InnerYieldENS_5StateEPS_NS_5Group4CodeERK11LXT imeStampP14LXLowCondition + 0x258
6 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000ec664 _ZN8LXThread37SetPrimWaitStateAndWaitAroundCriticalER14LXLow ConditionRK11LXTimeStamp + 0x64
7 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000ebe48 _ZN13LXSharedQueue4NextERK11LXTimeStamp + 0x78
8 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00147444 _ZN20CaptureControlThread16RunExceptionSafeEv + 0x234
9 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000633d8 _ZN11EyeTVThread3RunEv + 0x58
10 com.elgato.eyetv 0x000ede60 _ZN8LXThread13ThreadWrapperEPS_ + 0xb0
11 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 6:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90007878 mach_msg_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900073f8 mach_msg + 0x38
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c16e0 __CFRunLoopRun + 0x350
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x901c5e6c CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 0x148
4 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9022f32c CFRunLoopRun + 0x34
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00119abc _Z26MPEG2ReceiverRTThreadStartP25MPEG2ReceiverThreadParams + 0xec
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 7:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900127c8 clock_sleep_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000d9b8 nanosleep + 0x78
2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900124e8 usleep + 0x48
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00171010 _ZN14AVSynchronizer3RunEv + 0x60
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158348 _ZN8AVThread3RunEv + 0x28
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158160 _ZN8AVThread9RunThreadEPv + 0x70
6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 8:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900171d8 semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000e9dc _pthread_cond_wait + 0x270
2 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157ea4 _ZN11AVCondition13WaitForSignalER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0x64
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157be4 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0xc4
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157b10 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutex + 0x20
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0012acf4 _ZN9CTimeBase9WaitUntilE5Int64S0_u7__bool8 + 0xb4
6 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001fe56c _ZN18AVVideoLogicPlayer18SynchronizeDisplayEP16AVFrameVideoM PEGl5Int64 + 0x12c
7 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023f1f8 _ZN14AVVideoDisplay13DispatchFrameEP16AVFrameVideoMPEG5Int64 lR9StAVMutex + 0xd8
8 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023ef28 _ZN14AVVideoDisplay12DisplayFrameE5Int64 + 0x198
9 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023e99c _ZN14AVVideoDisplay3RunEv + 0xfc
10 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023dd80 _ZN19CVideoDisplayThread3RunEv + 0x20
11 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158348 _ZN8AVThread3RunEv + 0x28
12 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158160 _ZN8AVThread9RunThreadEPv + 0x70
13 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 9:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900171d8 semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000e9dc _pthread_cond_wait + 0x270
2 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157ea4 _ZN11AVCondition13WaitForSignalER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0x64
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157be4 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0xc4
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157b10 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutex + 0x20
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001dde50 _ZN17AVImageBufferPool14WaitForReleaseEv + 0x40
6 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001dd7f0 _ZN17AVImageBufferPool19AllocateImageBufferEll + 0x110
7 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001dfa48 _ZN14AVVideoEmitter14Alloc422BufferEPK15MDPictureBuffer + 0x1b8
8 com.elgato.eyetv 0x002ca12c _ZN13MDBufferStore14Setup422BufferEP15MDPictureBuffer + 0x264
9 com.elgato.eyetv 0x002ca3bc _ZN13MDBufferStore21CheckoutCachedBuffersERK15MDPictureTrait s18MDPictureStructure + 0x160
10 com.elgato.eyetv 0x002c6230 _ZN11MDProcessor3RunEu7__bool8 + 0x384
11 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00253178 _ZN22AVVideoProcessorMPEG123RunEv + 0x18
12 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001de204 _ZN20AVVideoDecoderThread6DoWorkEv + 0x54
13 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001de1a0 _ZN20AVVideoDecoderThread3RunEv + 0x10
14 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158348 _ZN8AVThread3RunEv + 0x28
15 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158160 _ZN8AVThread9RunThreadEPv + 0x70
16 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 10:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900171d8 semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000e9dc _pthread_cond_wait + 0x270
2 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157ea4 _ZN11AVCondition13WaitForSignalER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0x64
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157be4 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0xc4
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157b10 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutex + 0x20
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001fcae8 _ZN12AVFrameQueue9FeedFrameEP7AVFrame + 0x188
6 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001fdc38 _ZN18AVAudioLogicPlayer9PushFrameEP12AVFrameAudio + 0xe8
7 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001e41b4 _ZN14AVAudioDisplay9PushFrameEP12AVFrameAudio + 0xe4
8 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001e7a6c _ZN20AVAnalogAudioDecoder12ForwardFrameEP15SNanoAudioFrame + 0x9c
9 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001e7ad4 _ZN20AVAnalogAudioDecoder17NanoWriteCallbackEPviiS0_i + 0x34
10 com.elgato.eyetv 0x002c5528 _ZN22CElgatoAC3AudioDecoder6DoWorkEv + 0x19c
11 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001ed8bc ElgatoMPEG_DoWork + 0xcc
12 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001720d4 _ZN8CMpegLib6DoWorkEP16ElgatoMPEGParams + 0x14
13 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00171a88 _ZN12CMpegDecoder3RunEv + 0xa8
14 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001e793c _ZN20AVAnalogAudioDecoder3RunEv + 0x5c
15 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00171490 _ZN20AVAudioDecoderThread3RunEv + 0x20
16 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158348 _ZN8AVThread3RunEv + 0x28
17 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158160 _ZN8AVThread9RunThreadEPv + 0x70
18 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 11:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900171d8 semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000e9dc _pthread_cond_wait + 0x270
2 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157ea4 _ZN11AVCondition13WaitForSignalER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0x64
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157be4 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0xc4
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157b10 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutex + 0x20
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001fcf9c _ZN12AVFrameQueue9NextFrameEv + 0x6c
6 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001fc748 _ZN12AVFrameQueue8GetFrameEu7__bool8 + 0x88
7 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023fa70 _ZN12AVDisplayVBI7DisplayEv + 0x60
8 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023f9cc _ZN12AVDisplayVBI3RunEv + 0x8c
9 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023f610 _ZN18AVDisplayVBIThread3RunEv + 0x20
10 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158348 _ZN8AVThread3RunEv + 0x28
11 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158160 _ZN8AVThread9RunThreadEPv + 0x70
12 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

Thread 12:
0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900171d8 semaphore_wait_signal_trap + 0x8
1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90001d90 pthread_mutex_lock + 0x1c0
2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9000ea70 _pthread_cond_wait + 0x304
3 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157ea4 _ZN11AVCondition13WaitForSignalER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0x64
4 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157be4 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutexRK11AVTimeStamp + 0xc4
5 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00157b10 _ZN11AVCondition4WaitER7AVMutex + 0x20
6 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00171b54 _ZN12CMpegDecoder7ConsumeEPKvm + 0x44
7 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001718bc _ZN12CMpegDecoder8NanoFeedEPKvm + 0x11c
8 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001e7888 _ZN20AVAnalogAudioDecoder4FeedEP12AVFrameAudio + 0x48
9 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00291d3c _ZN26AVAudioPipelineWithDecoder9FeedFrameEP7AVFrameRu7__bool 8 + 0x13c
10 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00182f10 _ZN11AVEqualizer10AddAVFrameEP7AVFrame + 0x60
11 com.elgato.eyetv 0x002617e8 _ZN8AVParser17SendFrameToClientEP7AVFrame + 0x78
12 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00262520 _ZN17AVParserAudioBase10FlushFrameEl + 0x110
13 com.elgato.eyetv 0x002623c4 _ZN17AVParserAudioBase5ParseEv + 0xc4
14 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00261734 _ZN8AVParser8FeedDataEPK12AVFeedPacket + 0x174
15 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00182be4 _ZN11AVEqualizer10AddPacketsEPK12AVFeedPacketl + 0x1a4
16 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00126c5c _ZN8AVPlayer10AddPacketsEPK12AVFeedPacketl + 0x1c
17 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0023d3a4 _ZN11AVPIDFilter10AddPacketsEPK12AVFeedPacketl + 0x14
18 com.elgato.eyetv 0x0018592c _ZN7AVDemux10AddPacketsEPKhl5Int64 + 0x16c
19 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00184a5c _ZN13AVMovieReader14ConsumePacketsEv + 0x5c
20 com.elgato.eyetv 0x001852e0 _ZN13AVMovieReader3RunEv + 0x130
21 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158348 _ZN8AVThread3RunEv + 0x28
22 com.elgato.eyetv 0x00158160 _ZN8AVThread9RunThreadEPv + 0x70
23 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90024910 _pthread_body + 0x28

PPC Thread State:
srr0: 0x0012d858 srr1: 0x0200d030 vrsave: 0x00000000
cr: 0x44000224 xer: 0x20000007 lr: 0x0012d868 ctr: 0x90001a44
r0: 0x00000001 r1: 0xf0203ce0 r2: 0x01968800 r3: 0x0922c000
r4: 0x01968814 r5: 0x018de000 r6: 0x00000000 r7: 0x00000020
r8: 0x00000030 r9: 0x00000000 r10: 0x00000060 r11: 0x00404828
r12: 0x90001a44 r13: 0x00000000 r14: 0x00000000 r15: 0x00000000
r16: 0x00000000 r17: 0x00000000 r18: 0x00000000 r19: 0x00000000
r20: 0x00000000 r21: 0x00000000 r22: 0x00000000 r23: 0x00000000
r24: 0x01968810 r25: 0x018de000 r26: 0x00000000 r27: 0x00000000
r28: 0x00000000 r29: 0xf0203d3c r30: 0x018de120 r31: 0x00000018

Binary Images Description:
0x1000 - 0x3a9fff com.elgato.eyetv 1.8 /Applications/Utilities/EyeTV/EyeTV 1.8/EyeTV 1.8.app/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV
0x775000 - 0x776fff com.apple.aoa.halplugin 2.5.0 /System/Library/Extensions/IOAudioFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AOAHALPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/AOAHALPlugin
0x7d4000 - 0x7ddfff com.apple.LiveType.component 1.2 /Library/QuickTime/LiveType.component/Contents/MacOS/LiveType
0x7e8000 - 0x7ebfff libMPAEncode0.1.dylib /Library/Application Support/DivXNetworks/libMPAEncode0.1.dylib
0x1043000 - 0x1074fff liblame3.92.dylib /Library/Application Support/DivXNetworks/liblame3.92.dylib
0x10b1000 - 0x10c3fff libdpv10.dylib /Library/Application Support/DivXNetworks/libdpv10.dylib
0x1337500 - 0x13375b2 CFMPriv_CoreFoundation PEF binary: CFMPriv_CoreFoundation
0x13377a0 - 0x1337855 CFMPriv_DVComponentGlue PEF binary: CFMPriv_DVComponentGlue
0x1337a70 - 0x1337b13 CFMPriv_QuickTime PEF binary: CFMPriv_QuickTime
0x1337b80 - 0x1337bf7 CFMPriv_System PEF binary: CFMPriv_System
0x1337e70 - 0x1337f40 CFMPriv_CarbonSound PEF binary: CFMPriv_CarbonSound
0x1337fb0 - 0x1338083 CFMPriv_CommonPanels PEF binary: CFMPriv_CommonPanels
0x1338150 - 0x133820b CFMPriv_Help PEF binary: CFMPriv_Help
0x1338210 - 0x13382da CFMPriv_HIToolbox PEF binary: CFMPriv_HIToolbox
0x1338360 - 0x1338436 CFMPriv_HTMLRendering
3~
3P PEF binary: CFMPriv_HTMLRendering
3~
3P
0x13384b0 - 0x1338583 CFMPriv_ImageCapture PEF binary: CFMPriv_ImageCapture
0x1338610 - 0x13386f5 CFMPriv_NavigationServices PEF binary: CFMPriv_NavigationServices
0x1338770 - 0x1338846 CFMPriv_OpenScriptingMacBLib PEF binary: CFMPriv_OpenScriptingMacBLib
0x1338920 - 0x13389de CFMPriv_Print PEF binary: CFMPriv_Print
0x1338a00 - 0x1338acd CFMPriv_SecurityHI PEF binary: CFMPriv_SecurityHI
0x1338b50 - 0x1338c32 CFMPriv_SpeechRecognition PEF binary: CFMPriv_SpeechRecognition
0x1338cb0 - 0x1338d83 CFMPriv_CarbonCore PEF binary: CFMPriv_CarbonCore
0x1338e00 - 0x1338ed3 CFMPriv_OSServices PEF binary: CFMPriv_OSServices
0x1338fb0 - 0x1339072 CFMPriv_AE PEF binary: CFMPriv_AE
0x1339080 - 0x1339145 CFMPriv_ATS PEF binary: CFMPriv_ATS
0x13391c0 - 0x1339297 CFMPriv_ColorSync PEF binary: CFMPriv_ColorSync
0x1339320 - 0x1339403 CFMPriv_FindByContent
3LJ
3çê PEF binary: CFMPriv_FindByContent
3LJ
3çê
0x1339480 - 0x133955a CFMPriv_HIServices PEF binary: CFMPriv_HIServices
0x13395d0 - 0x13396b0 CFMPriv_LangAnalysis PEF binary: CFMPriv_LangAnalysis
0x1339740 - 0x1339826 CFMPriv_LaunchServices PEF binary: CFMPriv_LaunchServices
0x1339900 - 0x13399d7 CFMPriv_PrintCore PEF binary: CFMPriv_PrintCore
0x13399e0 - 0x1339aa2 CFMPriv_QD PEF binary: CFMPriv_QD
0x1339ba0 - 0x1339c89 CFMPriv_SpeechSynthesis PEF binary: CFMPriv_SpeechSynthesis
0x1511000 - 0x15dbfff com.divxnetworks.DivXCodec 5.2.1 /Library/QuickTime/DivX 5.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX 5
0x1629000 - 0x1689fff libdpus10.dylib /Library/Application Support/DivXNetworks/libdpus10.dylib
0x16b6000 - 0x173a3b2 Component3´Ä PEF binary: Component3´Ä
0x173b000 - 0x17869b1 CarbonLibpwpc PEF binary: CarbonLibpwpc
0x17869c0 - 0x179ecad Apple;Carbon;Multimedia PEF binary: Apple;Carbon;Multimedia
0x2192000 - 0x22fefff com.elgato.mpegsupport EyeTV MPEG Support 1.0.2 (build 27) (1.0.2) /Library/QuickTime/EyeTV MPEG Support.component/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV MPEG Support
0x54e0000 - 0x5512fff com.apple.iSightAudio 7.0 /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/iSightAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/iSightAudio
0x61da000 - 0x6241fff com.apple.AppleIntermediateCodec 1.0 (121) /Library/QuickTime/AppleIntermediateCodec.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntermediateCodec
0x6d00000 - 0x6e61fff com.elgato.mpegsupport EyeTV MPEG Support 1.0.2 (build 27) (1.0.2) /Applications/Utilities/EyeTV/EyeTV 1.8/EyeTV 1.8.app/Contents/Resources/EyeTV MPEG Support.component/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV MPEG Support
0x6f09000 - 0x6f15fff com.apple.IOFireWireAVCLib 1.6.0 /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireAVC.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOFireWireAVCLib.plugin/Contents/MacOS/IOFireWireAVCLib
0x6f5b000 - 0x6f75fff com.apple.IOFireWireLib 1.8.8 /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOFireWireLib.plugin/Contents/MacOS/IOFireWireLib
0x715f000 - 0x717afff ??? /Library/PreferencePanes/Default Folder X.prefPane/Contents/Resources/Default Folder X.bundle/Contents/Resources/Mach-O Patcher.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Mach-O Patcher
0x719f000 - 0x71b4fff ??? /Library/PreferencePanes/Default Folder X.prefPane/Contents/Resources/Default Folder X.bundle/Contents/Resources/Cocoa Patcher.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Cocoa Patcher
0x8150000 - 0x8245fff GLEngine /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Resources/GLEngine.bundle/GLEngine
0x84f6000 - 0x8794fff ATIRadeon8500GLDriver /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeon8500GLDriver.bundle/Contents/MacOS/ATIRadeon8500GLDriver
0x87bc000 - 0x87d5fff GLDriver /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Resources/GLDriver.bundle/GLDriver
0x87f6000 - 0x8810fff GLRendererFloat /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Resources/GLRendererFloat.bundle/GLRendererFloat
0x70090000 - 0x700e6fff com.apple.LiveType.framework 1.2 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/LiveType.framework/Versions/A/LiveType
0x806c0000 - 0x806e9fff libxslt.1.dylib /usr/lib/libxslt.1.dylib
0x80830000 - 0x8090efff libxml2.2.dylib /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib
0x81080000 - 0x81171fff libGLProgrammability.dylib /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Libraries/libGLProgrammability.dylib
0x84510000 - 0x84519fff libz.1.1.3.dylib /usr/lib/libz.1.1.3.dylib
0x84530000 - 0x8455dfff libssl.0.9.dylib /usr/lib/libssl.0.9.dylib
0x88ed0000 - 0x88edcfff com.apple.agl 2.5 (AGL-2.5) /System/Library/Frameworks/AGL.framework/Versions/A/AGL
0x8998b000 - 0x899cefff com.apple.QuickTimeFireWireDV.component 7.0 /System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeFirewireDV.component/Contents/MacOS/QuickTimeFireWireDV
0x89f40000 - 0x89f4afff com.apple.FWAUserLib 1.1.2 /System/Library/Frameworks/FWAUserLib.framework/Versions/A/FWAUserLib
0x8be40000 - 0x8be41fff DVComponentGlue /System/Library/Frameworks/DVComponentGlue.framework/Versions/A/DVComponentGlue
0x8c280000 - 0x8c281fff libGLSystem.dylib /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Libraries/libGLSystem.dylib
0x8fe00000 - 0x8fe4ffff dyld /usr/lib/dyld
0x90000000 - 0x9014ffff libSystem.B.dylib /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
0x901c0000 - 0x9026dfff com.apple.CoreFoundation 6.3.7 (299.35) /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation
0x902b0000 - 0x90529fff com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore 10.3.7 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore
0x905a0000 - 0x90610fff com.apple.framework.IOKit 1.3.6 (???) /System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit
0x90640000 - 0x906c8fff com.apple.CoreServices.OSServices 3.0.1 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServices.framework/Versions/A/OSServices
0x9071d000 - 0x90728fff com.apple.securityhi 1.2 (90) /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/SecurityHI.framework/Versions/A/SecurityHI
0x90730000 - 0x9073cfff com.apple.help 1.0.1 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Help.framework/Versions/A/Help
0x90746000 - 0x907adfff com.apple.audio.CoreAudio 2.1.3 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreAudio.framework/Versions/A/CoreAudio
0x90810000 - 0x90810fff com.apple.ApplicationServices 1.0 (???) /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/ApplicationServices
0x90860000 - 0x908cffff libobjc.A.dylib /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
0x90940000 - 0x909b3fff com.apple.DesktopServices 1.2.4 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DesktopServicesPriv.framework/Versions/A/DesktopServicesPriv
0x909f0000 - 0x909f9fff com.apple.DiskArbitration 2.0.5 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskArbitration.framework/Versions/A/DiskArbitration
0x90a20000 - 0x90b7bfff com.apple.Foundation 6.3.6 (500.58) /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation
0x90c32000 - 0x90c45fff com.apple.speech.synthesis.framework 3.2 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/SpeechSynthesis.framework/Versions/A/SpeechSynthesis
0x90c70000 - 0x90c8afff libGL.dylib /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Libraries/libGL.dylib
0x90cb0000 - 0x90d12fff libGLU.dylib /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Libraries/libGLU.dylib
0x90d40000 - 0x90d40fff com.apple.Carbon 10.3 (???) /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon
0x90d50000 - 0x90d6bfff com.apple.SystemConfiguration 1.7.1 (???) /System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfiguration
0x90db0000 - 0x90dbbfff com.apple.opengl 1.3.8 /System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/OpenGL
0x90dd0000 - 0x90df0fff com.apple.DirectoryService.Framework 1.7.2 /System/Library/Frameworks/DirectoryService.framework/Versions/A/DirectoryService
0x90e13000 - 0x90e2bfff com.apple.WebServices 1.1.1 (1.1.0) /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/WebServicesCore.framework/Versions/A/WebServicesCore
0x90ec0000 - 0x90ec0fff com.apple.Cocoa 6.3 (???) /System/Library/Frameworks/Cocoa.framework/Versions/A/Cocoa
0x90ec2000 - 0x90f7bfff com.apple.QD 3.4.67 (???) /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QD.framework/Versions/A/QD
0xc0000000 - 0xc000efff com.unsanity.ape 1.4.1 /Library/Frameworks/ApplicationEnhancer.framework/Versions/A/ApplicationEnhancer
0xefbef000 - 0xefcd1fff libPSIKey.dylib /Library/Application Support/DivXNetworks/libPSIKey.dylib

Yeah, I've even had the "Wakein" app crash on me lately. Thankfully, it didn't crash this last week during Alias, Lost, Desperate Housewives, and until the Grey's Anatomy was over. Hopefully, they can fix these bugs soon. I've been sending my crashlogs when possible.

EyeTV 1.8 crashed and burned again on me. Recorded first OC episode then...

0 Sec on OC second, 0 Sec on CSI, Crashed, Failed to open again for WAT, Failed to open again for Leno

Other than one of my local DTV stations changing something on their end, 1.8 has been working fine for me under Tiger recently with no lost recordings for any reason.

Dennis

SIR-165-elgato software transport over firewire

After reading this thread, it seems I have an uncommon situation. I was wondering if someone has the experience:

1) I'm thinking about using a Mac based solution to record ATSC;
2) I have an SIR 165 (with firewire);
3) By reading this thread, I think I could do the following:
a) buy an EyeTV 500 and hook it to my Mac;
b) use the EyeTV Software to edit, etc.; and
c) playback using VirtualDVHS (which involves renaming the file) and sending the MPEG stream to my SIR-165 through firewire (basically using my SiR 165's hardware MPEG decoder).

Is this true?

A couple of additional questions:

1) Could I use the EyeTV Software to capture an MPEG Stream right off of my 165 (I'm trying to save money)?
2) Could I use the EyeTV Software to stream the MPEG Stream over Firewire to my 165 (Trying to make it easy for the family to use). [Indications from the thread is that this is not possible, as EyeTV Software does not have 5C capability built in]

Thanks for the help

SJYANG

If you get the EyeTV 500, you won't need to use the Samsung.

You can't use the EyeTV software in conjuction with the 165. You'll need to use the various firewire recording solutions described in depth on another thread.

However, I believe you can use the EyeTV software for editing streams recorded by the 165, but there may be some issues playing it back with the 165. Search this forum as I believe these questions have been talked about in various threads.

Kevin

Thanks Kevin, this will save me some tinkering.

I'm trying to save as much money and time as possible by using the hardware based decoding in the SIR-165 and passing the the raw MPEG2 stream from my Mac to the SIR-165 decoder.

Absent a good solution for that, it seems that software decoding is the best bet. However, that seems to require a lot of horsepower to get 720p or 1080i to get out reliably.

Have others been able to get full-frame rate, full size 720p/1080i using the combination of a Mac-mini and Eyetv 500 hooked up to an HD set? (now considering my alternative HDrecording options).

Thanks

SJYANG

Have others been able to get full-frame rate, full size 720p/1080i using the combination of a Mac-mini and Eyetv 500 hooked up to an HD set? (now considering my alternative HDrecording options).

No -- playback will be downscaled on a first generation Mini. Dropped frames may or may not be a frequent issue depending on the video content. Pans and fly-by scenes put a heavier load on your CPU, versus stationary scenes that play back more smoothly.

Hence the interest in media players and firewire devices which do the heavy lifting of HD playback.

Does anyone know if I-O Data has plans to support MPEG 4 in networkable DVD players like the AVLP2? Wouldn't it probably would be worth waiting for this capability? After all, MPEG 4 is that latest standard, is now supported by Apple QuickTime 7, and it far more advanced than MPEG 2. I can see a shift to this format coming. Of couurse, a shift to HD-DVD also is coming.

Here is a quote from the Administrator of the I-O Data Forums, 5-10-2005, that answers your question:

LinkPlayer2 cannot support H.264 codec because the main chip EM8620L cannot. But the Sigma's next generation EM8622L can do. We have already started this project. The name should be LinkPlayer 3rd. It's more high end model. Thank you.

That's a good scheme. We've got the high end model coming using the same cost, but never revision, chip as the old version. :D

Anyways, so far I'm very happy to not be relying on 1.8 anymore. Although, not with much testing on this unnamed version. Thankfully, I only missed OC, CSI, and WAT reruns and was able to record the DH episodes that were butchered during the recent Sat rerun schedule. Still missing a few American Dad shows from the initial screwup, but I got back most of what was lost including all the HD shows. Not sure if the WAT episode was one of the ones I missed earlier this past year.

Well, it seems the problem hasn't been addressed for these Tiger based random crashes. My Thursday schedule crashed 44 minutes in on the first show, failed to open for CSI, failed to open for second OC, failed to open for Without a Trace, failed to open today for Fox Movie of the Week. :( I was greeted by a very happy finder.app sitting there doing nothing today. This was with a later release than 1.8.

Any chance you have the Unsanity.com APE manager installed? (Now called Application Enhancer). I use it to get the "shared menus" feature of URLManager Pro to work. It would be in your System Preferences, in the "other" category.

I haven't had an EyeTV 1.8 crash since updating APE to the current version (1.5.1)