eyeTV - The Return!

Elgato sent me a replacement eyeTV Hybrid which is working fine - woohoo! As it's a new pack it also seems to include a disk with the new eyeTV 3 software on it - so I may try installing that over the weekend to try it out.

Obviously having the device fail and the time without it whilst Elgato tested it was a real pain - but credit to Elgato for replacing it.

eyeTV Phone Home

I finally got a response to my support request from Elgato. The eyeTV is off home to Germany. All they have committed to is to test it and I'm not clear what will happen if they can't replicate the problem - or whether I will get a replacement and my postage etc. if they can. They haven't given me any idea how long it might take either which, when they took a week to get back on my initial request (with which I'd obviously given them details of all the stuff that they might have asked me to do since they didn't ask me to try anything) is a bit of a worry.

It's going in the post tomorrow - I'll keep you appraised.

eyeTV R.I.P.?

Last weekend my eyeTV Hybrid started playing up following a reboot. It started by telling me that it wouldn't work if attached to a USB1.1 port (which I don't have) and finally gave up the ghost and stopped recognising that the device was there at all.

I tried everything I could think of, switching ports, leads, direct connection, via a powered hub etc. all to no effect. The problem is certainly not the USB ports as my T.264 and external USB hard drive are both functioning perfectly and were quite happy when swapped to the port the eyeTV was on.

I lodged a support ticket with Elgato but have yet to hear back. Needless to say I'm not a happy bunny!

Turbo.264 Update

I've been using the Turbo.264 quite a bit and whilst the experience has been mostly good I have been having some problems. Certain movies and TV shows will simply not convert direct from eyeTV but some will in the direct drag and drop mode with the Turbo.264 software application; however, some won't. I've no idea why it doesn't like some shows as there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. I shall keep on trying though as other than these little teething problems the overall experience has been pretty good. It is a shame as eyeTV itself has been no problem at all since I started using it.

Elgato Turbo.264

As part of my new set up I picked up an Elgato Turbo.264. It is a USB video encoder designed to convert video into H.264 format effectively as a co-processor.

The integration of the Turbo.264 into the eyeTV software was seamless (I have eyeTV 2 rather than the latest version 3). EyeTV simply carries on as normal but when you request an H.264 based conversion, as with iPod and AppleTV, it simply uses the Turbo.264 automatically. The way you know that eyeTV is using the Turbo.264 is that the encoding bar switches to red and a set of pulsing circles appears below it. The Turbo.264 also comes with it's own software application which allows drag and drop conversions - although I have yet to test this.

In general the Turbo.264 performed well with eyeTV, allowing me to continue using other applications on the Mac Mini without the dreaded beachball turning up; however, it subbornly refused to correctly convert some eyeTV recordings. Two in particular it simply wouldn't convert more than the first couple of minutes, in one case it dropped out giving a rather unhelpful error message and in the other it just posted a file into iTunes that was only 5 1/2 minutes long. I've no idea why this is occurring on only these two files as the other 6 I have tried (of various lengths) have converted correctly. I plan to reset the whole machine and see if this behaviour continues.

Media Centre Project - Part 2: TV Tuner

Since the Mac Mini doesn't come with an integrated TV Tuner and doesn't have the option to insert cards I looked around for a USB based device. After a little research I hit upon Elgato who produce both the hardware and eyeTV, which is some pretty nice PVR software.

Since I don't have satellite or cable and my over-the-air digital signal can be a little flaky (we're not scheduled to be switched over until 2012 so it may be a while before that's fixed) I decided to get the eyeTV Hybrid which accepts analogue and digital inputs.



As you can see it's not a big device, about the size of the Apple remote but somewhat thicker.
The dark plastic cap covers a standard USB connector, but given the proximity of the various USB ports and the width of the Elgato device they have helpfully added a short USB extension cable. So installation was pretty simple.

The eyeTV software loaded easily and connected me up to tvtv who provide the data for the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). This is a subscription service and Elgato give you a year's worth but you're on your own after that. The software had a look and downloaded a couple of updates and was then ready to go.

Controlling the device is pretty easy. The software provides both a standard OS X interface and also a full screen menu system which can be entered by just holding the Apple remote menu button down for a couple of seconds (this takes a little getting used to as you can often end up in Front Row by mistake - but you do get used to it). Elgato do provide a separate multi-button remote but as this seems to have to have line of sight on the device it doesn't really work for me (as the Hybrid is behind the Mini - and I don't really want to see it). There is an on screen remote available too but this needs the mouse to operate and so it less hand from the sofa (have you tried using even a bluetooth mouse on your sofa?).

Selecting channels and scheduling recordings is simply a matter of a couple of clicks. eye TV provides playlists to help you organise your recordings. Unfortunately scheduling doesn't take account of the vagaries of the broadcasters and so you need to add some time to the start and end to make sure you get the whole programme - this is a pain but the EPG info isn't live and I don't think they send out any signals (like video+) over digital at the moment.

You can set eyeTV to automatically convert the recording for iPod or AppleTV and it will slot it into iTunes for you. Apparently the latest version also allows streaming to iPod Touch and iPhone, but as I don't have either I can't comment.

A direct interface with Front Row would have been nice but other than that it's a nice all round package. Of course now I'm recording TV I think I might need a little more than the 80Gb internal drive in the Mini...