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!

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.

iPod Content

Having had a chance to play with the iPod for a couple of weeks now I'm still really impressed. Of course it would be nice if it had a To Do list function and obviously web apps are limited to WiFi hot spots but in terms of the core functionality it works very well. So what have I been doing for content?

Obviously the interface between iTune and the iPod is the main reason most people (me included) plump for an iPod over over portable media players. I've got the iPod syncing with my Mac Mini media centre which has our music library on it. I'm also a big fan of various podcasts (you can see some of them in the links section on the right of the blog) and I have those syncing too. The podcasts I follow are both audio and video and the latter work really well on the Touch's display (although I've had to swap from the highest quality version of GeekBrief as it wouldn't sync). I can heartily recommend all the shows from Channel Flip which has a nice balance of three shows all with excellent presenters and interesting content.

I've already mentioned streaming shows from eyeTV to the iPod over WiFi; however, whilst great in the house it is somewhat limited when I'm out and about. Fortunately eyeTV allows you to automatically export recordings to iPod format and imports them into iTunes after the recording finishes. It's great to come down in the morning, sync the iPod and get the recorded shows from the previous night to watch on the train. The picture quality is very good too.

For other audio sources I was wondering about audio books but hesitated to take the plunge and buy some until I'd worked out whether it was something I'd be keen on. Fortunately I found Podiobooks.com which offers free audiobooks and audio dramas for download including via an iTunes subscription. They have a pretty broad selection of material too.

First Impressions: iPod Touch

What a Christmas, lots of excellent books and to cap it all an iPod Touch! I'm sure you've all seen and heard the hype surrounding the iPhone and, whilst I'll admit I was interested, it wasn't a device I'd get as I use a BlackBerry and, with the contract, it would prove to be pretty expensive for the use I'd get out of it. Consequently I was much more interested in its little brother the iPod Touch. Of course if you compare it to the iPhone it does look a little pared down but as I was considering it along side the iPod Nano and some other devices I was coming at it from a different perspective. And I must say I am pretty impressed (bearing in mind this is the honeymoon period I'll probably post something in a few weeks once I've lived with it for a while).

The device is beautiful to look at and the multi-touch interface is very easy and pretty intuitive to use. The initial synch took a little while but I managed to get our entire music collection onto the iPod and browsing through it using coverflow is pretty cool. I'm probably going to thin that out a little as I've got the 8Gb model and I'd like to leave some room for video (plus some of the music collection is more to my wife's liking than mine - and the converse is also true!).

The video is also excellent. I was worried that the screen would be a little small (I'm used to using my PSP for watching video on the train) but having watched it for over an hour solidly I can happily say it's fine and the picture is crisp.

What I was particularly impressed with though was the eyeTV integration. I activated the WiFi connectivity option on the eyeTV software and it converted all the new recordings (you can set it to convert everything but given the number I thought that might be pushing things) to the appropriate format. After allowing access to the relevant port via the firewall you can simply access the recordings via Safari on the iPod Touch through the appropriate URL. The video is clear and crisp and streaming was absolutely no problem with no hiccups or interruptions. This allowed me to watch the Christmas Day episode of Doctor Who whilst my wife was glued to CorriEnders.

So my first impressions are very good but the big test will be to see whether they last in the cold light of day!

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...