Stream live TV from Elgato Eye TV 3 to Apple TV 2 via AirPlay and AirFlick
I was determined to stream TV from my Elgato NetStream SAT to my Apple TV2. I bought the Eye TV iPad and iPhone app, which works okay, but I don't really want to make my iPad or iPhone redundant whilst I'm watching TV, I don't want a flat phone battery and I'm really not impressed that the video stream has to be transmitted across my (wireless) network three times and encoded twice just to display it on my projector via AirPlay. The solution? AirFlick.
What you might know is that Elgato's Eye TV 3 software enables you to access your live and recorded TV streams via a web browser on your Mac. Consult your manual about using this feature, but it effectively opens up a pop-up window with an HTML video element embedded into it. This isn't a feature of my NetStream, it's a feature of Eye TV which comes with all Elgato products.
So? Well, if you're using a Mac and Safari, switch on 'Developer' mode (Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Show Develop menu in menu bar) then right-click the video stream in Safari and select 'inspect element' - you'll find that the code displayed contains the URL (the bit starting with "http://") required to view the video. If you copy it (I find dragging it to the desktop easiest) you can paste it (or drag the URL file from your desktop) directly into AirFlick's 'Movie URL' text box and hit play. Eureka! Your favourite live TV programs running directly on your Apple TV - that's all there is to it. No extra iOS device (which really isn't needed).
You can also use the settings in the Eye TV web (a button with a small 'cog' on it) to maximise the quality of the video before getting the URL. Just bare in mind the URL changes with each use, so you'll have to do this each time you start TV on your Apple TV, but changing channels can be done through the Eye TV software itself - as you would if you were watching on your Mac - so there's no need to keep the website open and you can close the Eye TV video window if you don't want it playing on your computer as well.
There can be a lag of up to 30 seconds, but that doesn't really pose that much of a problem. Good, eh?