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Elgato EyeTV 250-Plus replacement? now have a DTA box

R

ratsg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 6, 2010
382
29
I currently have an Elgato EyeTV 250-Plus attached to a Mac Mini that I have been using as a DVR with great results for several years.

My cable company, TWC (Time Warner Cable) is now moving to a digital signal and they are providing customers in my area with a

Motorola DTA
model number - HD-DTA100u/4301/000
part number - u62x006.00

The Motorola DTA provides output either as coax or HDMI. The cable company is suggesting the usage of the HDMI for highest quality.

- - - - -

Now to get to the meat of my question, I'm looking for a replacement for my Elgato EyeTV 250-Plus. That is the short of things.

I have looked on the Elgato web site a few times looking for a replacement. And I see the EyeTV HD. This looks like it might be somewhat of a replacement, but not an optimal one. I wish the EyeTV HD had an HDMI input, but it doesn't. According to the elgato.com support site, it has composite, component and s-video.

I'm wondering how others are doing with the EyeTV HD? Did you end up doing OK? Or did you find a better alternative to the EyeTV HD with more options?

thank you,
 
C

ColdCase

macrumors 68040
Feb 10, 2008
3,360
276
NH
Your Eye TV has a coax/rf input? It may continue to work. But I suppose TW will also be encrypting the signal. You could just connect the EyeTV to the new box. The rub is you won't be able to switch channels without more work (IR blaster for example)

I dunno but there may be copy protection or DRM on the HDMI port (called HDCP), especially if you have an HD service or more than the basic channels. You may want to check this out before investing in an HDMI DVR type device. You may have to connect a TV directly with nothing in the middle or use work arounds.

Not many inexpensive DVRs will provide the necessary HDMI handshaking like a TV or compliant monitor would (the industry doesn't want you to record and redistribute HD content). There are several devices that will convert HDMI, but its the additional HDCP handshaking that will put up a roadblock. And TW often sets the copy flag such that a compliant DVR will not record anyway. There are work arounds.

I don't know if it applies with your basic service. When Comcast went encrypted digital in our area, the box they gave us just had coax out.

You will need to figure out how to switch cable box channels from your DVR software, unless you just record one channel at a time.
 
Last edited:
V

venom600

macrumors 65816
Mar 23, 2003
1,296
1,099
Los Angeles, CA
The issue isn't that they are going digital... the 250 can read unencrypted digital cable. They are encrypting everything now and are switching to switched digital video to provide better picture quality and more internet bandwidth.

In essence, instead of sending every channel at once, the cable box has to request whatever channel you want to see from the cable head office and only that channel is sent to you to save bandwidth. So to make this work you need two things: a cable card tuner and a tuning adapter.

However, since OS X doesn't support cablecard natively (there are a lot of specific DRM variants that have to be supported), there's no way to do this in OS X. Works great in Windows using the HDHomeRun Prime (a 3 tuner networked CableCard box) and a tuning adapter (from the cable company).
 
R

ratsg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 6, 2010
382
29
Bump,

replying to ColdCase, yes, my eyetv has a coax input and I can plug the output from the DTA box, into the input for the EyeTV.

It works, poorly. I had only anticipated that the drawback was I would only be able to change channels thru the DTA box, which is still current.

running the signal thru the EyeTV makes the picture on the TV slow/sluggish and attenuated.

I know that EyeTV no longer sells USB tuners in the US market. I *wish* that the EyeTV people, or someone, made a Mac compatible combination DTA/DVR box for the US market.

All that said, I would like to think that there was some type of Apple focused DVR appliance/application out there for me and everyone else.

Thanks for looking (maybe again).


ColdCase said:
Your Eye TV has a coax/rf input? It may continue to work. But I suppose TW will also be encrypting the signal. You could just connect the EyeTV to the new box. The rub is you won't be able to switch channels without more work (IR blaster for example)

I dunno but there may be copy protection or DRM on the HDMI port (called HDCP), especially if you have an HD service or more than the basic channels. You may want to check this out before investing in an HDMI DVR type device. You may have to connect a TV directly with nothing in the middle or use work arounds.

Not many inexpensive DVRs will provide the necessary HDMI handshaking like a TV or compliant monitor would (the industry doesn't want you to record and redistribute HD content). There are several devices that will convert HDMI, but its the additional HDCP handshaking that will put up a roadblock. And TW often sets the copy flag such that a compliant DVR will not record anyway. There are work arounds.

I don't know if it applies with your basic service. When Comcast went encrypted digital in our area, the box they gave us just had coax out.

You will need to figure out how to switch cable box channels from your DVR software, unless you just record one channel at a time.
Click to expand...
 
jdryyz

jdryyz

macrumors regular
Jun 12, 2007
226
11
I have a question on a related note. What version of the EyeTV software still recognizes your EyeTV 250 Plus? I recently dug this out of retirement because I remembered it had video capture capability. Unfortunately, the current version of the EyeTV (3.6.9) does not see the device. I know that one of the other manufacturers might be a compatible match but which one? If this is not not an option, maybe I can locate the last very of EyeTV that supports the 250? That might be hard.

Then I have to be concerned about macOS Mojave getting in the way.
 
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