Anyone using 2 Elgato tuners?

[batistuta]

I have been using an Elgato EyeTV Hybrid USB Tv-tuner for quite some time, displaying cable-tv on my Mac (Mini, hooked up to a 30" Dell screen).
Has anybody tried using two such tuners? To be able to record two channels or watch one while recording another?
The only thing I could find from Elgato was a statement from 2008 if I recall correctly, that it was considered beta functionality but should basically work.

[nikolajlr]

I have two Elgato EyeTV Hybrids hanging off my Mac Mini 2012. One directly and one on a USB 2.0 hub. Both connected to the same DVB-C signal with a coax splitter.

Works fine here with the EyeTV 3 software

Both can record at the same time from different channels to the internal stock harddisk with no issues.

DVB-T also works (but as I have the same and more channels available with DVB-C I exclusively use the DVB-C signal).

I should also get a HD Homerun box in a few days (http://www.hdhomerun.net) which should work with the EyeTV 3 software and is a network connected dual tuner (only one coax connection, though). Can be used with Mac, Windows and Linux. You might want to take a look at that.

Cheers,
Nikolaj

[batistuta]

Hi Nikolaj,

Sounds promising. And you have no issues changing channels etc?
If you schedule two recordings from different channels at the same time, this is simply handled without issues?
I asked Elgato about it and their reply was not very reassuring:

The use of multiple EyeTV units on a single Mac simultaneously, is unsupported.

This is a preliminary, unsupported feature that has some bugs.

Whereas you may be able to watch two live signals at a time, you will run into trouble, for example with recordings, or channel changing, since EyeTV cannot distinguish the tuners from each other.

You may have other problems as well, for which there is currently no fix.

This feature may be finalized some time in the future. Until then, you can use it experimentally with the latest EyeTV software..

I might have a go at it based on your experience :-)

[billib]

Hi, I'm sorta' an old EyeTV user. I've been using more than a few
EyeTV peripherals ( 250Plus, Hybrid, Pinnacle) for a few years now.
If you attach more than one Tuner then you can watch more than
one show at a time. Watch one main program while using PiP (Picture
in Picture) for the others or you can have separate windows for each
program.

I prefer separate windows for each program then I just call them
up or dismiss them as needed. Everything works well though as
has been stated previously multiple tuners isn't supported. The
only glich (for me) has been that I can't choose which tuner
displays which program. Why is this important, you ask? One
tuner may have a higher quality signal than another and you
can't choose the higher quality signal to use as the signal you
use to record your chosen program. EyeTV always seems to
choose the tuner with the worst signal.

Right now I'm using "two" "HDHomeRun" tuners connected to
my Router. That way I get "4" different channels to choose
from at the same time since each HDHomeRun has two tuners.
Access to four different programs are on my Network so I can
fire-up my MBAir and lunch EyeTV then watch TV anywhere my
WiFi Network is available. No need to attach a separate Tuner
to each Mac. Its very cool.

If you already have the EyeTV software installed you could
purchase one (or more) HDHomeRun tuners "without" the
EyeTV software (from J&R Music which was the cheapest I've
found) for something like $59.00/$69.00. Attach your HDHomeRun
Tuner(s) to your Router and two (or more) TV signals are on
your Network waiting for you to use. These EyeTV signals on
your network can also be accessed by your iPhone or iPod
Touch with (I think) a free app. Its all been very stable
and pretty easy to do.

[batistuta]

In Europe I can get the HDHomeRun for 105 euros and I am guessing I could use my already purchased Elgato IOS app to view TV on my ipad? As I already do using an Elgato Hybrid as tuner. I have already forwarded the relevant ports so I can watch TV on my Ipad when away from home (though my MacMini needs to be running).

The free Elgato HDHomeRun app features only on their North American website and states that a HDHomeRun Prime is required, as is Windows...

I have found a guide for setting up the HDHomerun with EyeTV and my Danish cable tv provider, so it might just be possible.

How is the quality when streaming from a HDHomerun to an iPad?
Now I am relying on an Elgato Turbo hd.264 to assist the MacMini when streaming, as this requires quite som cpu power especially with HD channels, and the fans on my Mini (core i7) kicks into high gear, making lots of noise if I try streaming without the Turbo...

[billib]

The HDHome I had bought didn't come with any software. Since i already
had EyeTV installed on all of my Mac's I didn't want the EyeTV software
because it would have been unnecessary and have made the HDHomeRun
more expensive.

I'm not familiar with HDHomeRun "Prime" so I can't comment on that.

Sorry, don't have a clue how it would work in Denmark.

I don't use an iPad either so.........I do use a MacBook Air
and its a lot slower spec wise than my mini but works and
streams just fine. Their are no stutters to speak of while
watching EyeTV using the signal over my WiFi network.

As far as the CPU's used I can only say that on my newish
mini and Air its not anywhere near as bad as when I was
using EyeTV with an older Intel Core2Duo min and PPC
iMac. Actually EyeTV doesn't affect CPU usage much,
anymore. Your millage may vary, of course.

Hope I've been (somewhat) helpful.

Originally Posted by batistuta

In Europe I can get the HDHomeRun for 105 euros and I am guessing I could use my already purchased Elgato IOS app to view TV on my ipad? As I already do using an Elgato Hybrid as tuner. I have already forwarded the relevant ports so I can watch TV on my Ipad when away from home (though my MacMini needs to be running).

The free Elgato HDHomeRun app features only on their North American website and states that a HDHomeRun Prime is required, as is Windows...

I have found a guide for setting up the HDHomerun with EyeTV and my Danish cable tv provider, so it might just be possible.

How is the quality when streaming from a HDHomerun to an iPad?
Now I am relying on an Elgato Turbo hd.264 to assist the MacMini when streaming, as this requires quite som cpu power especially with HD channels, and the fans on my Mini (core i7) kicks into high gear, making lots of noise if I try streaming without the Turbo...

[nikolajlr]

Originally Posted by batistuta

In Europe I can get the HDHomeRun for 105 euros

You have to add VAT and freight on top of that. So it became €150,04 for me.

Originally Posted by batistuta

I have found a guide for setting up the HDHomerun with EyeTV and my Danish cable tv provider, so it might just be possible.

I'm Danish, but haven't got an iPad (or other tablet). I got my HD Homerun today. Currently tuning it with EyeTV from my Mini. Doing full scan so will take a while. I've got the YouSee cable basic package.

Originally Posted by batistuta

Now I am relying on an Elgato Turbo hd.264 to assist the MacMini when streaming, as this requires quite som cpu power especially with HD channels, and the fans on my Mini (core i7) kicks into high gear, making lots of noise if I try streaming without the Turbo...

Agree on the Mini i7 being noisy under load -.-
If you have the patience you might want to wait it out for the next generation of HD Homerun tuners. They just announced some at CES 2013 with built-in DLNA server and H.264 encoding:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/08/s...uners-with-tr/

Should be available this summer. Add amount of salt to timeframe from own experiences.

Best regards,
Nikolaj

----------

Originally Posted by batistuta

Sounds promising. And you have no issues changing channels etc?
If you schedule two recordings from different channels at the same time, this is simply handled without issues?

I haven't tested it systematically but it does seem to have some quirks. As it not really taking into consideration that you actually have two tuners when scheduling recordings. So it pops up and says there is a conflict when there shouldn't be any. Sometimes it adds both recordings to the schedule anyway. Or so it seems. As I'm not a big TV afficiendo and I was going to order the HD Homerun anyway I haven't yet cared to try it out in a systematic way.

Betting on better results with the HD Homerun as the EyeTV software hopefully is aware of the two tuners in that. Still scanning channels...

Cheerio,
Nikolaj

[nikolajlr]

Mkay - now that I have tested the HDHomerun I can't recommend it. At least not with my YouSee signal here in Søborg (2860).

The Elgato Hybrids get the signal just fine.

The HD Homerun doesn't pick one single DVB-C channel up.

However, it does fetch a few channels when running in DVB-T mode - while on my DVB-C cable. Both when using Mac and when using the Windows

The strange thing is that if I manually input the frequencies (at least for some channels) in the Windows-based HDHomeRun Config they show up just fine!

I'll try to stalk some Danish-based PVR-forums sometime in the future.

But for now - it's weekend and I want to enjoy a few beers

Thanks to billib for the elaborate sharing of experience!

/Nikolaj

[nikolajlr]

Can't sleep so decided to play some more with the HDHomeRun.

Suddenly it works

Both tuners are in business and I can access them from different computers.

The EPG (program scheduling) information is also updated in EyeTV. Apparently this has been a problem (EPG not being updated) for some YouSee-customers with the HDHomeRun.

[batistuta]

Originally Posted by nikolajlr

Can't sleep so decided to play some more with the HDHomeRun.

Suddenly it works

Both tuners are in business and I can access them from different computers.

The EPG (program scheduling) information is also updated in EyeTV. Apparently this has been a problem (EPG not being updated) for some YouSee-customers with the HDHomeRun.

Hi Nikolaj, very interesting. And you have no idea how you made it work? I have read something about a beta driver for the Homerun, which is needed if you want to watch cable-tv from Yousee in Denmark (and probably other cable tv providers elsewhere). Which software and firmware are you using?
How is the quality? Especially from HD channels?

What kind of display are you using? (monitor, tv)

As Synology claims HDHomerun support from their latest beta 4.2 software, I could have the Homerun record directly to my NAS without having the computer on, and access my recordings from outside, using the Synology apps I have on my iPad.
This might also be a more stable setup, as from time to time when I am away, I am unable to connect to the EyeTV running on the Mac, and stream anything. When I come home I can usually see that EyeTV is running just fine.
I must say however, that the EyETV software does look nice.

[nikolajlr]

Originally Posted by batistuta

Hi Nikolaj, very interesting. And you have no idea how you made it work?

My guess is that everything was powercycled/rebooted since I temporarily gave up. I also found once that when scanning for channels an EyeTV-restart fixed a "no channels found"-issue.

Still working great Only thing annoying me is that the EPG-information is "per computer", so not shared across viewing devices.

When both tuners are used and you try to open another Live window EyeTV tells you the device is busy and from which device. You can then select to override the lock (haven't tried that).

With both the HD HomeRun and the Elgato HybridTV's channel lists in EyeTV3 it got a bit confusing when scheduling recordings. So I renamed all the HD HomeRun channels with the prefix "HR" as to be able to distinguish them easily.

Originally Posted by batistuta

How is the quality? Especially from HD channels?

I find it to be as good as to be expected from a 720 DVB-C signal. It is definitely good enough to see the artifacts from old celluloid movies I haven't recorded any HD high action movies yet.

Originally Posted by batistuta

What kind of display are you using? (monitor, tv)

iMac Mini does the recording (not using the monitor on this one).

AppleTV3 to a Samsung 25,5" TV/monitor (crappy panel). This needs re-encoding to the AppleTV3-format from .eyetv on the Mac Mini.

iMac 27" 2011

MacBook Pro 13" 2010 (C2D 2,4 GHz) for wireless bed or rocking chair watching

Originally Posted by batistuta

As Synology claims HDHomerun support from their latest beta 4.2 software, I could have the Homerun record directly to my NAS without having the computer on, and access my recordings from outside, using the Synology apps I have on my iPad.

Interesting! That would be a nice setup! I actually happen to have a Synology DS209 (currently on DSM 4.1).

[batistuta]

I have dug a little further into the solution with recording from the Homerun directly to a NAS, and there are some issues; the system requirements for the Homerun is a Core 2 Duo cpu and 1GB of RAM, so most Synology NAS boxes will not be powerful enough. At least the ones intended for home use.

A Synology employee responded to my worries as follows:
A DS713+ will indeed be better. Or any DiskStation with a CPU which can transcode (DS412+...)
If you choose a DiskStation which cannot transcode, it's still possible to use the HD Homerun, but the streaming may not be as smooth, and when you use it from an iPad (through DS video), you will need to use have installed a 3rd party Player. This is because the format of the stream sent from the HD homerun (or any DTV tuner in general) is Mpeg2, which isn't played by the default player on the iPad (mp4, mov, m4v).

Also, your network will have just as much as influence as the CPU on the streaming smoothness.

As far as I have read the dual core CPU's in for example the 713+ should be able to transcode 720p video and some 1080 streams, so we are at the limit of the NAS' capabilities here.
My MacMini is vastly more powerful than such a NAS, while idle power is lower, the footprint and noise is similar. The Mini if more expensive, but not too much. The problem is that the SSynology setup and software works really well, and setting up a Mini as a dedicated will be much more trouble I suspect (and I will miss my Synology IOS apps...)

[batistuta]

Originally Posted by nikolajlr

I have two Elgato EyeTV Hybrids hanging off my Mac Mini 2012. One directly and one on a USB 2.0 hub. Both connected to the same DVB-C signal with a coax splitter.

Works fine here with the EyeTV 3 software

Have now finally tried using 2 tuners, which didn't work too well;
When one tuner is recording and I am trying to watch live tv with the other I get the error "insufficient usb 2.0 bandwidth" - http://support.elgato.com/index.php?...articleid=3105

So according to Elgato this could be because I am trying to have two HD tv streams over the USB 2.0 ports on my MacMini.
I guess the second Hybrid will have to be sold again :-(

How's the Homerun doing nikolaj?