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sblanford

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 25, 2008
34
8
Scottsdale, AZ
I'm jumping into the cut the cord crowd and I'm trying to put a system together that is easy for the wife and kids to watch shows that are recorded. (They like watching shows on AppleTv, so suggesting they watch things from the mini is not a helpful suggestion)

I have a Mac Mini attached to an OTA that has Eye TV and is set to record the shows we were recording on DirecTv.

Automatically after a show has finished recording I would like to have that show converted via handbrake, copied to my NAS drive and attached to the iTunes library on the Mini.

Additionally if I could get all of the commercials removed, that would be an added bonus.

Anyone out there have a script set up that is willing to share with the group? Or maybe there is a program that can be set to do all of this.

Thanks
 

KeithJenner

macrumors 65816
Sep 30, 2010
1,264
364
This is my setup, which may be of some assistance. It doesn't do exactly what you ask, but is not too far off.

I have an iMac which acts as an iTunes server. It also has an EyeTV Hybrid and Turbo.264 stick.

The EyeTV is set to record shows and when it has finished recording it immediately exports them to a file that works on Apple TV and adds that export to iTunes. It retains the program data from EyeTV and they generally go into the right place on the TV shows menu.

If I want to keep the program then I use the EyeTV editing function to trim out the adverts and the bits either end. It is really simple to do that, and literally takes a minute or two to edit a show. There is no need to use Handbrake in any of this.

Other advantages of this setup is that we can use the EyeTV app to watch recordings or live TV on our iPads, including remotely over the internet.

It is a great setup, but there are a couple of problems:

You have to wait for a program to finish and then export to Apple TV format before you can watch them. On average it takes about half the program length to export (on a 2010 iMac), so this can be a pain.

It can also be a bit of a pain to manage the programs. You end up with two copies of each program (one on the EyeTV library and another in iTunes) and you have to go to the Mac to delete them.


We also have Sky+ and we now tend to use that for general TV watching and recording regular programs. I record on the EyeTV if I think there is a chance of us wanting to keep the program and as a backup (which I don't export to iTunes) in case the Sky box has problems. If you want to use EyeTV for your general TV watching then you really need to be quite organised. The main benefit that Sky has over EyeTV, on top of being able to watch live, is that you can delete the program straight away after watching without having to go to the computer. We found that watched shows were building up and as I ended up clearing them off there was a danger of me deleting something my wife wanted to keep.

One thing I did was, when ripping my DVD's I added the letter Z to the beginning of the show sort field in iTunes. This means that any shows that are recorded on the EyeTV show up at the top of the TV show list on the Apple TV so it's easy to see what has recorded.

As for your specific requirements, I'm not sure whether there are settings that will automatically put the iTunes copy on your NAS, but I don't see why not. I'm sure that there is much more scope for automation as the original gets into iTunes automatically anyway. You obviously need human input to get rid of adverts but that is very simple.

I think you should be able to find a system that works, as long as you keep your recorded shows organised.
 
Last edited:

blaster_boy

macrumors 6502
Jan 31, 2004
282
4
Belgium
I have a similar setup as Keith - an eyetv hybrid tv tuner connected to my iMac that records tv shows.

You don't need handbrake, eyetv can export automatically to the iTunes library as mp4 file. iTunes is set to import and delete the original movie export file.

To save space, I export them as iphone format, as this is where I watch most of my shows - on the train to and from work.

On my iphone I import the oldest of the show(s) each time.

You do need to remove the eyetv files once exported though - this is a manual proces in Eyetv. And do check in the movies directory if there are any leftover exported movies. Once a month or so I clean out that directory.

I hardly edit out any commercials (though I do have less of them here in Europe) as you can skip them easely. Just one or two movies in the four or five years I'm running this setup - I don't keep many shows very long.

I'm very happy with this setup !
 

srharris22

macrumors member
Aug 28, 2010
94
58
EyeTV to iTunes??

So I have the HDHomerun connected to my iMac and to a HD Antenna. I have been trying to figure out how to make this process automatic. How are you guys doing it?

And while you are at it, how do you guys set you iMac so it will wake up when the appleTV wakes up? Kind of annoying to have to go wake up the iMac before getting the ATV to work.
Thanks!
 
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