Help with OTA to iMac

[maldoror]

i'm trying to hook up tv for my son who is sick...we had to unsubscribe from cable tv because of medical bills and gave away our tv.

he wants to watch a football game this weekend so we're trying to figure out how to get over the air tv onto our imac for him.

what's the best way to do this these days?
i was looking at the elgato eyetv a couple years back, but never got it. is that still the standard? or the homerun thing? and then can i just pick up a cheap antenna at walmart to pick up ABC? i live in the city in a yellow zone according to antenna website. do they make tuners that include antennas now or anything? i'm in a hurry to get it figured out by this weekend.
thanks for the help

 

[Panch0]

i'm trying to hook up tv for my son who is sick...we had to unsubscribe from cable tv because of medical bills and gave away our tv.

he wants to watch a football game this weekend so we're trying to figure out how to get over the air tv onto our imac for him.

what's the best way to do this these days?
i was looking at the elgato eyetv a couple years back, but never got it. is that still the standard? or the homerun thing? and then can i just pick up a cheap antenna at walmart to pick up ABC? i live in the city in a yellow zone according to antenna website. do they make tuners that include antennas now or anything? i'm in a hurry to get it figured out by this weekend.
thanks for the help

elgato EyeTV is the software that displays the live or recorded show on your Mac. It's pretty easy to setup and use - I would say this is your best path to having something up and running in a few days.

Elgato used to sell several hardware tuners packaged with their software, but I just looked at their site, and they only have the EyeTV HD, which is for Cable Systems. Look around the web and see if you can find an EyeTV Hybrid Tuner. THat is a USB Stick with a COAX connector on one end to connect the antenna to.

The alternate is to buy the EyeTV software (Elgato.com sells it direct, or you can find it elsewhere like Amazon) and a tuner separately.

The Silicon Dust HD HomeRun is actually a network device that you plug in (Wired connection only) to your router. The EyeTV Software will go out and find the tuner on the network very easily. This was actually the least expensive Mac compatible tuner that I found doing a quick search - apparently something is going on with the other models that have been available, maybe they are about to be replaced by newer models or something.

Link To HD HomeRUn on Amazon

I didn't have much luck with an indoor antenna, but I live in the suburbs, so you will probably do better than I did. I've never tried this one personally, but I've heard it's pretty good:
Mohu Leaf Antenna on Amazon

The HD HomeRun is a really cool device and the EyeTV software works very well. SHouldn't take more than a couple of hours to get configured once you have the parts in hand.

Good Luck!

 

[Ubele]

I'm getting ready to "cut the cable," so I've been researching this myself. The Elgato EyeTV Hybrid Tuner disappeared from Elgato's website without explanation about a month ago. I read a lot of user reviews saying that the device broke after six months or so, and I wonder if it was inherently unreliable. You can still find them on Amazon, but I'd avoid the device without knowing why it was discontinued.

Someone on here told me about the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Dual, which does the same thing as the EyeTV Hybrid, appears to be more robust, and gets good user reviews. I'm going to get one, but I'm waiting for the new model that's supposed to come out in late summer or early fall. From what I understand, it will convert OTA content to H.264 so you can load it into iTunes. With the current version, you have to convert saved OTA content using a software conversion program, which is slower. I also plan to get the Elgato EyeTV software so I can use my Mac as a DVR with the HDHomeRun.

I purchased an unamplified Mohu Leaf antenna a month ago, and it works great for me. I live in the suburbs, about seven miles from most of the local broadcast towers. The HD channels come in crystal clear. I also get channels from farther away, but most of those are duplicates of the closer stations.