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Digital TV Tuner For Mac
- Thread starter pb69
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SiliconDust makes HDHomeRunextend, which you connect to the mac via ethernet. It has two tuners. If you put it on your home network, a mac (or PC) can grab a tuner and watch. The $170 newer version is wifi capable.
I live in an area where half the stations are north and half the stations are south and omni antennas are not good enough. So I have two high gain antennas, one connected to one tuner and the other to the other, and then pick the tuner with the best signal for the station I want to watch.
VLC plays shows, but I use MythTV for its added DVR type functions. Works very well once you get it installed.
Dunno if anyone makes "Inexpensive" PCI card tuners that work well in a MAC, but I haven't been shopping for over a year.
I live in an area where half the stations are north and half the stations are south and omni antennas are not good enough. So I have two high gain antennas, one connected to one tuner and the other to the other, and then pick the tuner with the best signal for the station I want to watch.
VLC plays shows, but I use MythTV for its added DVR type functions. Works very well once you get it installed.
Dunno if anyone makes "Inexpensive" PCI card tuners that work well in a MAC, but I haven't been shopping for over a year.
Last edited:
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I second Silicon Dust.
And if you have an
TV, try the Channels app. It uses the same SD box to bring live television to the television. For my purposes, this made the TV about 10X more useful in the day to day.
If you happen to have Cable, they also make a 3-tuner box called "Prime" that uses a Cablecard to share your cable channels with computers, mobile devices and yesTVs (and similar) all over the house. Again, Channels app works wonders with Silicon Dust box(es). If lots of people want to watch different things in your home, just add more tuners with more SD boxes.
If that's not enough, Channels also offers DVR functionality that works really well. So if you like recording shows to watch when you want, it does that too.
Long story short: if you might have a couple of cable boxes with box leases around the house, Silicon Dust boxes + Channels app with DVR can be a way to dump those boxes and get much more use out ofTV and similar STBs.
And if you have an
TV, try the Channels app. It uses the same SD box to bring live television to the television. For my purposes, this made the TV about 10X more useful in the day to day.If you happen to have Cable, they also make a 3-tuner box called "Prime" that uses a Cablecard to share your cable channels with computers, mobile devices and yes
TVs (and similar) all over the house. Again, Channels app works wonders with Silicon Dust box(es). If lots of people want to watch different things in your home, just add more tuners with more SD boxes.If that's not enough, Channels also offers DVR functionality that works really well. So if you like recording shows to watch when you want, it does that too.
Long story short: if you might have a couple of cable boxes with box leases around the house, Silicon Dust boxes + Channels app with DVR can be a way to dump those boxes and get much more use out of
TV and similar STBs.
I have the Geniatech formally (Elgato). I've used the Elgato USB Thumb https://www.geniatech.us/eyetv/. I have it connected to a 2010 MacPro. I have a Plex server running on my MacPro. I purchased an inexpensive 50-mile radius HDTV antenna from Amazon. It comes with the EyeTV TV software. EyeTV has DVR features and exports to iPad, iPhone, Andriod etc. Over the summer Plex integrated live TV on all Plex servers. https://www.plex.tv/features/live-tv-dvr/