Elgato EyeTV HD Quality? Screen captures included

[EmanuelPM]

I have a HD from Elgato with the same double image. I have been too lazy to try to fix it but now that I know there is a pattern I'll contact Elgato. I'm very tech savvy and I know I get this issue at 1080i and 720p over component with my DirecTV.

Posted from iPad so forgive any awkward English.

 

[Phantom Gremlin]

I have a HD from Elgato with the same double image. I have been too lazy to try to fix it but now that I know there is a pattern I'll contact Elgato. I'm very tech savvy and I know I get this issue at 1080i and 720p over component with my DirecTV.

I don't own the EyeTV HD yet. And I won't buy it if this problem is in the device itself.

But I've got to believe that Elgato ships the cheapest crap video cables they can buy. So maybe trying some high quality component cables will cure this problem?

 

[Wheeler]

Update: I exchanged my EyeTV HD for another unit and experienced the same problem. I talked to Elgato tech support, the assured me that the quality isn't suppose to be like that but they are stumped too. They told me to send them my system profile information and they would pass it although to a higher tier tech support.

At this point I baffled. I tried two different EyeTV HD, two different component cables, two different usb cables, and two different video sources and they all have the same problem. To top it off, I tried it on two different computers.

As a side note, I did try the connection using composite cables and the double imaging seems to be gone but the picture is way too blurry to be acceptable.

Can anyone think of anything else? Anyone else have an EyeTV HD that can chime in? Thanks.

The Y cable carries the sync info, maybe something nearby is interfering with the signal. I do not have the ghosting issue with my EyeTV HD, but my picture is not that great either, maybe the components are cheap and you got 2 bad ones from the same batch.

 

[spirit4a]

Elgato Eye TV 3 HD freezes

I have great quality on my imac using the Eye tv 3 HD...for about 5 seconds, then if freezes the picture. Every time. The only choice is Composite cable thru the box to USB2 into the Mac. Anyone know why this would freeze? Thanks for any help.

 

[mizelly41]

I have great quality on my imac using the Eye tv 3 HD...for about 5 seconds, then if freezes the picture. Every time. The only choice is Composite cable thru the box to USB2 into the Mac. Anyone know why this would freeze? Thanks for any help.

Mine freezes too, but it usually plays longer than 5 seconds before freezing.

I also ran across another problem.

I am using the EyeTV to record shows from my DVR so I am not real concerned about watching live TV. To solve the problem with the freezing, I would just close the TV window and let the program record. I thought this worked until I tried recording a basketball game (2+ hours). When I played the recording, there were parts missing. It seemed like it still froze but would fix itself and start recording again.

I contacted Elegato about the freezing issue and they had me send them some data from EyeTV. They forwarded it to their Engineers and told me they would call me back. I'll post whenever I hear from them.

 

[peterjcat]

I have the same problem as the first two posters, ie ghosting on the picture, visible especially with text but resulting in an overall softness. See here:



There's no ghosting when I connect the same component cables to the same monitor. I have all the EyeTV HD settings on Best and Progressive Scan. It looks like there's something weird going on.

 

[G42X500macguy]

I'll have to look....

I haven't noticed any ghosting issues, but this thread has me motivated to check. I'll report back my findings.

I have to ask the obvious question. Are you running the latest version of EyeTV software? I expect everyone is...

 

[wlh99]

There is a noticeable difference in quality if you use the live TV buffer. Basically, to use the buffer, eyeTV is encoding the video as H.264, saving to your HDD, then reading it off the HDD to display it. Unless you need to pause live TV, I would suggest disabling that feature.

You will also get higher quality if you use the HD tuner in the eyeTV instead of one of the analog inputs. For a similar reason, if the eyeTV demodulates the RF itself, it is recovers the same HD signal the cable provider originates. However, if using an analog input, the eyeTV needs to perform an analog to digital conversion, then encode as H.264.

The eyeTV will only be able to decode QAM cable signals. Newer cable services that use phone lines won't work. With those you are stuck with analog inputs.

 

[wlh99]

I have great quality on my imac using the Eye tv 3 HD...for about 5 seconds, then if freezes the picture. Every time. The only choice is Composite cable thru the box to USB2 into the Mac. Anyone know why this would freeze? Thanks for any help.

From my experience, that sounds like a marginal signal issue. When I moved into my house I had the same issue before I rewired it.

Are you using a splitter between the cable box and your eyeTV? I would check that you have as few splitters as possible between your cable entrance from the street and the eyeTV. If you can install a single 5 way splitter at the entrance and run a separate line to each room, that is far far better than having splitters throughout the house. Only two splitters in series (one and the entrance and one behind a tv to feed another device) will cut the signal to 25% of it's original power. Three splitters and you are under 10%. Also, make sure you use quality cables with quality connectors. That also makes a big difference. Use RG-6 cable, not RG-59. I would avoid Radio Shack.

 

[jcoop]

Here's a screenshot from my EyeTV HD. This is coming from a Bright House HD DVR with a 720p signal output. The EyeTV is connected via the component video cables included with the EyeTV. Software is set to "Best" and no interlacing. Not exactly HD quality, is it? Not even DVD quality, to my eyes.

It makes sense, I guess, that the quality wouldn't be as good as it would be using the EyeTV's digital tuner. I do wish I'd known this before my purchase, though, because really this is pretty poor.

 

[Mr. Savage]

I get pretty decent quality (no ghosting or discernible dropped frames etc.) on two of my primary machines with Eyetv HD even though neither is quite up to the system requirements: iMac 2.0 GHz and MBP 2.2 GHz. (2.26 required).

The screenshot I've posted for comparisons sake is a recording (not live tv) at 1080i with progressive scan enabled at the "better" quality setting.

 

[peterjcat]

I think you might have ghosting on your NBC peacock there -- it should be flat grey, shouldn't it? But there's an outline as if the image has ghosted a couple of pixels to the right, just like I'm seeing on my picture.

It's not super-obvious but it does seem like something's out of alignment and that can't be good for the picture.

 

[Mr. Savage]

I do see what you mentioned so out of curiosity last night I checked the same channel and program again on my main HDTV (50 inch plasma). Oddly enough the peacock logo had some ghosting or similar-looking artifact but instead of grey with darker grey outline (like in screencap) it had grey with a brighter shade of grey outline. Again, though, nothing major.

I'm wondering if previous posters who've had PQ problems with their EyeTV have sent the same signal from their boxes directly to an HDTV instead to see if results are same or similar.

 

[MyMac8MyPC]

I've had an EyeTV HD (this one) for about six months, and I've never been satisfied with the image quality.

I bought one around a month ago and the picture is razor sharp.

The 'ghosts' in the pictures that the original poster posted appear to be inputed into the EyeTV HD. That is why exchanging his unit for a second one didn't help.

There is a saying "crap in = crap out, no matter how good the hardware" 😉

What you are seeing is probably 'co-channel' interference.

 

[peterjcat]

I bought one around a month ago and the picture is razor sharp.

The 'ghosts' in the pictures that the original poster posted appear to be inputed into the EyeTV HD. That is why exchanging his unit for a second one didn't help.

There is a saying "crap in = crap out, no matter how good the hardware" 😉

What you are seeing is probably 'co-channel' interference.

Would you mind posting a screen capture with some sharp-edged text in it so we can compare our results to yours? You're right about garbage in garbage out, but for me at least there's definitely a difference between plugging the cables straight into the screen (no ghosting) and putting them through the EyeTV HD (slight, but annoying ghosting).

 

[hallaisen]

I alsos bought an EyeTV HD a couple of months ago and was very unhappy with the image quality. Not only was it pixelated and far from as sharp as I got it with the tuner, but it also stuttered. I spent some time trying different settings , but couldnt get it any better. I was too lazy to send it back, so it has been on the shelf since I bought it :/

 

[jcoop]

I've replaced the stock component video cable with a better one, and the picture through the EyeTV HD is improved--still soft, but definitely improved.

I'll try connecting my DVR to my TV with the component cable to see how much of the dropoff in video quality is simply the result of using component, as opposed to the HDMI that currently connects the DVR to the TV.

I'd also like to see a "razor sharp' screenshot, as I'm still not anywhere close.

 

[MyMac8MyPC]

I will try to post a pic later this weekend as time permits. By the way, I was playing around with the preferences and there were a few that did make the ghosting effect more noticeable. Might be worth your time to pull the owners manual out and play around with some of the settings.

Cables DO make a world of difference and I never use the freebees given with a product. What brand of cable did you use as a replacement?

 

[peterjcat]

Look forward to seeing some razor-sharp captures -- I hope it's just a bad batch that we've got, and Elgato will replace them.

Here's the BBC HD 1080i test pattern going through the EyeTV HD at Best quality, all settings at default (the only setting I could find that made a real difference was Sharpness, which made everything worse).



To the right of the picture you can see the six resolution tests, only the top four of which are resolved at all. There is also significant ghosting throughout.

Plugging the exact same cables directly into the same monitor gives a much better resolution all the way down to the finest test -- there's some distortion but at least it's having a go, whereas the EyeTV HD seems to discard all this info:

 

[Phantom Gremlin]

Here's the BBC HD 1080i test pattern going through the EyeTV HD

Outstanding. Thanks for posting that. It very clearly demonstrates the problem.

Perhaps you're running into the limitations of a $5 encoder chip.

Where can I get the BBC test pattern? It shows up on Youtube but I suspect it's very heavily compressed.

 

[peterjcat]

Outstanding. Thanks for posting that. It very clearly demonstrates the problem.

Perhaps you're running into the limitations of a $5 encoder chip.

Where can I get the BBC test pattern? It shows up on Youtube but I suspect it's very heavily compressed.

I got it from here: http://rapidshare.com/files/191486189/_HD__BBC_Test_card.rar -- I think the link still works.

If anyone's able to run this through the EyeTV HD and get a good result I'd be very happy to see it.

 

[MyMac8MyPC]

I was looking into this and it seems that it's better/worse depending on which channel I look at. I'm going to research this better. I have a HDTV camcorder and I'm going to see how the output looks going through the EyeTV HD. I'll also play with cables, etc. If I find anything significant I'll post the results here 🙂

 

[MyMac8MyPC]

I was just reading about digital 'ghosting' and apparently deinterlacing can cause it, or at least make it worse. Turn off ALL interlacing and see if that helps (when I say 'all' I mean also turn it off on the monitor your using). Hope that helps 🙂

 

[peterjcat]

I was just reading about digital 'ghosting' and apparently deinterlacing can cause it, or at least make it worse. Turn off ALL interlacing and see if that helps (when I say 'all' I mean also turn it off on the monitor your using). Hope that helps 🙂

Thanks but it doesn't help 🙂 bad deinterlacing can sometimes cause ghosting but shouldn't not when it's a stable image (especially a horizontally stable image) like the test pattern.

Still wouldn't mind seeing your screen captures if you've got time -- it would be good to see the best possible image these things can produce, and then start thinking about why some are falling short.

 

[NYCAVS]

Best export format?

I'm relatively new to the EyeTV world. I have an EyeTV HD connected via component to a latest generation Mac Mini. The original signal comes via Verizon Fios and I'm recording from the HD channels... generally 1080i.

I'm recorded a number of movies and then I export them to my iTunes folder (movies) to allow it to stream to my AppleTV2. The "AppleTV" preset for exporting makes it typically 960x540 (and the export takes forever-- hours). I also tried the 720p and 1080p settings (and the export was QUICK for the 1080p) but the picture wasn't anywhere close to the original signal, especially with motion sequences.

So my question is... is there a best format for my type of setup... H.264, 720p, other? Just tried the straight H.264 and didn't work. Should I use a different program to covert/export? Is this just the limitation of the EyeTV setup? Is the interlacing the problem? Please help!!