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Elgato's EyeTV HD Brings High-Definition TV to Mac, Streams to iPhone and iPad

Perrumpo said:
Composite and S-video aren't HD, yet that's all their products offered. So no, they've never had HD. They just liked to act like they did.
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You have been sleeping for a while haven't you. Ever heard of EyeTV Hybrid, EyeTV5 00, HDHomeRun. EyeTV500 came out 7 years ago. They had true HD 7 years ago. This box just allows them to convert from analog to digital in HD. It is kinda lame. I would rather have true digital HD instead of A to D. However, because of copyright protection, this is the only way Elgato could do it. Otherwise they will have to do it like the TivoHD people with Cablecards, etc. I can picture this. If the cable and satellite people decide to downconvert component to 480p and keep HD only for HDMI, then this product is screwed.

I have HDHomeRun and eyeTV software and very happy with them since I only do clear QAM and ATSC for HDTV.
 
I currently have EyeTV Hybrid connected to my Mac mini HTPC. What would this offer what my current setup does not? I'm not criticizing, I'm curiously interested.
 
jaw04005 said:
Copy protection. Devices like this and the Hauppauge DVR exploit the analog hole.



No. Get Air Video from the App Store.



Last time I checked, your Slingbox wasn't a PVR.
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I have a slingbox already connected to a DVR... I have full control over the DVR and can even view all my on demand material from comcast. Plus I don't have to hook it up to a computer, it just sits between my cable box DVR and my router.... how is this any better???
 
bedifferent said:
Ah, I gotcha. I forgot that without a cable box you only get 1-99 channels, although I do get the local channels over the air/cable in HD. I don't really watch Discovery or TNT, etc. in HD. So you would have to connect it to a cable box to get the rest of the channels. Truthfully, for my needs, it isn't necessary, but if you truly want ALL the HD channels, that's not an issue with EyeTV, it's an issue with Time Warner/Comcast/etc. not allowing HD channels to be fed through a cable line without a cable box. They do this to charge customers extra monthly fees. By law local channels in HD are broadcast, the rest is up to their discretion. Indeed, they wouldn't have any other way, it's all about money.
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Yeah, I don't watch many of those channels, either, but I would definitely like to record some HBO and Showtime shows in HD. :D

I just felt like if they say HD, it should be HD in both cases.


bommai said:
You have been sleeping for a while haven't you. Ever heard of EyeTV Hybrid, EyeTV5 00, HDHomeRun. EyeTV500 came out 7 years ago. They had true HD 7 years ago. This box just allows them to convert from analog to digital in HD. It is kinda lame. I would rather have true digital HD instead of A to D. However, because of copyright protection, this is the only way Elgato could do it. Otherwise they will have to do it like the TivoHD people with Cablecards, etc. I can picture this. If the cable and satellite people decide to downconvert component to 480p and keep HD only for HDMI, then this product is screwed.

I have HDHomeRun and eyeTV software and very happy with them since I only do clear QAM and ATSC for HDTV.
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No, if you'd read the thread and you would see what I was talking about. This is the first Elgato product to have HD input from the cable box.
 
g8orballboy said:
I have a slingbox already connected to a DVR... I have full control over the DVR and can even view all my on demand material from comcast. Plus I don't have to hook it up to a computer, it just sits between my cable box DVR and my router.... how is this any better???
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It's not. Probably worse.
 
hitekalex said:
"If you see an IR blaster to control 3rd-party set-top tuners - they blew it"

-Me
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How else would you control an external device? I also have no problem with my Logitech remote 'blasting' my 3rd-party devices...
 
Thinking...

I use my EyeTV 250 Plus with QAM for watching tv from my DirecTV DVR. The quality of the picture is really pretty crappy though on my computer. Does that Hauppauge give nice and clear video? Does it also do game mode so I can use my own DVR easily? I bought the the EyeTV brand specifically for the game mode because my Miglio or whatever brand that I had was really clear, BUT it wouldn't do game mode....but the EyeTV brand has horrible video quality.


aiqw9182 said:
I'll stick with my Hauppauge HD PVR. It has video out built in making recording game consoles a lot easier instead of just recording TV.
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Perrumpo said:
No, if you'd read the thread and you would see what I was talking about.
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To be fair, he'd probably be less confused if you'd just said what you meant in the first place instead of saying something false and then having to spend follow-up posts explaining what it is you were really trying to say.

I understood what you're saying, but you can't get annoyed with other people for not getting it when you went so far out of your way to make it confusing.
 
Damn, I bought an EyeTV and IR Blaster just last month, would have rather bought the official one. Oh well it is mainly for my iPad anyway which isn't even a 16:9 screen. Speaking of which, where is this new EyeTV iPad app? I have been itching for that ever since I got the thing. It is so dumb using the iPhone version in 2x.
 
w0by said:
I use my EyeTV 250 Plus with QAM for watching tv from my DirecTV DVR. The quality of the picture is really pretty crappy though on my computer. Does that Hauppauge give nice and clear video? Does it also do game mode so I can use my own DVR easily? I bought the the EyeTV brand specifically for the game mode because my Miglio or whatever brand that I had was really clear, BUT it wouldn't do game mode....but the EyeTV brand has horrible video quality.
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No, it does not have game mode, but the picture quality is excellent.
 
Evangelion said:
I currently have EyeTV Hybrid connected to my Mac mini HTPC. What would this offer what my current setup does not? I'm not criticizing, I'm curiously interested.
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True HDTV from cable or satellite something you dont have with eyetv hybrid. But really unless you have a imac a better solution seems to me to be a Mini and a HDTV unless you want to record everything.
 
I have a 250plus EyeTV box and its done a great job of recording over the air channels including HD. As for recording premium content channels, I've never had the need. I understand why someone would want to, but here's the catch which some may not really notice in the initial purchase...

They 'include' a one year subscription to the tv programming guide necessary to schedule recordings and use their product. After your one year, you're paying a $20/year fee for that privilege. It seems like a crutch they stand on to make their product seem complete, but end up putting the cost on the customer after that year. If the schedule service was included for the life of the product I'd be happy, but its NOT a bargain basement type product and you get stuck with fees or a seriously degraded use of it without paying the subscriber fee.

Some people may say quit whining when the price is so low, but its about selling a complete product and making clear the additional cost is necessary to use the product (which I don't think is made perfectly clear in their documentation).
 
bommai said:
You have been sleeping for a while haven't you. Ever heard of EyeTV Hybrid, EyeTV5 00, HDHomeRun. EyeTV500 came out 7 years ago. They had true HD 7 years ago.
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Just because your cable box is receiving an HD signal doesn't mean that it's HD once it comes out of the EyeTV. If you're plugging your HD Cable box into an S-Video port, composite, or even component, you've just downsampled your HD. S-Video and composite aren't cable of anything above 480 lines (and definitely not progressive scan), and component is HD signal over an analog feed.

So, no, they didn't have true HD 7 years ago.
 
eh

aiqw9182 said:
No, it does not have game mode, but the picture quality is excellent.
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That's too bad...idk why EyeTV picture quality is so horrible, I wish they would fix it, I'd like to try the HD one just to see if they did an update of some sort, because my Miglia had such nice quality video.
 
AppleTV update please

This shows how badly the AppleTV needs an update. I really don't understand why Apple keeps saying this is a hobby. I would expect it is making big $$ from people who buy/rent movies from iTunes and stream it to their TV. I have not bought/rented a DVD in a long time.

Fingers crossed for WWDC.
 
g8orballboy said:
I have a slingbox already connected to a DVR... I have full control over the DVR and can even view all my on demand material from comcast. Plus I don't have to hook it up to a computer, it just sits between my cable box DVR and my router.... how is this any better???
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No one said it was. It's just about a different product category entirely.

What's unique about this product is it 1) allows you to use your Mac as a PVR with your HD cable or satellite box (previous El Gato products only supported clear-QAM cable and over-the-air antenna for HD) and 2) supports simultaneous on-the-fly H.264 recording of both a "high quality" and "iPhone quality" version of your HD box's output.

That's pretty rare.

It looks like El Gato will be updating their EyeTV.app with a universal iPad/iPhone version soon too.

Linkster82 said:
So, no, they didn't have true HD 7 years ago.
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What are you talking about? Most of El Gato's EyeTV products have supported over the air HD and clear-QAM cable HD for years including the models bommai listed. That's as "true HD" as you're going to get with broadcast television.
 
I've got the Hybrid. What a great piece of tech. The EyeTV software is great, too.

This product doesn't interest me in the least. It's really only for people who have a cable or satellite box.
 
davidbrummy said:
This shows how badly the AppleTV needs an update. I really don't understand why Apple keeps saying this is a hobby. I would expect it is making big $$ from people who buy/rent movies from iTunes and stream it to their TV.
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Probably because Apple would much rather you stream iTunes movies to your computer, specifically a Mac (not a TV they didn't sell to you).
 
jaw04005 said:
What are you talking about? Most of El Gato's EyeTV products have supported over the air HD and clear-QAM cable HD for years including the models bommai listed. That's as "true HD" as you're going to get with broadcast television.
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If you can name me one network station that broadcast in HD over the air seven years ago, I'll give you that one.
 
Small White Car said:
To be fair, he'd probably be less confused if you'd just said what you meant in the first place instead of saying something false and then having to spend follow-up posts explaining what it is you were really trying to say.

I understood what you're saying, but you can't get annoyed with other people for not getting it when you went so far out of your way to make it confusing.
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Hahah. My first post was a comment. You're looking way too much into it.

Obviously, their previous tuners weren't truly HD devices or they wouldn't have given this new one the only "HD" moniker. So, besides, my comment wasn't false or all that vague.
 
USB again? Elgato's Ethernet netstream device is the best they've made since FireWire. I won't be buying any more USB gear from Elgato - disappointed too many times.
 
Linkster82 said:
Just because your cable box is receiving an HD signal doesn't mean that it's HD once it comes out of the EyeTV. If you're plugging your HD Cable box into an S-Video port, composite, or even component, you've just downsampled your HD. S-Video and composite aren't cable of anything above 480 lines (and definitely not progressive scan), and component is HD signal over an analog feed.

So, no, they didn't have true HD 7 years ago.
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this is not true, COMPONENT is just as good as HDMI as long as the cable is not very long and your equipment is good. If you need to have a long run than HDMI is better. Plenty of tests prove this. I believe component supports up to 1080i while it's not 1080P most people can't tell the difference.
 
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