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Elgato's EyeTv Hybrid

ahhh :S help please :)

O.k, so i'm looking into getting a macbook pro 15" 2.13 ghz model for christmas (good present eh?). I, like many, and still alittle confused about how this works...i think i have a general idea so i'll run it buy you...
(P.s i live in canada if that makes a difference)
I have digital cable as well

So my tell is set up right now as the cable going from the wall, to the cable box, into my tv.
O.k so i buy this connector right and put it into one of the usb slots, i take a coloxial(sp?) cable from my cable out "out" to the usb connector. This would allow me to watch tv on my laptop? I hear since i'm living in canada, i woudn't get the same menu i do on digital cable, or i guess the 'guide' its called? it doesn't relaly matter too much cause actually, i don't even want to watch tv, i'm more interested in recording a show if i'm out...so would this work than?

Just another question too....if i hook this up to my cable box, can i watch one show on my tv, while another records onto the macbook?

Replies appreciated in Advance :)
 
A few answers:

First, the Hybrid only receives HD content over the air, so, unless you're going to hook up an antenna to it, you won't get HD (unless you're one of the very, very few people whose cable companies stream HD over the cable (as opposed to providing it via the cable box). Just something to keep in mind. There are cheaper non-HD options. Also, it takes a ton of CPU to watch/record... something like Elgato's EyeTV 250 does its own hardware encoding and is better if you won't be recording HD content.

Second, if you split the cable and run one to your Hybrid and one to your cable box, you can indeed record any of the analog (but not digital) channels while you watch anything else on your cable box. If you want to record digital programming (not high-def - you can only record HD over the air), you'll need to connect the provided dongle to the Hybrid and use RCA cables to provide audio (left/right) and video (composite or S-video), and you can only record what you're watching.

EyeTV, which comes with the Hybrid, is very nice, allows scheduling, etc.

I highly recommend, for recording, that you look into iRecord, which will let you connect a Firewire cable between your cable box and Mac and record anything on the cable box, even, if you have it, HD content. It's all free. The caveat is that you can't watch on your Mac as you record, but you could certainly watch on your TV, and you can schedule recordings for later.
 
JSW.

Thanks for the reply.

All i want to do is watch TV on Imac. I have a digital cable box. Can i connect to this digital box through Hybrid and watch TV on my Imac. I have no problem changing channels from cable box.

I am not really worried about recording TV. OTA channels it does not really matter to me.

Is Eyetv Hybrid still the best option or any other products available just to watch TV through my cable box.

i have 20" IMAC 2 GHZ intel core duo processor.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks
 
isight said:
JSW.

Thanks for the reply.

All i want to do is watch TV on Imac. I have a digital cable box. Can i connect to this digital box through Hybrid and watch TV on my Imac. I have no problem changing channels from cable box.

I am not really worried about recording TV. OTA channels it does not really matter to me.

Is Eyetv Hybrid still the best option or any other products available just to watch TV through my cable box.

i have 20" IMAC 2 GHZ intel core duo processor.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Actually, there is a better way. If you a digital cable box, your cable company has to give you a firewire port on it. It was a mandate from FCC. If it does not have it, ask for one.

Once you get that box, just connect that firewire port to your iMac's fireport using a firewire cable. After that there are a couple of virtual DVHS software available on the Mac that will make the cable box think that your mac is actually a DVHS recorder. Now, you will not only be able to watch the TV on the iMac, you should be able to record it to your mac too.

eyeTV Hybrid is primarily meant for people that get their TV through over the air antenna. For me, it is perfect.
 
Thanks Bommai. Will try this first and then look for going to HYBRID. I need to find out the DVHS software now :confused:

Thanks for the tip again
 
isight said:
Thanks Bommai. Will try this first and then look for going to HYBRID. I need to find out the DVHS software now :confused:

Thanks for the tip again
Click to expand...

You are welcome. Just one more tip. The primary purpose of the eyeTV hybrid is to tune to analog and digital radio wave signals. Once tuned, it is able to extract the MPEG transport streams (in case of digital) and send it unaltered through the USB port to the hard drive (using the eyeTV software).

However, since you already have a cable box which tunes and decodes the cable signal, you don't need an eyeTV Hybrid if you can somehow get this decoded signal directly into your computer. The firewire port comes in handy for this.

I have not used this solution myself, since I don't subscribe to cable but I have heard of this working for others. You should google this topic or even visit http://www.avsforum.com and do a forum search.
 
Bommai,

I tried with the firewire. It allows me only to record but does not allow to watch live. Is there anyway, i can watch TV live without recording?


Thanks
isight.
 
In case anyone's interested, here's a screen grab off a MBP 15" with Elgato's Hybrid using free over-the-air HDTV..... and from a show worth the 6gig/hour of recording space ;).

WARNING 1mb pix.
CLICKY

BTW, although I haven't tested these functions yet, I understand that you can get cable (and HD cable?) through the Hybrid as long as it first passes through the cable box/decoder. The Hybrid/Apple then basically just becomes a TV/VCR between the cable box and regular TV. It's also supposed be able to handle zero-delay video gaming systems as well :cool:.
 
Over the air HD

Dont Hurt Me said:
No its not if you have a fast enough machine it can do HDTV from what I saw at the site. Plus a lot of folks just want to be able to watch TV on their Mac.
Click to expand...

It can only do over the air HD not from a cable box. What it is talking about when it mentions the speed of a machine is Analog because Analog isn't already encoded so the computer has to do it. HD is already encoded so it actually takes less CPU to do HD.
 
Watch TV HELP

HAs anyone found a guide or anything for hooking a cable box up to the IMAC?? I have found several articales, but i still havent seen anyone just come out and say "this is how you do it". is there software that i can run the firewire from my cable box to my imac, run it, and bam, watch tv??
 
jcsmithmachine said:
HAs anyone found a guide or anything for hooking a cable box up to the IMAC?? I have found several articales, but i still havent seen anyone just come out and say "this is how you do it". is there software that i can run the firewire from my cable box to my imac, run it, and bam, watch tv??
Click to expand...

Use a Coaxial Cable Splitter (Try RadioShack) and then run one of the split cables to your TV and the other to your computer. You will need an Eyetv Device (or the like) to view the feed on your iMac.

Kevin
 
Thanks for the fast response!! what i want to to do is hook my cable box up to my IMac. I have seen the fire wire posts, and my box does have the fire wire port. what i want is what kind of software is everyone using to actually watch tv using this approach (firewire to Imac). Will EyeTV work, or what is everyone else using??
 
jcsmithmachine said:
Thanks for the fast response!! what i want to to do is hook my cable box up to my IMac. I have seen the fire wire posts, and my box does have the fire wire port. what i want is what kind of software is everyone using to actually watch tv using this approach (firewire to Imac). Will EyeTV work, or what is everyone else using??
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you can do what you're asking over FireWire unless you're sure the Cable Box is outputting the signal over FireWire, which is somewhat rare. Also, be careful as a ton of boxes have those ports disabled even though they do have them available. What do you mean "What is everyone else using?", just about everyone here is using a TV Tuner, hence the thread title.

Kevin
 
Well, i guess posts 79 and 81 really through me off. they talk about the whol mac and firewire bit.....thats what got me going.....if anyone has anymore infor like this please post away......
 
EyeTV Hybrid: FAILED TO INITIALIZE

Racktacular said:
Can someone help me out here, I'm confused.

This EyeTv Hybrid thing allows you to watch TV on the Mac. I get that, but how?

Do you have to connect it to your tv first and then watch it later on the mac?

Hook the TV antenna to the EyeTV Hybrid; The 'Hybrid comes with a USB extender cable; use this to hook the 'Hybrid to a USB-2 port on your Mac. Install the software (It is now up to version 2.3.3), and use away! It is a very elegant unit!


Does the EyeTV Hybrid allow you to watch LIVE TV on the mac without having it connected to any tv?

Yes, the Mac is, in effect, your TV. The Mac must be ON, and you will have to run the EyeTV software to tune, watch, record, etc. the digital and analog OTA (Over The Air) broadcast television programming.



I'm just confused as to exactly how it works and what it does.

The above should allow enough info for this, I hope.

I have one issue with mine: If I open the EyeTV application after waking the iMac from SLEEP MODE, it is sometimes hard to get the thing to RUN, if I load the EyeTV application; The application is running properly, but the 'Hybrid appears that it is not properly "polled" by the USB port. (The message in the EyeTV program's window is "Failed to initialize.") It sometimes will operate as desired if I simply restart the EteTV program. -Other times, (after several failed tries) I must unplug, then reconnect the USB cable that runs between the 'Hybrid and the iMac. This always results in a proper startup and operation.

-Any ideas??? I emailed Elgato; They said that they WOULD LIKE TO REPLACE the unit, and that they needed our name, mailing address, etc., as well as our telephone number. I replied with all of this, but no more word. (This was more than a week ago, that I have heard from them.:mad: -I shall re-email!)

My system is as follows:
24 inch iMac core 2 Intel
1 meg of RAM
OSX 10.4.8
EyeTV Hybrid, with EyeTV software version 2.3.3

I mention that I am running the 24" iMac, as there have been some scattered reports of less than ideal operation with PARALLELS and BOOT CAMP, running Windows XP.

Thanks!!! -Mike-

----------

Update: I JUST received this email, just after I posted this info:

We will ship out an advanced replacement unit to you. Inside of this box will be a return shipping label to get the defective product back to us.

Your RMA for this exchange is: EX070nnnnnn

Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.
Shaun Charity
Elgato Systems
Click to expand...
 
Usb

So i am just about to buy an eyetv hybrid, when i saw that i can record onto my macbook via my shaw cable box already. So i have a Shaw Digital Cable box, but i looked on the back and there is no firewire port, but there is a USB port. Will i be able to do anything with that?? And also if this will work does anyone have a virtual DVHS freeware program that they could suggest?? Please let me know as i am just about ready to send my money off to get the eyetv.
 
brando06 said:
So i am just about to buy an eyetv hybrid, when i saw that i can record onto my macbook via my shaw cable box already. So i have a Shaw Digital Cable box, but i looked on the back and there is no firewire port, but there is a USB port. Will i be able to do anything with that?? And also if this will work does anyone have a virtual DVHS freeware program that they could suggest?? Please let me know as i am just about ready to send my money off to get the eyetv.
Click to expand...

Do you need the box (such as a digital cable box) or can you get cable using just the coax line? If you can get cable without the box the hybrid will be fine.

If you need to use a cable box you'll probably have to shell out money for something like this and an IR blaster.
 
Motley said:
Do you need the box (such as a digital cable box) or can you get cable using just the coax line? If you can get cable without the box the hybrid will be fine.

If you need to use a cable box you'll probably have to shell out money for something like this and an IR blaster.
Click to expand...

One note of caution. If you are interested in digital signals (SD or HD) through cable, eyeTV hybrid will not work since it does not have QAM tuner. It only has ATSC tuner. ATSC is for antenna only (over the air). Elgato's previous product eyeTV 500 had both ATSC and QAM tuners. If you try to get that somewhere, that will work better for you for unencrypted digital channels.

eyeTV hybrid will do analog channels fine, but analog is so yesterday in my opinion.

I am enjoying eyeTV Hybrid for OTA HDTV.

For cable box, you need to get one with a firewire port and then you don't need eyeTV hybrid at all. The virtual DVHS program on the Mac can record off of the cable box using the firewire port.
 
i recently bought an eyetv hybrid and i can confirm there isnt any lag. I play my Wii all the time with it and there is yet to be a lag. It works great with my DirecTV too, except i have to change the channel with the DirecTV remote, besides that i love it and the remote and software are great.


Kevin
 
ok

Well that didn't exactly answer my question. I want to know if i can use the USB port on the back of my Shaw Motorola Digital Cable box for anything?? Or would buying the Eyetv Hybrid be a better idea??
 
jsw said:
First, the Hybrid only receives HD content over the air, so, unless you're going to hook up an antenna to it, you won't get HD (unless you're one of the very, very few people whose cable companies stream HD over the cable (as opposed to providing it via the cable box). Just something to keep in mind. There are cheaper non-HD options. Also, it takes a ton of CPU to watch/record... something like Elgato's EyeTV 250 does its own hardware encoding and is better if you won't be recording HD content.
Click to expand...

jsw,

In my experience (and various activity in various internet forums), getting HD over cable without the box is very common. In fact, I receive 8 HD channels over my cable system with only a Basic-Extended subscription. No cable box in my house at all.

Typically, cable companies will broadcast the local HD channels unencrypted. You won't get stuff like ESPN-HD, Discovery-HD, etc, but you will get your local ABC, Fox, NBC, etc. Like I said, in my area, we have 8 HD channels (7 locals plus UniversalHD).

As for the EyeTV Hybrid, it's true that you can get HD via an antenna. However, it will not receive HD through a cable connection, even if the cable company provides unencrypted HD. This is because the Hybrid only has an ATSC tuner for digital. To get the HD channels from cable, you need a QAM tuner.

The EyeTV 500 had both the ATSC and QAM tuners. The Hybrid has NTSC (for analog) and ATSC.

ft
 
brando06 said:
Well that didn't exactly answer my question. I want to know if i can use the USB port on the back of my Shaw Motorola Digital Cable box for anything?? Or would buying the Eyetv Hybrid be a better idea??
Click to expand...

I've not heard of people being able to use usb ports on cable boxes to get video out. So unless anyone knows different or you find something doing some searches I don't think the usb port helps you.

You can use the hybrid, but the issue is controlling channels. Without an IR blaster and additional software you won't be able to use the hybrid to change channels on the box (so you're limited in recording capabilities).
 
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