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eyeTV wonder usb 2.0

I

ifjake

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 19, 2004
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i'm not sure i buy this. elgato website says that the "marginal" latency allows for game consoles to be playable through your mac. anyone witness anything like this at MacWorld?

if this is true, sounds pretty nifty. the price is definitely way better than the eyeTV 200. waaaaay better ($150 vs. $320). unfortunately my old Ti Powerbook doesn't have USB 2.0. oh well. maybe i could find a PCI card for cheap. as a college student it looks mighty attractive. it would be the equivalent of buying a 150 dollar TV that would let me record TV on my computer and maybe play a system of some sort (we don't have a TV). the eyeTV 200 at 320 was kind of unjustifiable, as i might as well get a TV at a decent size with that kind of money. i'll have to really restrain myself from this one. if i got one that means i could get a game system, and that would mean all sorts of time wasting trouble for me.
 
I find it strange that a Firewire-based eyeTV can't do latency fast enough for gaming, but a USB 2.0 one can? AND it's half the price? I'd like someone to comment on this. I see it's based on the ATi TV Wonder cards, maybe they do video in a different method? Still sounds dubious.
 
Raven VII said:
I find it strange that a Firewire-based eyeTV can't do latency fast enough for gaming, but a USB 2.0 one can? AND it's half the price? I'd like someone to comment on this. I see it's based on the ATi TV Wonder cards, maybe they do video in a different method? Still sounds dubious.
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I believe it has to do with the fact that the eyetv 200 is not only a tv tuner but also an encoder, and it encodes the video before it sends it to the computer. The ATI wonder is only a tv tuner and sends a raw unencoded signal to the computer.
 
yeah the encoding is all done in the CPU. a single G4 will be able to handle VCD quality while a G5 or dual G4 setup is needed for DVD quality. and unfortunately i found out that it requires USB 2.0 built in in order to work properly. i emailed their support myself to clarify this. so i can't just buy a PCI card for my laptop. oh well.
 
The Mac mini has USB 2.0! :D

So can anyone voucher for this one? Or post some links to some rviews? Cuz I really want to know if it can handle console gaming. Being able to ditch my builky TV in the dorm would be SWEET indeed.
 
yeah, i'm in the same boat as you guys. my tv is 13 years old and i dont want to spend $300 on another. i hope people will post reviews on it when it releases on the 18th i believe? that wwould be really cool if it worked well with an xbox!!
 
I may be interested in this product but i think the styling was done by the U.S.Army or some Lazy engineer. Concepts sounds good but the box they threw it in looks like .....It would have to be hidden if I connected it to my Mini.
 
I am curious about this as well, and seeing the pc version for $100 I was tempted to pick it up and try it on my sister's fujitsu (but it seems to be sold out everywhere). I emailed elgato asking if there is anything different between the mac and pc version (there isn't) and if the extra $50 was just for the elgato software (it is). Here is their reply in case you wanted it:
_____
Thank you for contacting Elgato Systems.

The ATI TV Wonder and EyeTV Wonder share the same hardware.

To make it work on the Mac, the EyeTV software is necessary, along with an activation code. That software and code have a value, and that explains most of the markup. That value is always reflected in the price of any EyeTV product.

Besides that, you may have noticed that PC products are in general cheaper than their Mac counterparts. That's due to the economies of scale on the PC side.

All of that said, we're bringing the best deal we can to our Mac customers.

If you want to use this product on the Mac, then please buy the Mac bundle, because we can't provide the software license separately at this time.
____

Guess I'll just suck it up and pay the extra $50 next week. I wonder if the USB or FW bus provides enough power to run it, I asked about that in the email as well (figuring it was just an oversight on ATI's part not making it bus powered) but it didn't get a response. I don't want to have to carry yet another power adapter if I can avoid it.
 
They happened to have the pc version while I was at Best Buy so I grabbed it. The video quality was was pretty good except for the constant appearance of streaks, usually about 3 or 4 at a time that would go about half-way across the screen. I could live with that, besides, it may be better on mac (could be caused by my sister's laptop). The thing that sucked was the lag. If any of you used an iRez Capsure card with a G3 laptop, that is what i would call "marginal latency," this is somewhere beyond that. I connected a few game systems (Dreamcast & TurboDuo, don't have my Xbox here) and it took about a half second from the time i made an input to the time it was realized on screen. I guess it would work for an rpg but that's about it, definitely not a Halo player.
I'll still keep my hopes up for better performance on the mac version but now I'm going to wait for a couple reviews before I spring for it.
 
Me too, the key feature of this is the real-time encoding, thus making gaming on a console with this feasible. They said they'll start to ship beginning of February. It's now beginning of March, and things have been very silent regarding this. Anyone know what's going down?
 
i got this email from Elgato a while back. decided to post it since the topic came back.

Thank you for contacting Elgato Systems.

EyeTV Wonder requires USB 2.0 ports built in to your Mac. Native USB 2.0 support is necessary to handle the masses of uncompressed video it receives. That means that it requires Macs built over the past two years.

Using an add-on USB 2.0 card is not supported - it might work, but it might not. This variability is due in part to differing USB 2.0 hardware, and part to the current state of Apple's USB 2.0 drivers.

You are welcome to try EyeTV Wonder for 30 days after it ships, and return it if it doesn't work for you.
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so my Ti Powerbook doesn't have USB 2.0 and there's no guarantee of it working with a PCI card. i'm still really tempted to give it a try, since i can return it if it doesn't work. does anyone have any experience with PCI USB 2.0 cards for laptops and can recommend one that could quite possibly work? this could help a lot of us out there.
 
I recently recieved my elgato tv wonder. It performs flawlessly on my g5. I didn't notice any half second delays when playing my gamecube. I tested it with metroid prime and everything felt responsive. I also never experienced any streaks as heyadol mentioned. I can confirm that it doesn't work on a pci usb 2.0 card. I tried it but El Gato's software didn't detect it. Overall I would recommend the product.
 
wait i just went to the elgato web site, and they have this under the above the price on the buy now page-

Note: Due to high demand for the EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0, we are currently in a backorder situation. Please allow at least 10 days for shipping. Your credit card will not be processed until your order ships


*
 
ziutek said:
I recently recieved my elgato tv wonder. It performs flawlessly on my g5. I didn't notice any half second delays when playing my gamecube. I tested it with metroid prime and everything felt responsive. I also never experienced any streaks as heyadol mentioned. I can confirm that it doesn't work on a pci usb 2.0 card. I tried it but El Gato's software didn't detect it. Overall I would recommend the product.
Click to expand...

*bows* thank you thank you thank you *bows*

I can finally get rid of my clunky CRT TV in my dorm room and use my LCD for all my display needs!!! *Dances with glee*
 
Raven VII said:
*bows* thank you thank you thank you *bows*

I can finally get rid of my clunky CRT TV in my dorm room and use my LCD for all my display needs!!! *Dances with glee*
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Your welcome :)
 
i sent something to xlr8yourmac to see if he knew of anything about using the eyeTV wonder with a PCcard, and he actually posted it on the front page and it took off. i recommend anyone looking for info on the eyeTV wonder and making it work to check out the past few days of postings (~march 7-9, 2005 for future reference). a lot of interesting stuff there.
 
alex_ant said:
Wouldn't a firewire DV bridge be better? You can get a Dazzle Hollywood on eBay for well under $150.
Click to expand...

Nah, you can't watch TV with it. You'll have to pass TV through something else, such as a VCR, if you want to watch. The TV Wonder is much better.
 
i just got mine

I just got my usb wonder. There is virtually no latency when playing on my xbox, but the picture is very blury on my 17in powerbook. Motion is also bad while playing, so when i play madden its hard to tell exactly what's going on deep after the play star. Does anyone know how I can improve the quality in any way? TV is pretty good through s-video, but this xbox quality is making me mad.
 
I was also kind of disappointed with the quality when playing games but then I bought some svideo cables off of ebay. The difference in quality is huge. Everything is much sharper and clearer.
 

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