TV on the iPhone

[Nikilas]

Ok, here's what I am doing now:

I have a PC with an ATI TV Tuner in it (although the ATI software is extremely buggy). I record TV shows on it and am left with an MPEG2 file on my hard drive. Then I use TMPGEnc to edit out the commercials (which is a failry quick process actually), then I use MPEG_Streamclip to convert it to an MP4 so that I can put it on my iPhone.

The reason I am explaining this, is I am seriously considering switching to MAC, but want to make sure that I can do the same things. I imagine that I will have to buy a TV tuner for it. Also will need software to take out the commercials. Does iMovie do that sort of thing? If so, can it save in a format that will play on the iPhone?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Jay

 

[EricNau]

The most popular TV tuners (and accompanying software) for Macs are branded "EyeTV" by elgato. The software includes many export options, including presets for the iPhone.

 

[Nikilas]

And can you usually edit out the commercials, or would that require another piece of software?

 

[EricNau]

And can you usually edit out the commercials, or would that require another piece of software?

The eyeTV software does include a method for editing out commercials, although I find the process rather tedious. Alternatively, you could export the video to iMovie (which is also a preset option) and then edit out the commercials there, and then use iMovie to export to iTunes/iPhone.

 

[huntercr]

And can you usually edit out the commercials, or would that require another piece of software?

Good news. You're already using the tool you need to edit out commercials.... MPEG Streamclip has this feature built in!

You may need to buy the Apple MPEG2 codec for quicktime in order to do what you want though. ( I think its $25 so no big deal )

But suffice it to say, you'll have an easy time doing what you want on a Mac.

You might also be interested in Elgato's H.264 hardware encoder. If you do your conversion process to MP4 frequently, it will be a lifesaver for you.

I don't know this for sure, but I think eyeTV can do this whole process for you ( edit commericals and epxort to MP4 ) as well.


I used to do this myself for shows from my tivo but I've gotten so lazy about it, I just Fast forward commericals now.

 

[Nikilas]

I hadn't noticed that before. It is not quite as nice as doing it with TMPGEnc, as you can see many frames at a time, but it would do the trick. I don't care if they are completely gone, I just bring it jogging and have a hard time doing fast forward while running! The MAC is looking increasingly attractive at this point, however. I will look up this H.264 hardware encoder.

Thanks for the responses.