Video over FireWire?

[arj8138]

Hey Mac Community....

So I have tried a couple different ways to use my PowerBook as a TV.

I bought the Elagato [SP] Eye TV and it was terrible quality at full screen.


Currently I use Popcorn 3 to take programs from my TiVo and watch them on my mac. Perfect quality, nothing better/worse then what I see on a SDTV.

No I'm a Final Cut user too and I frequently capture video from an Analog source over FireWire via a conversion box that I have.


I was wondering if there is any software that lets me see [and hear] what I see when I go to Final Cuts Log and Capture screen but w/o FCP and as close to full screen as possible with good quality.

 

[jsw]

I'm not sure what you're asking - you're talking about seeing what's coming in on the firewire cable, as opposed to files you've already imported, right?

iChat might work, QuickTime Pro might work, but, as you have FCE (or FC not sure), why not just use it?

 

[WildPalms]

Just regarding the Eye-TV... did you set the quality to high? i.e. custom
That will have an impact on the image you see in realtime. The setting is buried a little in the options.

 

[r.j.s]

What about mpegstreamclip? IIRC it can capture footage coming in through FW.

 

[neiltc13]

EyeTV's picture quality depends entirely on the source. I have an Eye TV for DVB-T and the quality is just as good as normal SDTV. Here's a shot:

If you buy one of their dodgy tuners for analogue TV then yes, you'll have to spend a long time tuning it and hope you get a good signal.

You might also want to check out Zattoo. They offer a variety of live TV channels over a Peer to Peer network (a very novel idea executed extremely well).

 

[WildPalms]

So Zattoo is another Joost competitor..interesting, although it has nowhere near as many channels as Joost. That makes 5 now.

 

[neiltc13]

So Zattoo is another Joost competitor..interesting, although it has nowhere near as many channels as Joost. That makes 5 now.

Zattoo streams LIVE TV. None of the others do this and it does it much more elegantly than anything else I've seen so it wins there hands down.

 

[WildPalms]

Zattoo streams LIVE TV. None of the others do this and it does it much more elegantly than anything else I've seen so it wins there hands down.

Ahh ok. The future is content on demand so I'm curious why they went with an archaic model. But hey, there must be a market for it


As far as El Gato products go, they are very well respected. I'd hardly call them 'dodgy'.

 

[arj8138]

I already returned the Eye TV Device, it wasnt worth an extra $100 to just watch stuff in real time.

I think in iChat it shows it backwards right? like if someone else was looking at it. idk though

Im gonna explore some of the other discussed options

 

[arj8138]

I'm not sure what you're asking - you're talking about seeing what's coming in on the firewire cable, as opposed to files you've already imported, right?

iChat might work, QuickTime Pro might work, but, as you have FCE (or FC not sure), why not just use it?

What I want to do is just watch what is coming in through FireWire, not capture it. FCP lets you see it but not full screen and there is no audio.

 

[r.j.s]

What about Vidi or BTV?