Watching DishNetwork TV on iMac

[wtxmountains]

OK, so I've searched around but I can't seem to find anything that isn't years old on the topic of getting my DishNetwork satellite TV onto my iMac. I've had tuner cards in the past for older Macs which only needed to be connected to the co-ax out from the Dish receiver and worked perfectly. I don't need to do DVR stuff on my Mac (already have the DVR on the receiver) and I don't really even care if I'm watching in HD .. I just want to have a small window on my iMac that shows the content the Dish receiver is currently playing. I thought I could do that with the EyeTV One but everything I've tried has failed. The EyeTV One simply can't seem to find any channels and neither can I tell it the channel to which to tune. My 15 year old tube-type TV can handle the co-ax signal from the receiver just fine showing a nice picture but this EyeTV One can't seem to manage the feat at all.

Can anyone tell me what I need to be able to get my DishNetwork TV onto my iMac (27" Core i7, 10.6.7)?

 

[MisterMe]

OK, so I've searched around but I can't seem to find anything that isn't years old on the topic of getting my DishNetwork satellite TV onto my iMac. ...

A tuner will work if you are willing to accept the quality-loss in the RF stages of your Dish Network set top box and the tuner. Based on the information shared, your best bet is the elgato video capture. You may capture two-channel analog stereo sound. For the video track, you have the choice of either S-Video or composite video. You may record your AV as either MPEG-4/AAC or H.264/AAC. However, you cannot capture a digital stream from the set top box. If your set top box is a standard receiver, then the elgato video capture will give you everything that you are paying for. If your set top box is a HD receiver, then you the elgato video capture will sacrifice part of your subscription fee.

 

[wtxmountains]

A tuner will work if you are willing to accept the quality-loss in the RF stages of your Dish Network set top box and the tuner. Based on the information shared, your best bet is the elgato video capture. You may capture two-channel analog stereo sound. For the video track, you have the choice of either S-Video or composite video. You may record your AV as either MPEG-4/AAC or H.264/AAC. However, you cannot capture a digital stream from the set top box. If your set top box is a standard receiver, then the elgato video capture will give you everything that you are paying for. If your set top box is a HD receiver, then you the elgato video capture will sacrifice part of your subscription fee.

I appreciate the info.

I'm not sure I'm completely in agreement with you that a tuner will work .. that's what I have set-up right now (Elgato EyeTV One connected to the RF co-ax out of the Dish ViP722 receiver) and it most decidedly refuses to give me anything but messages saying it can't find a frequency to which to tune even after going through each setting I could think to try on both the Elgato and the Dish receiver. Like I said, the old tube TV tunes in fine and has a nice enough picture .. the Elgato EyeTV One finds nothing on any setting.

As for the video capture .. are there just monitor or preview windows that can show the content w/o actually capturing with things like this? I mean, I don't want to have the CPU and hard drive working OT just to watch TV.

Thanks again for any further insight you or others may provide.

 

[ftaok]

The EyeTV One will most definately not work since it is a digital-only tuner. The coax output of your DishTV box is analog. What you need is an analog tuner (the EyeTV 250+ or Hybrid has analog) or something that has a breakout cable input for composite (assuming the DishTV box can output composite).

 

[wtxmountains]

The EyeTV One will most definately not work since it is a digital-only tuner. The coax output of your DishTV box is analog. What you need is an analog tuner (the EyeTV 250+ or Hybrid has analog) or something that has a breakout cable input for composite (assuming the DishTV box can output composite).

Right .. that's exactly what I found out when Elgato support finally got back to me. Thanks for the info!