Tag: eyetv

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EyeTV Netstream DTT

Quite intrigued by this new product from Elgato. The EyeTV Netstream DTT.

EyeTV Netstream DTT is a dual network tuner for digital TV. It connects to your TV antenna and to your Ethernet network router/switch to stream digital television in full HD to your Macs and PCs. If you have a Wi-Fi network you can watch TV wirelessly on a portable computer, free from cables.

Find out more.

Now I don’t think I will be getting one, as though it is a very clever piece of technology, I don’t see me using it that much to justify buying one. In the main as I rarely watch live TV these days, much more likely to watch either recorded TV from the EyeTV on my iMac, or downloaded from iTunes.

Still if you do watch a lot of live TV then this could be an ideal opportunity.

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Introduction to video on your TV from your Mac

I still have a video recorder under my TV, in the main as it has a clock!

I have not used the VCR to record for over five years now, the Elgato 410 connected to my Mac is my way main method of recording TV shows.

However I much prefer watching TV on my TV than watching it on my computer.

So how do I get the recorded video from the Mac to the TV?

Over the years I have used a variety of methods, depending on need, speed, wireless connectivity, even DRM. I have used DVD-Rs, EyeHome, video streamers, PS3, Mac mini, iPod touch, iPhone, iPod, MacBook Pro… each has its advantages and disadvantages. Over the next few weeks I will be talking about, showing and explaining how and why I use all these different methods.

Picture source.

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So where’s my live TV?

So there I was working at the computer when EyeTV started… well I was expecting that, I was recording Being Human on BBC Three.

Wait…

It wasn’t doing it…

No recording.

Hmmm…

Couldn’t even get a live TV Window to open.

In the end I had to unplug the UBS EyeTV device I was using and plug it back in again.

Thankfully Being Human is repeated through the week so I can get the whole episode recorded.

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Clearing room…

Before installing Adobe CS4 I decided that I better clear out some free disk space so that it will not only install fine, but run fine as well. I had bought it for my new iMac, but that’s on hold at the moment.

So what’s on the hard drive?

Well though my files, photos and music take up a fair bit of space, it is EyeTV recordings which take up the most space. I have been a little lax (because I had the space) in editing and exporting recordings.

Generally I only export the recording in the native MPEG2  format, partly to avoid loss of quality, but in the main as it is very quick. After exporting I might copy the Wi-Fi access version into iTunes so I can then put it onto the iPod pretty quickly, but that’s not always done, it depends on the recording.

Of course if I don’t want the recording, it never gets exported and just gets deleted.

After exporting, I try and move files to an external hard drive, to free up space, but it shouldn’t and it does still surprise me by how much space the recordings take up…

Now I know I could export as a DivX format and reduce the file size significantly over the MPEG2, however then I will have a later problem if I want to export into a different format for a different device.

Until we have a consistent video file format then I would rather maintain the high quality large file size of the native MPEG2 recording then try and mess about with a smaller DivX recording for a different device.

I watch the recordings on a variety of devices, the iPhone and various iPods, the PSP, the PS3 and an Archos PVR device. The iPod h.264 recordings for example would not play on the PSP (always) likewise they would not play on the Archos unless I paid €20 for the “extra” to allow the Archos to play h.264 files, if I was willing to pay that I would pay the €20 to allow the Archos to play MPEG2 files natively!

So at the moment I am editing, exporting and in some cases realising that I am never going to watch that special which went out at Christmas and I am deleting!

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turbo.264 HD

I gave my Elgato turbo.264 HD a real test today, encoding an entire season of Doctor Who from the native MPEG2 Eyetv recordings I made from BBC One on Freeview into h.264 iPhone Quicktime movies.

turbo.264 HD

Thirteen episodes took just over two hours, about four times faster than realtime. Each episode was taking under ten minutes to convert. The turbo.264 HD software then automatically added the episodes to iTunes which is useful (and not useful).

I am impressed with the turbo.264 HD and recommend it.

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Elgato Video Capture

Having just purchased the turbo.264 HD from Elgato I have now purchased their new Video Capture device.

Elgato Video Capture

Transfer video to your Mac from a VCR, DVR, camcorder, or any other analog video device as an iTunes-ready H.264 or MPEG-4 file. Elgato Video Capture’s easy-to-use software assists you through every step, from connecting an analog video source to recording the video on your Mac and choosing how you will watch and share it.

There is no easier way to transfer home video to your Mac to play in QuickTime, to sync with an iPod, iPhone or Apple TV, to edit in iMovie, or to upload to YouTube.

I have been looking for something like this from Elgato for some time. I have a couple of Pinnacle devices for capturing video, however either they capture without a preview which is fine for most things, but not all. Or it is Windows only and this means adding extra conversion time to use the captured footage with iMovie or similar.

I use to be able to do it with my original EyeTV device, however that did not capture at a sufficient quality, but this was a fair few years ago now.

So now I have one, still in the bag at the moment.

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Pleased with the turbo.264 HD

So far I am pleased with my purchase of Elgato’s turbo.264 HD that I have been using to speed up H.264 encoding times.

Having edited some EyeTV recordings I was quite pleased by how fast the encoding was (and how it doesn’t impact significantly on the speed of the computer).

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Elgato Video Capture

Having just purchased the turbo.264 HD from Elgato, checking their website I was interested to see a new product, called Video Capture.

Elgato Video Capture

Transfer video to your Mac from a VCR, DVR, camcorder, or any other analog video device as an iTunes-ready H.264 or MPEG-4 file. Elgato Video Capture’s easy-to-use software assists you through every step, from connecting an analog video source to recording the video on your Mac and choosing how you will watch and share it.

There is no easier way to transfer home video to your Mac to play in QuickTime, to sync with an iPod, iPhone or Apple TV, to edit in iMovie, or to upload to YouTube.

I have been looking for something like this from Elgato for some time. I have a couple of Pinnacle devices for capturing video, however either they capture without a preview which is fine for most things, but not all. Or it is Windows only and this means adding extra conversion time to use the captured footage with iMovie or similar.

I use to be able to do it with my original EyeTV device, however that did not capture at a sufficient quality, but this was a fair few years ago now.

So I am going to get myself one.

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turbo.264 HD

I am a great fan of Elgato’s EyeTV and have been thinking for some time about buying their turbo.264 USB device to speed up the conversion and encoding of my recordings for use on the iPod touch or iPhone.

As I was near an Apple Store today I decided to pop in and see if they had one. Thought I found it and checked the price, wow, £139.95.

I know that buying retail can sometimes be a little more expensive, but the price seemed ridiculous, I had expected it to be around to £80-£100 mark.

Well, at least with the Apple Store with all their computers and free wifi I thought I would just recheck the Elgato website, and there on their website was the device for £139.95.

At this point I noticed the name, the turbo.264 HD read a little more and realised that this was not the turb0.264 I thought it was, but a new product, one which would also do HD. Released back in March I had missed the release.

turbo.264 HD

Are you frustrated by the amount of time it takes to get the video out of your new HD camcorder and into a watchable format?

Do you want to watch your videos and EyeTV recordings on your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV?

Do you wish it didn’t take so long for your EyeTV recordings to be ready for Wi-Fi Access?

Want to put your videos on YouTube and take advantage of their new HD features?

Do you own a Sony PSP® and need a way to export videos to it?

Are you a video professional and need an efficient and inexpensive way to compress your video for streaming or the web?

Yes?

Turbo.264 HD is right for you.

As well as speeding up my EyeTV recording conversions I can also use it for other video conversion. Shall be interesting to see how much faster it does work.

Initial tests seem to show that it does work faster.

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iMac going slow

I now feel that my iMac is way too slow for how I am using it these days. It shouldn’t surprise me but it does, this iMac is (well should be) one fast computer, but I certainly push mine to its limits and notice slowdowns and memory issues.

I have 2GB of RAM in there, so it’s not a lack of RAM, much more running too many applications at the same time. Yes I should exit one application before running another, but I often don’t have the time and sometimes (as with EyeTV) it just isn’t possible due to scheduling issues.

I wouldn’t mind the odd delay here and there, but due to delays it is starting to impact on the performance of applications such as EyeTV and as a  result I am getting dropped frames on my EyeTV recordings.

My solution will be to get a new iMac, not to replace my current iMac, much more to have double the processing power. As a result I am going to get a bigger desk.

So which model, well it’s going to be the 24″ model.