EyeTv Advice

randombar

Hi Lads, looking at a few different options to plug my satellite into my mac and came across this:

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/tuner/EyeTV-Sat/product1.en.html

Bit pricey really since I can by a sat box for 50 notes, was wondering if anyone had any advice for me?

Nice one
Gary

J-blk

Are you sure that even works with Sky though? A lot of operators here use encryption schemes that do not allow the use of a third party "box" - or in this case, a separate tuner (UPC does this) so that particular EyeTV would be useless. In those cases, you end up getting one of the analog tuners instead and going through that but it's a messy solution, not the best quality and on Mac OS X, there's no easy way to control the separate Sky box from the software... (which hurts me to say, works very well in Windows Media Center).

Or are we just talking about unencrypted "free" satellite broadcasts here?

randombar

Ya there's a fair few free channels out at the moment, I have the cable in the room and would just like to plug it in to see what happens, but into what is what I'm wondering, 200 euro is a bit of an expensive test!

huggs2

I got a present of an Eyetv sat tuner last year and i am happy with it.Tv+radio channels =447.I get all the free to air channels on astra 28.2. including one of my favs ch5. The bbc hd channel is stunning on my monitor. 24" sony w/s. (crt) Please be aware there is only one tuner so if you are recording you can,t change channel.

randombar

I know it was a present but you don't know where they got this tuner?? Or for how much??

J-blk

So it works with the free-to-air stuff at least - very nice . Too bad Sky doesn't allow the use of a third party box/tuner, this would be awesome then...

Do you already have an analog tuner Gary? Might be worth looking into controlling the standard satelite box via an IR blaster - it's not very straightforward but can be done and should cost a lot less if you already have a tuner and the box is only around €50...

randombar

Don't have any tuner inputs into the mac mini yet, might be worth the few bobs for the satellite one but hard to tell really.

huggs2

GaryCocs wrote: »

I know it was a present but you don't know where they got this tuner?? Or for how much??

It was bought on the mac store.
http://store.apple.com/ie/product/TW128ZM/A?mco=MTQzOTQ5NzI

J-blk

GaryCocs wrote: »

Don't have any tuner inputs into the mac mini yet, might be worth the few bobs for the satellite one but hard to tell really.

The satellite tuner sounds like a neat solution... the problem is you'll be limited to the free-to-air satellite broadcasts only. An EyeTV Hybrid might be a better option as far as connectivity goes but like I've mentioned, controlling an external cable/satellite decoder is a pain that way...

Stainless_Steel

If you want to watch your sky tv on any pc/mac on your home network I would recommend a slingbox.

It is not a decoder, just an audio/video transmitter, so needs a decoder box as input.

J-blk

The Mac OS X version of Sling Player is a joke though - I have a Slingbox classic and it's a decent solution for watching TV... But the Windows version has allowed pausing and keeps a half hour buffer for over a year now whereas the Mac version still lacks those features :mad:.

Stainless_Steel

J-blk wrote: »

The Mac OS X version of Sling Player is a joke though - I have a Slingbox classic and it's a decent solution for watching TV... But the Windows version has allowed pausing and keeps a half hour buffer for over a year now whereas the Mac version still lacks those features :mad:.

Spot on, the sling player software isint exactly feature rich! But it is a nice piece of hardware and I'd still recommend it.

randombar

But you need an external decoder and then you need to control the chanels using the decoder box??

J-blk

GaryCocs wrote: »

But you need an external decoder and then you need to control the chanels using the decoder box??

Are you asking about the Slingbox? Yes, you connect your satellite or cable decoder to the Slingbox (I have UPC) and place an IR blaster from the Slingbox over the IR of the decoder - you can then change channels, etc from the Sling Player software...

randombar

Hmmmm it is another option:

http://www.slingbox.com/go/slingbox-solo

About 70 euro cheaper than eyetv but I still need the satelite box.

Hmmmm

J-blk

Well, a couple of pros: you can stream to any device that has a Sling Player available, so Windows PCs and Macs (it's nice to be able to watch TV on your MacBook in the garden, etc - no cables/dongles connected, etc), mobiles, iPhones (and the iPad then)... You can also set it up to stream outside your home network so you can watch stuff when on holiday or traveling...

And a couple of cons: you can only watch Live TV - you can't record at all and like I said, on the Mac version, you can't even pause/rewind Live TV at all so it's not as good as a dedicated EyeTV/PVR solution. It's also only as good as your WiFi connection and if there's a lot of internal traffic on your network at any point, quality does degrade...

randombar

Ya I guess the problem with my sling player is my broadband, very up and down, I'm using 85MB home plugs for the home network so not sure how good the streaming would be.

If only I had the money tree to buy both

Stainless_Steel

GaryCocs wrote: »

Ya I guess the problem with my sling player is my broadband, very up and down, I'm using 85MB home plugs for the home network so not sure how good the streaming would be.

If only I had the money tree to buy both

Not so much your broadband. Thats only applicable if you want to watch the slingbox over the net. When you're on your home network the bottleneck is your 85 Mbps (I assume you meant Mb not MB? Bits not bytes like).

Most of the time I watch it on my iMac, which is ethernet wired to my router at 1 Gbps so never a problem streaming. I use it the odd time on WiFi (54 Mbps) and havent had any problems. In saying that I never tried to move a lot of data across the network at the same time as watching. Most of the time (if not all in some people's houses) the only network traffic is for internet usage (max 20 Mbps I'd say, usually less than 10), so you're home network will always allow for good streaming.

J-blk

Yep, like Stainless_Steel said, your broadband only matters if you want to view away from home. When you're on your internal network, it makes no difference (in fact, you could have a home network without a broadband connection at all). The only times I've had issues are when I'm moving several GBs across to my server, which can create a substantial enough bottleneck even on 802.11n. I doubt you'd ever see problems on a wired Ethernet connection though.

If you only want to watch live TV, I'd certainly recommend the Slingbox, just because it's so easy to watch on any PC/mobile device anywhere in the house, etc. It's only if you want recording Sky+ style features that a dedicated TV tuner would be far better.

randombar

Ya I'll have a look on ebay over the next couple of weeks, see what pops up!

Nice one!!!

Daithaodh

Hi there

I got the eye tv dongle and disc thing from eBay and although the picture is quite good and clear, my choice of channels is limited to just the RTE ones and the radio station. Does anyone know if I can get any of the other channels like the bbc or itv ones?

Thanks in advance

J-blk

Daithaodh wrote: »

I got the eye tv dongle and disc thing from eBay and although the picture is quite good and clear, my choice of channels is limited to just the RTE ones and the radio station. Does anyone know if I can get any of the other channels like the bbc or itv ones?

You'll have to provide some more info about your TV tuner and source for anyone to really be able to answer your question properly, but I think you are referring to DTT (Digital) channels and currently in the South, all we get is the RTE channels - if you are near the border, you might be able to pick up some UK ones though it also depends on what your specific tuner supports, since UK digital channels use MPEG-2 and ROI digital channels now use MPEG-4 so not all tuners are compatible with both. For the most part, I don't think you'll be able to pick up any of the UK channels unless if you are using an analog TV tuner connected to a UPC/Sky box, etc.