Viewing TV on iMac

colm_c · 31-10-2008 12:25AM #1

I've got a newish iMac (just under a year old) in my bedroom, and was looking at hooking up an TV connection to it to watch it the odd time or play the Wii as I don't have the space to have a TV and a 24" iMac in my room.

I've looked at the eyeTV thing but from what I've read the quality isn't great.

Are there other products that would take a composite or SCART input and allow me to view it full screen? Or is it worth the effort?

iMac specs are 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM.

ZENER · 31-10-2008 01:09AM

I bought this and EyeTV and am very pleased with the results. It comes with a cable for connecting EXT Composite/S-Video sources but I've not used it so can't comment on their effectiveness.

ZEN

J-blk · 31-10-2008 07:42AM

The Eye TV tuners are fine (the software is great). The Hauppauge HVR 900 that ZENER linked to is the Eye TV Hybrid (Hauppauge makes it for them). The only difference is that it is colored/branded differently and ships with the Eye TV software. If you get the Hauppauge, you can still buy the software separately.

I've owned a Hybrid and an Eye TV 250 - the 250 is better if you want to record things because it has a hardware MPEG-2 encoder but oddly enough, I had more hassle tuning in some NTL analog channels with that than with the Hybrid. I'd recommend the Hybrid and on a fairly powerful system (like your iMac) you shouldn't need the MPEG-2 encoding of the 250 anyway. They all have composite/S-Video inputs - SCART is way too huge to be used on most TV tuners.

As for quality, it actually is not that bad but consider the fact that you'll be feeding a standard definition signal into what is in fact a high definition display (your iMac's native resolution is 1920 x 1200, higher than 1080p even). You'll notice any signal noise/problems, etc a lot more than on a standard TV, just like you would with an HDTV connected to any SD source.

colm_c · 31-10-2008 08:35AM

Right so, I'll add one to the christmas shoping list

Talisman · 31-10-2008 11:36AM

I'd also recommend the EyeTV Hybrid. I bought one from the Apple website a couple of weeks ago. It works great with the cable connection, I haven't been able to pick up the DTT trial yet though.

Edit: Got the DTT signal - quality picture and sound.

johnk123 · 31-10-2008 02:51PM

Just wondering while reading this? What is the story when it comes to the whole tv license area of things? Not that I'm trying to dodge it or anything. Just wondering is all

J-blk · 31-10-2008 03:00PM

As far as I remember, the wording is "any device capable of receiving a TV broadcast" - by definition, that covers any TV tuner and the inspectors could probably catch you out on it. I don't own a physical TV but since I have tuners (and an active UPC TV package), I have a TV license...

Talisman · 31-10-2008 03:25PM

Yes it's anything that can provide a live feed of the broadcast channels.

Technically having a broadband connection is a equivalent to having tv reception as you can stream live content from TG4 and RTE.

I remember reading that some bright spark wanted to amend the law last year so that mobile phones which could connect to the internet would be covered. Thankfully that got knocked on the head. They purposely keep the tuner and tv reception definitions vague so that there are no loop holes such as Magnet PCTV and Smart Vision.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the onus is on you to prove that you don't watch tv.

Viewing TV on iMac

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