> From: Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I am testing a Dvico PCI digital tuner card with iTele.app and the > MMInput Drivers. Seems promising. > I can record digital broadcasts with this but have so far been unable > to view the live feed, stay tuned...
EyeTV has been the most reliable, simple, feature-rich solution I've come across. Even Miglia and others are now using Elgato's EyeTV software with their hardware. Most of these solutions avoid PCI and are available as external boxes using USB 2 or Firewire to connect to the Mac. They have the advantage of not requiring a PCI slot equipped Mac. You might like to check out the new Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS that I mentioned in a previous post which is the first to have built-in digital (DTT) and analog TV tuners (the later so you can receive Access 31 if you really want to!) as well as having composite and S-VHS video inputs for converting your old analog video tapes etc. And it is tiny - the size of a USB Thumb drive. Not bad for 129 euros: http://tven.terratec.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2 36 And EyeTV 2.2 now supports the Cinergy device: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=14672 You would however need a Mac with USB 2 and I'm not sure how much this beastie would load up your CPU compared to our EyeTV 400. > So I am hoping a cheap-ish Mac can take on the jobs that the Zensonic > was doing, with the added function of recording TV. > LAN access is a bonus too.. > > I guess I need to find a graphics card with S-Video out. As far as outputting to a TV is concerned, we have used the composite video out adapter on my PowerBook and our iMac to display on our LG 68cm TV and it works ok, but of course interlaced PAL video (even s-video) just doesn't compare to non-interlaced VGA/XGA etc) on the screen of the iMac (or the projector). When we're not using the data projector we far prefer watching TV on the built-in 17" (43cm) widescreen LCD screen of the iMac than on the larger but fuzzier non-widescreen 68cm TV. We just position the iMac on the coffee table closer to us and it works fine. It also means we can do other things with the Mac like browse the web for TV show listings to copy and paste into EyeTV, run iTunes, do video capture and DVD authoring etc on a nice high quality screen without having to drop the resolution to horrible flickering PAL which requires you to squint to try and read the small text on menus etc. Even with convolution (blurring single pixel horizontal lines so they merge over several lines of interlaced video and don't flicker quite so badly), computer images on TV are really only usable with large font sizes and resolutions no greater than 768 x 576 - the theoretical max resolution of PAL. In reality you may only get viewable results at 512 x 384. It's like looking at your computer through a keyhole. Also, try sitting as far away from your computer monitor as you do from your TV and you'll see that even on a good quality non-interlaced computer monitor you'll only be able to comfortably read 24 or 36 point text. One option that does work well with an interlaced TV though is to use a Mac with Extended desktop capability to allow you to have your TV in it's usual location and a smaller VGA screen close to your lounge seat running at the same time. That way you can drag your live TV or recorded video programs over to the bigger TV screen while you have the menus, web browsing etc easily readable on the smaller VGA screen next to your seat. Quite useful when one person wants to browse the web or other things on the computer while the other watches TV using the EyeTV remote control to pause or fast forward the live TV or recorded program. > It sounds like ATI offerings have the edge over Nvidia with S-Video > quality. I haven't tried any recent PCI cards with video-out so couldn't say. > What is the 'slowest' Mac someone is using to do this sort of thing? Before we got our 1.8GHz iMac G5, we were using an old 450MHz PowerMac G4 with 256MB of RAM with an EyeTV 400 to record digital TV and display it through a data projector in our lounge. It worked well as the EyeTV 400 does all of its processing in the box. It had problems (dropped frames and stuttering) playing back a recording while also playing live TV in a second window, but it wasn't bad for such an old RAM-starved Mac. My 1.25GHz PowerBook G4 with 2GB of RAM but a slow internal Hard disk also works fine with the EyeTV 400 and unlike the old Powermac, can playback multiple digital TV windows at once without stuttering. > I also need to speak to an aerial installer, any recommendations? I installed our aerial and replaced our old rusted coax with new digital-ready RG-6 cable myself. Pretty easy to do really. > Thank you (sorry, I know I write long posts ;) That's ok, I write long replies. :-) > Paul -Mart -------------------------------------- Martin Hill email: mart "at" ozmac.com homepages: http://mart.ozmac.com Mb: 0417-967-969 hm: (08)9314-5242
