[MW Forums]

Elgato has added new hardware support, features and bug fixes to EyeTV 2.2. more

[Machound]

EyeTV 2.2 is rock solid for me. The headline feature is Digital Audio Output!!! Now we can play 5.1 channel audio through the Mac's toslink optical audio port. It works beautifully on all EyeTV 500 recordings I tried with my CoreDuo Mini and my H-K receiver.
This update completes the picture for anyone thinking of using an Intel Mac as a digital video recorder. Digital audio is bigger news than a bug fix. It's the final piece of the puzzle.
VHS Assistant is a great idea for anyone with an analog receiver such as EyeTV 200 or Miglia TVMicro and a stack of analog home videos or VHS tapes. I didn't try it with my TVMicro yet since I own a Canopus converter, but this is an added bonus. Miglia doesn't even advertise this feature.
More strong work from ElGato. They clearly are leading the way for video capture on any platform. Windows users can only fantasize about this quality of software and hardware integration. Anyone thinking Apple is going to jump in and compete with a DVR solution is also dreaming. Apple would be starting years behind what ElGato has already done, and I don't see any interest from Apple leadership to go this route... clearly Apple has other plans.
There's never been a better time to buy an ElGato receiver. EyeTV 500, in particular, is a mature / stable product for North American TV. I own two 500's for > 1 year and I have no regrets about my ElGato purchases, despite having lived through some bumps in the road last summer. These products just keep getting easier to use with each update -- much like Mac OS. Call me a happy ElGato customer.

[ATX]

As for me, EyeTV 2.2 freezes like hell for no reasons. Reverted back to 2.1
Still waiting for Elgato's support response.

[Machound]

What's your hardware and software? I know they beta tested 2.2 a lot... I was one of the testers. I saw no crashes or other instability on my PowerBook G4 or my CoreDuo Mini.

[webstyr]

I love my EyeTV 500 except for one thing. The scheduling of shows to watch doesn't include a "season pass" feature. I have to create a new schedule every week for the same shows I watched last week. I mean, come on. How hard would it be to add this very basic feature into the scheduler. Are you listening El Gato?

[solipsism]

"Anyone thinking Apple is going to jump in and compete with a DVR solution is also dreaming. Apple would be starting years behind what ElGato has already done, and I don't see any interest from Apple leadership to go this route... clearly Apple has other plans."
Those plans are ITMS. To include such soft/hardware would be counter intuitive.

[Machound]

"Those plans are ITMS. To include such soft/hardware would be counter intuitive."
That was my point. Apple has lots of disincentives for developing a DVR.
Regarding the Season Pass idea, that's been proposed to ElGato a number of times in the past. It's one of TiVo's best features. Send ElGato your suggestion. They do listen even if it takes a while to get to specific feature requests. Now that EyeTV 2.2 is stabilized (from what I've seen) they might be ready to tackle something new. You won't know unless you ask.

[bastion]

I have to create a new schedule every week for the same shows I watched last week.
I must be missing something. What's insufficient about EyeTV's recurring event feature?

[d00d]

In reply to:

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I must be missing something. What's insufficient about EyeTV's recurring event feature?

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Schedules change, sometimes shows appear on special nights, some weeks are repeats, etc, etc. El Gato/Titan TV should be able to figure this out for me and make it as transparent as TiVo does.

[Machound]

I'm not a TiVo owner and I never have been, but my understanding of Season Pass is it tracks TV schedule changes and makes adjustments for those changes. A rigid recording schedule is prone to mistimed recordings as the networks move shows around, insert State of the Union addresses, go on PBS funding drives, etc. I've had plenty of incorrect shows being recorded based on outdated TitanTV data -- which stations submit weeks or months earlier & they seldom correct it when schedules change.
More intelligence in sorting out Titan's often erroneous data versus the up-to-date programming info downloaded directly from the station could help reduce EyeTV misfires.
Oops, it seems Dood got his post in before I did. We're both saying essentially the same thing.

[jdb8167]

In reply to:

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The scheduling of shows to watch doesn't include a "season pass" feature. ... I mean, come on. How hard would it be to add this very basic feature into the scheduler. Are you listening El Gato?

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TiVo has patented a number of these basic ideas. It is likely that El Gato would love to include those features but can't because of our broken patent system. I doubt very much that TiVo will license the patents.

[Machound]

There's more than one way to get the job done. My understanding is TiVo does NOT gather digital programming data from the station itself, nor from TitanTV the way EyeTV 2 does. It's really a different schedule correction model. "Season Pass" is being used because of brand name recognition, not because it's the only way schedules can be fixed.
I hope we aren't getting off on a tangent. The current scheduling system is pretty good but it's one last area where improvement is possible. The rest of the EyeTV package is well near perfected. Perhaps a few minor tweaks are possible but there's nothing that will make you pull your hair out in frustration.

[jdb8167]

In reply to:

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There's more than one way to get the job done.

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That entirely depends on how broad the patent is. In the case of TiVo v. EchoStar the jury clearly thought that EchoStar could not find a different way to get the job done.

[feefer]

Same here: I bought the software for Intel machines (using EyeTV200 plus Mac Mintel Duo Core) and it's been buggy, with freezes/skips, crashes, and failure to wake from sleep to record programs. Let's hope the update addresses these problems, as it's rather annoying to have spent $$$ on software that is buggy...
Chris