[bommai]

EyeTV now supports HDHomeRun. I just sold my eyeTV Hybrid and got the HDHomeRun. Great product. HDHomeRun has dual tuners (both ATSC and QAM - no analog). However, the cool thing is it is network based (uses ethernet) instead of firewire or USB. So, you can connect it to your home network and leave it in the closet, wherever. Now, I can record two HD programs at the same time. Works great.

[tallscot]

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What I'd like to see is something I can put a cablecard into and it will control channel selection and record HD video, like the TiVO HD. But then I have an HDTV, so I suppose I might as well just get a TiVO HD. Just as soon as they have a special to transfer my TiVO II lifetime subscription to the TiVO HD, I'm there! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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Cough. Windows Media Center PC. Cough. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[tallscot]

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If anything, this is a giant ad for not doing this. It's way too complex and limited. The other thing this article tells me is Apple is not offering consumers what they really want. Microsoft is, of course. If you are going to have a dedicated computer just for DVR, you might as well get a Windows Media Center PC. But we are Mac users and that means we'll put aluminum foil on our heads just to use the Mac, if we have to. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

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I'm actually not sure that many users want this. I've never met anyone with a Media Center PC. And all the reviews I've read online give it less than stellar reviews.

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Well, every PC sold with Vista is a Windows Media Center PC.
As a dedicated unit, it pretty much is exactly what I want.
It has DirecTV support. It has Cable Card support
You can have one central Windows Media Center PC connected to your cable/satellite provider's connection, right? You have it record all the shows. The rest of the TVs in the house stream those shows (SD or HD) via Windows Media Center Extenders, and there are a few to choose from. Those same media center extenders also stream your music and photos that are on that main server. So instead of having some shows recorded in your living room and other shows recorded in your bedroom, they are all recorded in one spot and all of the rooms in your house have access.
It's actually, very, very cool. I really wish Apple would go this direction. Instead, they want to sell me TV shows or Movies at 640 x 480...but not give me the ability to buy them from my couch. Ugh. How ironic that with this one product, Apple has the hassled solution and MIcrosoft offers that easy solution.
You can download plug-ins for Microsoft Windows Media Center that do all kinds of cool things. There's one that automatically goes out and gets info and cover art for each DVD you put in your DVD drive (that can stream the movie to multiple TVs, unlike Apple TV.) There's a plug-in that automates putting your recorded TV shows on your iPod or other mobile device.

WMCE also has radio stations, lets you buy/rent movies/shows from your couch, etc.

Here are some nice ones that have digital cable (CableCard) HD support:
http://www.niveusmedia.com/
Microsoft has been doing this for 5 years now. They are offering the features I want. I wish Apple did. But hopefully Apple will get there. YouTube isn't really what I want, but hopefully they will get there soon.

[trip1ex]

It seems like the only thing any of these other DVR systems beat Tivo on is the monthly fee.

[cfromberg]

a 2h movie in over the air (antenna DTV) ATSC 720p will result in a 6GB file on your harddrive! not 4GB max. as you stated!!!
and in 1080i it will result in a 8-9GB file on your harddrive. eyeTV records ATSC without altering the digital mpeg2 signal stream, thus resulting in a very large file that can be exported to DVD or HD-DVD or blueray quality later, but that encoding will take a very long time since encoding will take @ least double the time of the source playtime... a hardware encoder will help drop those encode times considerably....

[Ilgaz]

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a 2h movie in over the air (antenna DTV) ATSC 720p will result in a 6GB file on your harddrive! not 4GB max. as you stated!!!
and in 1080i it will result in a 8-9GB file on your harddrive. eyeTV records ATSC without altering the digital mpeg2 signal stream, thus resulting in a very large file that can be exported to DVD or HD-DVD or blueray quality later, but that encoding will take a very long time since encoding will take @ least double the time of the source playtime... a hardware encoder will help drop those encode times considerably....

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For external HD owners, it is reason to move to Mac native HFS+ Journaled from FAT32 junk they come for "compatibility" since FAT32 can't go beyond 4GB.
Sorry for strong words but FAT32 is a stone age monster which I wouldn't even recommend for any modern Windows machine, even including USB keys.
On my old G5 1600 (single) with a slow HD, I created a monster 40 GB Quicktime file because I couldn't compress realtime with a PCI card. I can assure that Quicktime framework copes with such unheard sizes very well /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[George76]

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It seems like the only thing any of these other DVR systems beat Tivo on is the monthly fee.

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I had the same thought. With just a Tivo Series 2, the free Tivo Desktop program, and Toast 8, you have everything accomplished and the DVR is by the computer conveniently where the cable/satellite connection is (as opposed to having to wire all that crap to the computer). The only drawback is that it can't do HD.
1) Purchase and set-up Tivo (with easy to follow on-screen directions).
2) Install Tivo Desktop and (optionally) do easy hack to access Video tab (not even really a hack, just enabling an otherwise hidden tab).
3) Record shows on Tivo.
4) Transfer shows to Mac via TivoToGo in Toast 8.
5) Convert to iPod friendly format using Toast 8.
As a bonus, the Tivo can also do pretty much everything an AppleTV can do (streaming music and photos). With the Video hack, you can archive Tivo recordings to a computer and then watch them again on the Tivo (or your Mac).
And if you want to convert to other formats that Toast 8 won't allow, it's not hard to find a program to strip away the .Tivo file DRM...at which point it's an MPEG2 file that you can transcode with the program of your choice.

[guzzisport]

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I am disappointed that there are no internal PCI Express tuners for the Mac. What good is having all those slots in the Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro if companies don't make products that use them? I would rather install multiple tuner cards inside the Mac Pro than have a bunch of USB tuners hanging out of it. Here is one example of a PCI Express HDTV tuner for Windows PC's:
http://www.aver.com/mpd/combopcie.html
Does the EyeTV software support this card?

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The AlchemyTV DVR uses (used? - I'm not up to date on the product) a PCI card. Until a lightning strike near my house two weeks ago, I had the AlchemyTV DVR and it worked fairly well on my G5/2x2Ghz. I still have the S-video input but my tuner is toast so I suppose I'll be looking at some of the alternatives.

[hayesk]

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Well, every PC sold with Vista is a Windows Media Center PC.

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No, every PC sold with Vista contains the software. Let me reprhase if you're going to argue technicalities. I don't know a single person that has a PC with PVR and TV watching hardware and uses Vista's Media Center features with it.

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As a dedicated unit, it pretty much is exactly what I want.

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That's good. I'm glad you like it.

[hayesk]

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I am disappointed that there are no internal PCI Express tuners for the Mac.

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I would guess because most Mac Pros are used for work purposes and not for watching TV. If you are making a Mac tuner product, you want it to work on as many Mac models as possible, especially ones that people are more likely to use for watching TV.
Does it really matter though? A PCI card eliminates a dongle hanging off your Mac, but that's about it.

[trip1ex]

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It seems like the only thing any of these other DVR systems beat Tivo on is the monthly fee.

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I had the same thought. With just a Tivo Series 2, the free Tivo Desktop program, and Toast 8, you have everything accomplished and the DVR is by the computer conveniently where the cable/satellite connection is (as opposed to having to wire all that crap to the computer). The only drawback is that it can't do HD.
1) Purchase and set-up Tivo (with easy to follow on-screen directions).
2) Install Tivo Desktop and (optionally) do easy hack to access Video tab (not even really a hack, just enabling an otherwise hidden tab).
3) Record shows on Tivo.
4) Transfer shows to Mac via TivoToGo in Toast 8.
5) Convert to iPod friendly format using Toast 8.
As a bonus, the Tivo can also do pretty much everything an AppleTV can do (streaming music and photos). With the Video hack, you can archive Tivo recordings to a computer and then watch them again on the Tivo (or your Mac).
And if you want to convert to other formats that Toast 8 won't allow, it's not hard to find a program to strip away the .Tivo file DRM...at which point it's an MPEG2 file that you can transcode with the program of your choice.

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Yep plus you rent/buy movies from Amazon.
Also you can use VisualHub to convert any movie on your computer to Tivo format and from your Tivo you can download it and starting watching it within a minute.
$299 gets you an HD Tivo.

[tallscot]

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No, every PC sold with Vista contains the software. Let me reprhase if you're going to argue technicalities. I don't know a single person that has a PC with PVR and TV watching hardware and uses Vista's Media Center features with it.

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Ah, I see. I don't know a single person who has an iPhone or an Apple TV. OK.

[tallscot]

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It seems like the only thing any of these other DVR systems beat Tivo on is the monthly fee.

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I had the same thought. With just a Tivo Series 2, the free Tivo Desktop program, and Toast 8, you have everything accomplished and the DVR is by the computer conveniently where the cable/satellite connection is (as opposed to having to wire all that crap to the computer). The only drawback is that it can't do HD.
1) Purchase and set-up Tivo (with easy to follow on-screen directions).
2) Install Tivo Desktop and (optionally) do easy hack to access Video tab (not even really a hack, just enabling an otherwise hidden tab).
3) Record shows on Tivo.
4) Transfer shows to Mac via TivoToGo in Toast 8.
5) Convert to iPod friendly format using Toast 8.
As a bonus, the Tivo can also do pretty much everything an AppleTV can do (streaming music and photos). With the Video hack, you can archive Tivo recordings to a computer and then watch them again on the Tivo (or your Mac).
And if you want to convert to other formats that Toast 8 won't allow, it's not hard to find a program to strip away the .Tivo file DRM...at which point it's an MPEG2 file that you can transcode with the program of your choice.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't use a Series 2 or Series 3 with DirecTV.

[zahadum]

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Being a developer of the iEye Captain software program for the last couple of years, I am very close to the EyeTV community ... my guess is that ... your needs are not reflective of the typical EyeTV user.
Also, the EyeTV development team is VERY aggressive at bringing in new features ... they keep a list of virtually everything suggested, and continually add user requests to the app. The latest update is a perfect example... users have been requesting being able to record from the live buffer, and now it is a feature of the app.
- Graham Jones, Developer, iEye Captain for EyeTV.

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Mr Jones seems to be quite the enthusiast (apologist?) for elgato :-) ...
so here are two things for him to chew on:
1) elgato seems to be totally indifferent to the idea of retaining the ALL the F.U.L.L. content of the source material - to wit: subtitles, closed captions, audio tracks (not to mention the analog RDS data channels along with their digital equivalent) for its DVR tuner/capture products.
I suspect that its DVR products fall short just as much as its transcoder product (the 'turbo264') does for converting DVD's to apple's various media players (mpeg2:mpeg4) - ipod/appletv/iphone/mac. The 'turbo' cant handle multiple subs/dubs/CC - moreover, the turbo also throws away other dvd content like angles. One suspects that they just dont have a full grasp of the mpeg2 or the dvd specification.
2a) elgato has produced no coherent reason (eg royalty lisnesing regime, or unwillingness to invest serious time & money co-developing technology with its chip suppliers) as to why it has a dvr product that captures to mpeg2 instead of mpeg4! .... what fool in this day and age would want to waste 4X the disk-space on an a codec that has inferior quality, is obsolete, and is incompatible with modern media devices! Not single explanation (not even the normal spin from PR weasels!).
2b) also on the subject of fuzzy product positioning: how is it that elgato cant produce a combo gizzmo that works for both analog/digital -- with both SD and in HD?! ....
why on earth would anyone expect customers to buy two, three or four separate adapters -- some of which have hardware accelerators, others of which only have software encoders requiring a quad G5! -- to do the job that a STB has been able to do for years?! Surely it would be obvious to any serious product manager that unless elgato rolls up its sleeves & collaborates in the creation of some real intellectual property (viz chip design) then it will constantly be an after-thought in the technology plans of merchant chip vendors! .... and who will pay for this extra complexity & expense of a multi-dongle world: the customer, of course!
Conclusion: the glowing testimonials from this ISV might be some (small) comfort for bug fixes and obvious failures of imagination ... but his protestations dont really convince me that he or elgato actually get the big picture ....
it is always a rationalization when people say that a criticism (eg 'mmmdonoughts') is not "representative" of "typical" users -- usually this is the excuse that people try to offer for failure ...
So riddle me this: why do most apple resellers not even bother to try and carry (let alone actually put live demos on the floor) of elgato & miglia products?! ...
because most apple resellers are lazy & incompetent?! (hmm, trick question :-) ...
or because the dvr's & transcoders work so poorly that most mac customers would not want to buy them?!
If this ISV wants to play the numbers game - instead of the facts game - then so bit it .... but the result wont change very much.
BOTTOM LINE: NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME.
the crazy part is that if either of the two (elgato or miglia) would actually raise some financing to actually hire some serious (hardware/vlsi) engineers, then mac customers would fall all over themselves to buy their products AT TWICE THE PRICE!
But these guys live in their own little bubble - so they cant see just how far short they fall :-(