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Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
- Thread starter LoganT
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I can't comment with authority on this one, but I can offer my opinion (based on some experience).
The base Mac mini will be able to record HiDef no problem. This is because there is no encoding going on at all. The MPEG-2 stream is dumped right onto the hard drive.
As for playing the TV shows, I would think that a mini (1.66 with 512MB) would be able to handle 720p without any issues. The 1080i shows may have some dropout, but it should be OK as long as no other applications are running.
I would think that the 1080p movie trailers would be a good test. Go to an Apple Store and play a 1080p (h264) trailer on the 1.66 mini to see if it works OK.
Also a factor would be the monitor resolution that the mini would be driving. If you're connected to a 1080p TV or monitor, then I'd probably go with maxing out the RAM. BTW, RAM is cheap at the moment. 2GB (2x1GB) is less than $100 for brand name RAM (Crucial).
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Disclosure - I have a MacBook 2ghz CoreDuo and I was able to play the 1080p Mariposa HD clips (WMV10) without a problem. This was on a 1080p TV through FrontRow.
I have this eyeTV hybird usb. Plays HD back fine on an 800Mhz iBook G4 with 640MB ram, though maxes out the machine.
On an intel 1.66 core duo mini with 1 gb ram, it worked fine in 720p and 1080i feeds. Should be fine with 512mb ram...if not, its really cheap to upgrade ram nowadays.
Elgato posts the "Dual G5 or better for full-frame HD" as a CYA move.
I had their EyeTV 500 (the digital-only precursor to the Hybrid) hooked up to an old G4 Mac mini.
It did occasionally lose a frame or two when do very fast full-screen pans in 1080i (the most obvious occasion being whenever there was a fast-break during the NCAA Basketball Championship game), but it worked perfectly fine 99% of the time.
So I would say that the new dual-core minis are more than up to the task.
As for memory, 512 is probably enough, but more is always better, especially if you have any background tasks running while you are watching TV.
Also, if you have plenty of free RAM, you can cache the signal in memory instead of on the hard drive, which is another win.
I had their EyeTV 500 (the digital-only precursor to the Hybrid) hooked up to an old G4 Mac mini.
It did occasionally lose a frame or two when do very fast full-screen pans in 1080i (the most obvious occasion being whenever there was a fast-break during the NCAA Basketball Championship game), but it worked perfectly fine 99% of the time.
So I would say that the new dual-core minis are more than up to the task.
As for memory, 512 is probably enough, but more is always better, especially if you have any background tasks running while you are watching TV.
Also, if you have plenty of free RAM, you can cache the signal in memory instead of on the hard drive, which is another win.
I have one working on my MacBook Pro an it can work fine with half a dozen other apps running like Photoshop etc whilst recording or playing TV. I have 1 GB of ram and a faster processor but I would expect a Mac Mini COULD run the EyeTV Hybrid but without any other apps running, if you were say watching one channel and recording another though, then you may get low frame rates on the video recording or even worse the application could stop responding.
If you go with the Mac Mini try the EyeTV Hybrid but do make sure you have the cash to upgrade the computer to 1 GB of ram if you find that the EyeTV isn't performing as you wish it to do.
Hope this helps!
If you go with the Mac Mini try the EyeTV Hybrid but do make sure you have the cash to upgrade the computer to 1 GB of ram if you find that the EyeTV isn't performing as you wish it to do.
Hope this helps!
Wow. Lots of people leading OP astray.
First of all
- 512mb ram is just barely enough to run OS X. Mac mini will have to dump to hard drive.
- Mac mini has lousy 60gb hard drive. You might be able to record a few shows.
- The hybrid does not encode for you like the eyetv 250 does. Your poor cpu will be barely making it.
- Your temps will hit 89 deg C and stay there if you try to record HD.
Basically it will suck. Oh but it will do it.
First of all
- 512mb ram is just barely enough to run OS X. Mac mini will have to dump to hard drive.
- Mac mini has lousy 60gb hard drive. You might be able to record a few shows.
- The hybrid does not encode for you like the eyetv 250 does. Your poor cpu will be barely making it.
- Your temps will hit 89 deg C and stay there if you try to record HD.
Basically it will suck. Oh but it will do it.
Wow. Lots of people leading OP astray.
First of all
- 512mb ram is just barely enough to run OS X. Mac mini will have to dump to hard drive.
- Mac mini has lousy 60gb hard drive. You might be able to record a few shows.
- The hybrid does not encode for you like the eyetv 250 does. Your poor cpu will be barely making it.
- Your temps will hit 89 deg C and stay there if you try to record HD.
Basically it will suck. Oh but it will do it.
Now who's leading people astray.
512MB is enough for OS X running Universal Apps only. He's only planning on using it as a video recorder so he's only going to have one app rning at a time.
The hard drive of 60gb is more than enough for several shows, how much can you watch anyway?? I'm sure he realises that if he wants more space he can get an external hard drive for peanuts.
The hybrid doesn't encode for you because it doesn't have to. It stores the original video streams undecoded to the hard drive, just like pretty much every other PVR on the market does.
Recording HD will not put any more of a strain on the machine that recording SD material and as such will not lead to higher temperatures since its only saving a stream. Viewing HD material will of course put a higher strain on but nothing worse than maxing out a computer is meant to do. Higher temperatures don't matter if its designed for them.
All in all, it will not "suck". It will perform the task amicably. Additional RAM and a large external hard drive are cheap additions later on for if you want to store more material and use the machine for more than a bit of web browsing and PVR duties, i.e. in particular non-Universal Binary apps such as Office.
Umm, sorry to bust your bubble here but I have the base mac mini and I have the eyetv hybrid. Before I upgraded my mini I tried to record some shows.
It sucked.
If by "sucked" you mean "worked fine", then you still have a shred of credibility.
I've used EyeTV HD (with the 500, the precursor to the Hybrid) on an old first-gen G4 mini and frame drops were extremely rare. The current Intel mini is a significant upgrade over what I had, and more than capable of displaying a raw MPEG2 stream, which, as has been pointed out, is all the EyeTV does. It passes the stream through with no decoding whatsoever. Recording digital broadcasts off the hybrid requires very little CPU and very little RAM.
Either you were running the yours on 256 MB (or less), or you were running a ton of background tasks, or your mini was defective, or you were recording/encoding analog broadcasts... or you're simply making this crap up. Which shall we suppose it is?
I have use the hybrid with both the PB and the mini in my sig. They both did the job just fine. If I reduce the window I have even done some surfing while watching tv. The only frame drops I have had seemed to be signal/antenna related. If you don't believe me just go to an apple store and stick one in the mini they have on display.