Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

TheCheapGeek

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 10, 2008
472
3
Im strongly considering canceling my dish network service and using an antenna coupled with eyetv on my mac to record my favorite shows and then send them to itunes and apple tv. My only question is how is the quality compared to an itunes video purchase, or a torrent episode of the office?
 
I bought EyeTV earlier this year and thought it was simply awful - although I do work in TV so may be rather over-critical.

Mine was on eBay within a week.
 
I got rid of dish and use eyetv soley for our tv watching needs. I had an indoor antenna plugged up and was ready to return/sell eyetv. But then I got an outdoor antenna and it works beautifully. However there is a show that my wife records that will skip every other day for whatever reason. Its only that one show that we have a problem with, and I think it may be interference or the tv station itself.

If I had to do it all over again, I would go with Eyetv, as overall Im satisfied.
 
i guess ur talking about eyetv 310 right? cuz 250 plus i would never ever recomand as only tv... 310 looks reasonable
 
Banabar, what problems did you have with it, im looking primarily to ditch my dish and get a nice indoor antenna for over the air tv. The eye tv will simply be used to record the over the air content and push it to my apple tv, rather than buying it off of itunes.
 
buy it and see for yourself. Seriously, I got one a few weeks ago and thought it was awful. There was no HD and the picture was so grainy. You can go to OWC's website, they sell refurb eye tv hybrids for about 65$
 
Im strongly considering canceling my dish network service and using an antenna coupled with eyetv on my mac to record my favorite shows and then send them to itunes and apple tv. My only question is how is the quality compared to an itunes video purchase, or a torrent episode of the office?

I replaced my TV some years ago with an iMac and EyeTv 410 (FireWire version now discontinued). Compared to the current USB sticks, side by side the FireWire device has the best picture quality by far and suffers much less blips and stuttering. Compared to iTunes (SD definition) image quality is generally better (less compressed). Elgato promised me 2 years ago that MPEG-4 h.264 would be implemented but it didn't happen. Instead only their Sat model supports HD in Europe.
 
My only question is how is the quality compared to an itunes video purchase, or a torrent episode of the office?

The quality is as good as the broadcast. Eye TV doesn't re-encode the broadcast, it simply records what it receives. If the station is broadcasting at a high bit rate 1080i or 720p, you'll get a nice picture. I've found that broadcasts are generally better than DirecTV's HD broadcasts.
 
Why don't you take a look at this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=6484847

EyeTV records your signal at its native resolution and quality. It doesn't enhance or degrade anything.

Unless there is hardware fault with the EyeTV device, the root cause of any poor signal quality your seeing is solely due to your source signal.

It's like complaining about the quality of Blu-ray when your Blu-ray player is connected to your HDTV with composite cables. :D

EyeTV is not going to work miracles. If your cable company distributes your digital (or analog) channels at a low bit-rate —*you'll notice. If you haven't properly placed or aligned your over-the-air antenna — you'll notice.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.