EyeTV / Airplay not working

[mrob44]

I'm using the Elgato EyeTV app on my iPad to stream live TV/recorded TV from my iMac hooked up to an antenna. The streaming to my iPad works fine, but when I try to use AirPlay to send the signal to my AppleTV 2 in my bedroom, nothing happens. The check appears beside the AppleTV in the app, but the video just keeps playing on the iPad and nothing happens on the AppleTV. Am I missing something. The app is up to date, as well as the Elgato software on my iMac. AirPlay also works fine with Plex app and Pandora. Anybody else run into this?

Thanks for any opinions or help.

 

[BigDukeSix]

I am thinking of setting up a similar setup, so I will be anxious to hear what the fix is for this.

 

[OddyOh]

I'm not 100% sure, but in my case, AirPlay doesn't work for streaming live tv from EyeTV to the ATV2, because the video needs to be transcoded first. I think I found this info in their forum or manual, can't remember. My tv channels are 'over the air' HD, so I'm not surprised the iPhone/Mac can't transcode them to H264 on the fly.
Best I can do is record the show, convert it, then AirPlay it.
Hope that helps.

 

[Ventucky]

off/on

Try turning everything off and back on again.

 

[mrob44]

I'm not 100% sure, but in my case, AirPlay doesn't work for streaming live tv from EyeTV to the ATV2, because the video needs to be transcoded first. I think I found this info in their forum or manual, can't remember. My tv channels are 'over the air' HD, so I'm not surprised the iPhone/Mac can't transcode them to H264 on the fly.
Best I can do is record the show, convert it, then AirPlay it.
Hope that helps.

Well, in testing your theory (which made sense) I have inadvertently gotten the AirPlay for live TV to work. In order to test the AirPlay playback of recorded content like you mentioned, I went into the iPhone Tab of the EyeTV Preferences Screen, made sure the "Enable Access from EyeTV for iPhone/iPad" was checked -- of course, streaming even to my iPad wouldn't have worked if this wasn't already checked -- then (and this might have been the kicker) I clicked on the "More Options" button on this screen. From here I Checked the "Prepare all new recordings for iPhone/iPad" box, and changed the "Format" to "iPhone + iPad" (this will auto encode/export all your recordings automatically to the H.264 format, keeping you from having to do it manually for each recording). I recorded a tiny 30 second clip of an over the air HD show and then let it auto-encode. Then I tested the AirPlay from the iPad to the AppleTV 2. It worked. Thinking, "What the heck" I tried AirPlay again with a LIVE HD show and IT WORKED AS WELL! The "Prepare all new recordings..." and changed the Format to "iPhone + iPad" is all I changed.

Hope this helps anybody that's having similar issues -- and thanks OddyOh for pointing me in the right direction!

 

[EvilC5]

I have had to close out the app, and even re-boot my ipad several times to get it to work....lately its been fine, but I experienced the same issues as you.

I was also having an issue with stuttering from the latest update, posted on the elgato forum, and they asked for a dump of the processes running in order to pass the blame. I remembered I had an older version on my macbook, plugged the eyetv hd box to it, and it streamed just fine. copied over that build number of the app back to my mini and it works like a champ now. then set it not to look for updates anymore....if the update is going to break it, i dont want it.

 

[dgalvan123]

I have had the same issues trying to airplay from the eyetv app (both with live TV and with recorded shows). I've had the airplay button available, but the show just keeps playing on the iphone instead of the TV; I've had the show play on the tv but with no sound; I've had live TV work, but not recordings, and vice versa. The repeatable fix for me is to not just kill and restart the app on the phone (tried that, didn't help), but to actually reboot the phone. Usually this makes it work fine until the next time I try it out. . . usually a day or two later.

What's more, when I do get it to play on the apple tv, sometimes I can pause/rewind/ff, but most of the time I cannot. And pausing/rewinding causes the airplay session to fail. Hence, even when it does work, it's not a good example of DVR-lik experience, since I can't reliably pause and rewind a show I'm watching. (The pause and rewind functions usually work for me when watching on the phone itself, but not usually during airplay.)

I think the long and short of it is that the eyetv app is just plain buggy. Annoying since I paid $5 for it.

There are several alternatives to stream your eyetv recorded shows to apple tv 2g: you can have eyetv automatically export the recordings to iTunes, and then stream them to ATV2 via Home Sharing. If you jailbreak your ATV2, you can use XBMC or Plex to stream the eyetv recordings without having to transcode to iTunes. And if you go whole-hog and jailbreak the ATV2 AND purchase Firecore's ATV Flash (black), you can use the Couch Surfer Pro web browser to access your EyeTV via the EyeTV live 3G functionality, and watch live TV or recordings on the apple tv that way.

 

[OddyOh]

neat

Hope this helps anybody that's having similar issues -- and thanks OddyOh for pointing me in the right direction!

Cheers mrob...you've got it working for me! I went into preferences, enabled the iPhone exporting as you described, then rebooted my iPhone. Now I can AirPlay live tv to the ATV. It does convert it on the fly, as I suspected.

Also, now that it's working, I was able to go back into EyeTV on the Mac preferences and uncheck the "Prepare All New Recordings..." checkbox, since I actually don't want all my recordings exported...I watch 6 hours of hockey every weekend on the Mac, don't need that stuff converted. After unchecking, the live TV AirPlaying still works.

As to dgalvan123's point, the "Jump Back 30 secs" button doesn't seem to work during live TV over AirPlay...I would guess it's just converting a small chunk of the stream at a time, not caching the entire recording. FF/RW should work for recorded&converted shows though, haven't tested that...I mostly export my recordings as MPEG Program Streams and watch 'em on the PS3 in full HD, no converting needed.

 

[dgalvan123]

..I mostly export my recordings as MPEG Program Streams and watch 'em on the PS3 in full HD, no converting needed.

I'll note that, if you have a jailbroken ATV2 with XBMC installed, as I do, it's possible to navigate through XBMC to the MPEG Program Stream in your EyeTV Recordings folder and just stream that directly to your ATV2. However, these uncompressed MPEG files are enormous for a full 1 hour show (especially if they are in HD 1080i or 720p), sometimes 8-12 GB. Streaming this to the ATV2 is so slow and beset by short-plays and then stops while the file buffers, that it is not worth it in my opinion. I guess the PS3 hardware is somehow better at this buffering process? Or perhaps ATV2 is doing some sort of H.264 conversion on the fly which makes the buffering take longer?

Anyway, after trying that, I went back to just having EyeTV auto export the shows to iTunes. On the down side it means I have to go to iTunes and delete the file after I'm done watching it; and also I have to wait for EyeTV to export the video to iTunes before I watch it on my ATV2. On the up side, all this happens automatically and I don't get any buffering waits when I'm watching the show on the ATV2.

 

[OddyOh]

I have no experience with XBMC, but the ps3 has gigabit Ethernet (& all my components are wired). that might be part of it. it's also a DVD/blu-ray player, so it can handle mpg2 files natively. Agreed, the files are huge!

 

[fpnc]

...I think the long and short of it is that the eyetv app is just plain buggy. Annoying since I paid $5 for it...

I think part of the problem is AirPlay itself. I've never seen it work absolutely flawlessly for repeated, extended periods of time. It's definitely NOT a technology that "just works." That said, I have had some sessions when it worked well, it's just that I've never found it to be completely reliable.