iMac & EyeTV Hybrid

danceclimberdanceclimber
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Does anyone know if the VRAM will have an impact on the HD quailty of live tv viewing?



ATI Radeon X1600/256MB VRAM vs. ATI Radeon X1600/128MB VRAM



I'm buying a new 20" iMac and an EyeTV Hybrid . Since for the EyeTV Hybrid, "the speed and quality of the encoding depends on the power of the mac", I don't know if there would be a

noticeable difference if I upgraded the video card on my order to have the "ATI Radeon

X1600/256MB VRAM [Add $75]", rather than the standard configuration

that comes with the "ATI Radeon X1600/128MB VRAM".



My assumption is that by doubling the memory of the graphics card, the

computer would be able to display live higher quality HD without any lag.

But if the added memory only improves the viewing of video games, I

would rather save $75 since I don't play video games.





Does anyone have any insight?



("___" is from a video on EyeTV website)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
    I've got a ATI Radeon 9600 XT with 128Mb in my dual 2.5Ghz G5.



    The X1600 has faster memory and is definitely a faster (newer generation) card than my 9600 XT.

    That said, I have no problems watching HD on my 23" Cinema Display using my EyeTV 500.



    I think EyeTV is more CPU bound than anything, so you also have to factor in my 2.5G5 (x2) to the iMacs Core Duo 2 - I'm thinking that the Intel chip in the iMac against my G5's would be a pretty close matchup.



    The only other thing that might factor in to this equation is that my EyeTV 500 is FireWire and the EyeTV Hybrid is USB which adds more work for the CPU.



    But in the end, I'm guessing that you'd be fine with the 128Mb card.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    But I'm currently running it and it's only utilizing 13% of one of my two core's. Granted it's not in full screen and it's not an HD broadcast, but considering there is over 165% of CPU power to go I'd say it'd be ok. That's the CPU. As for RAM it's utilizing about 95MB of actual memory and has been running for about an hour and a half. I'd check GPU usage for you but I'm not really sure how to do that. All that said, I don't really know how the Hybrid handles it's video, through the GPU, the RAM, or the CPU -- or a mixture of both. But if I were to guess then you should be fine with either option on the 20" iMac. If you know how to check GPU usage, let me know and I can give you numbers on that as well.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    There probably be no difference, the base graphics should be fine. HD video doesn't really take that much video memory. All the Intel-based Macs should run fine. That tuner works well on my 1st gen dual 2.0 G5. It's when you try to use it with a G4 that you might run into trouble because HD takes a lot of decoding power.
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