Does a TV tuner make the fan spin on a Mac Mini?

spindlerspindler
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I want to get an external TV tuner to plug in through USB or Firewire to my Mac Mini. I want to get one as small as possible. I'm wondering if TV tuners use enough processing power to make the fan have to come on. It seems like it would, since there is an awful lot of data coming in and being displayed. Unless the data is somehow put into video memory without the processor needing to do any work, my guess would be that running a TV tuner will make the fan go on constantly. Am I right or wrong?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,443moderator
    If it's recording then you will see some CPU usage and the amount depends on if it uses a hardware or software encoder. If it's software based then you will see a performance hit but not nearly so much if it's hardware based. Elgato's analogue recordings are done with a software encoder for example. Concerning playback, I would expect hardly any CPU usage. Again that depends on the tuner you get but the elgato streams in uncompressed video. Put it this way, if the requirement is a G4 and it maxes that out, it will be at most 25% on a dual core Intel Mini and that's not enough to make the fans come on.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,953member
    I don't have a mini, the closest thing is a MacBook Pro. If there is any difference in fan activity due to the TV tuner, I haven't noticed it.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    spindlerspindler Posts: 713member
    Thanks guys. I think I'll get one of the smaller Miglia ones and try to get it while it still has the EyeTV software in the box, before those run out.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    tigerwoods99tigerwoods99 Posts: 2,633member
    i wish there was a mac app to support all the hardware based tuners with clearQAM. ive got a dual 1 GHz quicksilver G4 and my hauppauge hvr-950 chokes on HDTV the miglia tvmini hd does QAM but its twice as much. pinnacle has a couple of new devices coming out and theres the pinnacle PCTV HDPro which is already supported in eyetv (same as el gato hybrid/hauppauge).



    you could also look at itele which is a free open source app that supports a few tuners.....but most of them are DVB-T not ATSC for north america.
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