Best Macbook Pro TV Tuner?
Alright, I did a little research through good ol' google, and I was wondering what the general consensus is in regard to TV tuners for a MBP. Here's my situation (which I'm sure is quite familiar):
I'm headed to college in a week, and neither my roommate nor myself owns a tv. We don't want to buy one and cart it up 3 flights of stairs and also worry about who's going to buy it to begin with. We both figured a tv tuner (both buy are own) would be the best way to go. I have a Wii that I'd like to be able to hook up and have decent response time.
So what's the best one to get for my $$? I was looking at these...
I'm headed to college in a week, and neither my roommate nor myself owns a tv. We don't want to buy one and cart it up 3 flights of stairs and also worry about who's going to buy it to begin with. We both figured a tv tuner (both buy are own) would be the best way to go. I have a Wii that I'd like to be able to hook up and have decent response time.
So what's the best one to get for my $$? I was looking at these...
- Elgato's EyeTV (Not sure whether hybrid, eye 250, or eye 200)
- Miglia's TVBook Pro Express (I'm a fan of using the express slot, though firewire would be fine too)
Comments
My MBP is brand new, so I don't think I need to be concerned with bogging down my processor and using a ton of resources.
A standard (read: non-digital) TV tuner is going to be a waste of money in the end, once the TV companies stop broadcasting over the air with analog signals. Look for HDTV tuners or at least digital tuners. Hauppauge makes some great ones, as well as some small USB tuners. Hauppauge tuners are probably the best ones out there right now, as the decoding chip is on the hardware itself, rather than relying on your computer's CPU to decode the video.
Alright, so this one is better than the two that I listed?
Alright, I did a little research through good ol' google, and I was wondering what the general consensus is in regard to TV tuners for a MBP. Here's my situation (which I'm sure is quite familiar):
I'm headed to college in a week, and neither my roommate nor myself owns a tv. We don't want to buy one and cart it up 3 flights of stairs and also worry about who's going to buy it to begin with. We both figured a tv tuner (both buy are own) would be the best way to go. I have a Wii that I'd like to be able to hook up and have decent response time.
So what's the best one to get for my $$? I was looking at these...
- Miglia's TVBook Pro Express (I'm a fan of using the express slot, though firewire would be fine too)
So what's the one to go with? Any help would be great and thanks in advanceCompulsiveguile,
I think your heart is in the right place, but honestly I'd consider the fact that when you're playing your Wii or watching TV, you won't be able to work on your computer because the screen is occupied. I have considered the same issues you're currently pondering and wound up concluding that one of the cheapo 14", 19" or even bigger TVs for under $100 is a better option. Yeah, they're heavy, and yeah, the issue of what to do with it after college may be an issue, but finding a TV cheap at Walmart or at a yard sale, in my opinion, is a better option.
Admit it, some of the reason you're considering a TV tuner for your computer is how cool it would be to play Nintendo and watch SportsCenter on your Mac. I hear you, brother.
My other concern is the simple fact of watching TV while writing papers or surfing the internet. I do both, often. But that's me.
Would you mind re-bumping this thread to report your decision/outcome when you figure out what to do? I've never really heard a user report of someone who uses a TV tuner regularly and am intrigued.
Peter
Compulsiveguile,
I think your heart is in the right place, but honestly I'd consider the fact that when you're playing your Wii or watching TV, you won't be able to work on your computer because the screen is occupied. I have considered the same issues you're currently pondering and wound up concluding that one of the cheapo 14", 19" or even bigger TVs for under $100 is a better option. Yeah, they're heavy, and yeah, the issue of what to do with it after college may be an issue, but finding a TV cheap at Walmart or at a yard sale, in my opinion, is a better option.
Admit it, some of the reason you're considering a TV tuner for your computer is how cool it would be to play Nintendo and watch SportsCenter on your Mac. I hear you, brother.
My other concern is the simple fact of watching TV while writing papers or surfing the internet. I do both, often. But that's me.
Would you mind re-bumping this thread to report your decision/outcome when you figure out what to do? I've never really heard a user report of someone who uses a TV tuner regularly and am intrigued.
Peter
Hmm... you do make an interesting case. I really am kind of torn. I'm not one who usually does stuff on the computer while watching tv or vice versa. My den at home is far away from the tv (like... a whole room over or something). Also, I like to focus my energy when writing papers
Any other opinions out there would be valued. Thanks!
I do agree that you need to consider the computer OR TV situation, but this may be an answer...
HD homerun
It would not only allow any computer on your network to play HDTV, it allows a single computer to do PiP by using both tuners at once. That means if you're writing a paper on your computer, your housemates could be watching TV on their computers, without constantly having to swap the EyeTV hybrid back and forth.
Obviously, none of us know all the details of your situation, but I thought this might help.
I own the elgato eyetv hybrid, and LOVE it. The previous posters comment about hauppage having decore built in to the tuner is entirely moot, with HD the broadcast is in mpeg2 or mpeg4, either way, there's NO DECODE involved in recording, it just writed the mpeg2 or 4 straight to the hard drive. And of course, playing it back is NOT demanding at all.
I do agree that you need to consider the computer OR TV situation, but this may be an answer...
HD homerun
It would not only allow any computer on your network to play HDTV, it allows a single computer to do PiP by using both tuners at once. That means if you're writing a paper on your computer, your housemates could be watching TV on their computers, without constantly having to swap the EyeTV hybrid back and forth.
Obviously, none of us know all the details of your situation, but I thought this might help.
Saying that the CPU usage is a moot point is garbage. Somewhere the transmission has to be processed - why do it on the CPU when you can do it on the card itself?
Someone discussing one of the EyeTV's and the performance hit:
http://www.nobell.org/~gjm/pc/macmini-hdtv-htpc.html
CPU usage is an important point to consider.
Someone discussing one of the EyeTV's and the performance hit:
http://www.nobell.org/~gjm/pc/macmini-hdtv-htpc.html
CPU usage is an important point to consider.
On a MacBook Pro (see topic subject/title), it's not a problem at all. I have the slowest MacBook Pro unit sold (1.83GHz) and the HDTV tuner part of Elgato's EyeTV Hybrid works fine, and the CPU load is not bad during playback of HD live or recorded. I thought Elgato was very good at being specific that you need a dual G5 or a Core Duo or better for good HD playback.
Saying that the CPU usage is a moot point is garbage. Somewhere the transmission has to be processed - why do it on the CPU when you can do it on the card itself?
In Elgato's case, the tuner should not be decoding the digital transmission. For one, keeping it in bitstream format allows easier recording without recompression artifacts. Even if the tuner could decode it, you can't play a fully decompressed HDTV stream through Firewire or USB 2. It would have to be recompressed again to offload some of the work from the CPU, and then you lose the original signal, and some decoding still needs to be done. Heck, even if it were a PCI device, it wouldn't work well because decompressed HD video woud really stress a regular PCI bus. It would probably work with a single PCIe lane though, but that's not an option here either.
EyeTV hybrid is fine for digital SD & digital HD for probably any Intel-based Mac. I really wish they didn't advertise it as being able to handle analog SD. It's incredibly bad at that, it wouldn't record analog consistently except through coax (S-Video & composite didn't work a third of the tries), my HTPC locks up a lot because the hybrid gets confused, won't record, and won't play nice, EyeTV software won't close so I have to do a force reset or pull the plug to get my computer back. I have two hybrids and they both do that. They have never caused any problems with recording digital transmissions though. I just bought a refurbished EyeTV 200 for analog recordings, I hope that works much better in the long run.
why do it on the CPU when you can do it on the card itself
From what I can tell, hardware acceleration is practically non existent outside of the OS X operating system. I used to upgrade video cards with DVD acceleration or de-interlacing or whatnot but it never worked. Yes, the technology is there, but the problem is nothing makes use of it. Elgato released a H.264 Accelerator that plugs into a USB port and that looks nifty, but newer video cards have h.264 encoding capabilities and should render this useless... if only it were used.
I still have a G3 minitower with a hardware DVD card and that thing was awesome. I could watch a movie and work without dropping a frame. I know MPEG2 playback is supported on Radeon cards for a long time. If used, I expect EyeTV CPU usage do drop to nothing. (They use a custom all-software solution IIR.)
(My rants are getting rusty. Gotta practice more.
Does quicktime make use of hardware acceleration again?
Abandonedhero, you do make a good point regarding on board hardware and limiting the strain on the processor, but I agree with JeffDM. I have a good deal of power, and why not put it to use if it's too my advantage? Thanks again for all the input!