[rajs]

Hello -- My new PowerMac G5 should be arriving any day and I want to get a TV tuner for it that has Tivo like capablities. FM would be nice also but not necessary.

What would you all recommend is the best one to get at this point ?

a) AlchemyTV Tuner (PCI Card) - not sure if Tivo like software included and if included is of any quality at all.

b) ElGato E-EyeTV (USB Device) - Tivo like software included

c) Formac Studio DVR (Firewire Device) -- Apparently real good Tivo like software is included

d) Or something else ?

Thanks.

- rajs

[SOLIDAge]

those are USB and Firewire units, i would suggest a PCI card that is far better then those but I do not know if it works w/ the G5..but alot of people here probably have it and like it better then those others bc of the better quality.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by rajs:

a) AlchemyTV Tuner (PCI Card) - not sure if Tivo like software included and if included is of any quality at all.

Can't speak to the others, but I do have an Alchemy TV card in my G5. It's great for watching TV while working, and if you get the DVR version, you get the software that gives it recording capabilities (note, I didn't say TiVo-like) so you can grab your favorite shows. It also comes with a remote control so you can change channels without being right in front of your mac. And software is QuickTime aware, so you can record/compress the video in a variety of codecs to meet your needs.Overall, I like it.

That being said, it does have some flaws:

The recording software is iffy. It doesn't integrate with any scheduling service, so you can't merely tell it 'record MASH'. You have to program it, like a VCR, to record the show you want at the specific time you want it. It's also iffy b/c I haven't figured out how reliable it is. It doesn't seem to want to record things at the time I tell it to record. But I haven't messed with it extensively so I could be doing something wrong.

The remote software doesn't get installed from the CD. You have to go and download some keyspan remote scripts yourself in order to get the remote to work. And even then, it doesn't work perfectly.

The G5 version doesn't come with an FM tuner.

Overall I do like it, although I'm not sure the extra $20 premium is worth it for the DVR software....

[Crimson]

I tried AlchemyTV-software with a FlyTV Prime 30FM, and it crashed the whole time... I must check if the real deal will work...

[Kenneth]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Can't speak to the others, but I do have an Alchemy TV card in my G5. It's great for watching TV while working, and if you get the DVR version, you get the software that gives it recording capabilities (note, I didn't say TiVo-like) so you can grab your favorite shows. It also comes with a remote control so you can change channels without being right in front of your mac. And software is QuickTime aware, so you can record/compress the video in a variety of codecs to meet your needs.Overall, I like it.

That being said, it does have some flaws:

The recording software is iffy. It doesn't integrate with any scheduling service, so you can't merely tell it 'record MASH'. You have to program it, like a VCR, to record the show you want at the specific time you want it. It's also iffy b/c I haven't figured out how reliable it is. It doesn't seem to want to record things at the time I tell it to record. But I haven't messed with it extensively so I could be doing something wrong.

The remote software doesn't get installed from the CD. You have to go and download some keyspan remote scripts yourself in order to get the remote to work. And even then, it doesn't work perfectly.

The G5 version doesn't come with an FM tuner.

Overall I do like it, although I'm not sure the extra $20 premium is worth it for the DVR software....

Well said.

I also brought the Alchemy TV (used to be Televio) PCI card for my MDD G4. I would say.. get the PCI card for PowerMac. I used to have the old Formac Studio DV/TV (silver case) while back... it is fine off the FireWire 400 bus. I like that full 720x480 DV res.

[blackbird_1.0]

i wanted to watch and record tv through my g5, can i convert to different formats afterward

it says on the site that the regular g5 one comes with recordability, it says the dvr is for scheduled recordings

[-Q-]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
i wanted to watch and record tv through my g5, can i convert to different formats afterward

it says on the site that the regular g5 one comes with recordability, it says the dvr is for scheduled recordings

You can convert it to any format that QuickTime can export. So no worries there.

The differences between the two models is really simple: the basic one allows you to record shows as you're watching them. The DVR one comes with software (and as I said previously, it's kind of flaky) that will allow you to schedule recordings so you don't have to be in front of your Mac to record something. Think of it as a VCR-type deal.

If you weren't planning on using it to record shows when you aren't around, I'd save the $20 and go with the basic model. Now, they have released an update to the TV software, so I'll give that a go this weekend and see how it works. Maybe it's improved to the point I can recommend the DVR version. It is encouraging to see that they are updating it.

[blackbird_1.0]

please come back and let us know how it goes, please

[digiology2]

what kind of resolution and frame rate do you get with that pci card. Are the firewire ones better?

[-Q-]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
please come back and let us know how it goes, please

And so I shall.

Downloaded the updated software (more on that in a second) and played with it a bit this weekend and overall, it's much improved. It's still a bit flaky in parts but overall it does work for recording TV on your mac.

There are two versions of the software - AlchemyTV and the AlchemyTV DVR. You can download both from migilia's web site, but the AlchemyTV app that's included with the AlchemyTV DVR install is one-tenth of a point higher than the standalone TV app you can download (2.05 is included with the DVR install, 2.04 in the standalone). I haven't been able to discover what the differences are, but I'd imagine it's something under the hood to make the TV app work better with the DVR app.

Recording takes a bit to set up but the improvements they've made to the application have removed all my concerns of reliablity. Over the course of the weekend, it's been recording things at the exact time I instructed. And the quality has been excellent. As I'd mentioned earlier, it's QuickTime aware so it uses any of the codec available to QT for compressing the video. It seems the largest picture size the software is comfortable recording is 640x480 but that takes up massive amounts of drive space when recording at 30 fps. 320x240 provides excellent quality at decent file sizes. I've recorded a number of show and not dropped any frames that I can tell.

The card plays at full screen, but b/c it's TV resolution, it looks like crap.

I think the biggest disappoint is that it's not a TiVO alternative and is more a digital VCR on your computer. If it could interact with something like TitanTV or TVGuide's schedule (and the channel assistant does pull data from TV Guide.com when you're first setting it up so I don't see why it's not possible) it would be an ideal product.

Some random thoughts:

It's still a bit buggy. In the middle of recording, I tried to change channels and while it did pop up a dialogue asking me if I wanted to do that, it changed the channel anyway before I could respond.

The DVR apps has to stay running in order to record shows. And it can't wake you Mac up from sleeping so it has to stay on if you want to record things while you're away.

Setting up channels is a pain and for some reason, the DVR app wouldn't recognize the channel guide I had set up with the TV app. So I had to manually add the channels to the DVR app also. Annoying.

Overall, I really like watching TV on my mac while I'm working (or reading the forum ) but I think this still has a ways to go before it's great software. That said, the hardware works fine.

If you're looking for a TiVo-like device, you may be better off with a EyeTV (although a friend who has one says they've made some changes to it that aren't for the better, but I can't speak to that first-hand). And it probably wouldn't hurt to wait for a few more revisions of the software before dropping down US$120-$140 on this card. Don't get me wrong, overall it does work for what I wanted it to, but it may not be right for you until Miglia gets the bugs worked out.

Any other questions, let me know!

[-Q-]

Originally posted by digiology2:
what kind of resolution and frame rate do you get with that pci card. Are the firewire ones better?

You can set the frame rate to whatever you'd like. I've been consistently getting 30 fps with no dropped frames for everything I've been recording. The G5 may have something to do with that, so YMMV.

And as you can see, you can set the compression to whatever you want. Miglia recommend motion JPEG for flexibility (editing in iMovie or Final Cut).

[joe]

Originally posted by digiology2:
what kind of resolution and frame rate do you get with that pci card. Are the firewire ones better?

I owned the G4 version which captured 640*480 at 29.97fps NTSC. The specs for both G4 and G4/G5 versions can be found at their homepage here:
http://miglia.com/products/video/alchemytv/index.html

To answer your 2nd question, it depends what you mean by "better." Yes, the video quality is cleaner and higher quality with the Firewire based Formac Studio TVR than the PCI Alchemy. And since the Formac has been around for many years the software is more advanced and has more features than the Alchemy. It also comes with more video i/o options and a hardware DV codec.

However, the Alchemy only costs 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the Studio TVR and is internal - saving desk space and cabling. And the upper model Alchemy includes a wireless remote. The video quality may not be as clean as the Studio TVR, but it's still higher resolution (640*480) than the USB TV tuners (320*240). The Alchemy sells for around $110 to $150 US depending on model. The Formac Studio TVR sells for $300. Both seem to priced appropriately for what they give you IMHO. But it may be worth your while to wait a few weeks until the new Firewire based EyeTV200 is released. It doesn't have quite as many i/o options as the Formac TVR and it costs a bit more ($350). But it adds a hardware MPEG2 codec which can be a real timesaver if you plan on archiving to DVD. regards..........joe

[blackbird_1.0]

you mentioned it look crappy at fullscreen, if i export it to a quicktime file, will the video look crappy at fullscreen also?

[Link]

Yes. TV res looks crappy. Period.

I was planning to get a card but eventually just settled for a 20" flat tube tv.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
you mentioned it look crappy at fullscreen, if i export it to a quicktime file, will the video look crappy at fullscreen also?

Here's an exported MPEG-4 (2 MB in size) file I threw together this morning. Quality is very good at 320x240, but once you've downloaded it, take a look at it in full screen. It gets much less nice.

[blackbird_1.0]

so there's no mac card on the market that coud give me a good fullscreen video export?

i'd have to settle for a $300+ eyetv box?

there has to be something...

[joe]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
so there's no mac card on the market that coud give me a good fullscreen video export?

i'd have to settle for a $300+ eyetv box?

If you want to see the quality that a Formac Studio dv/tv can capture than PM me. I've got a 102MB DV clip from before I sold my Formac Studio dv/tv. It's a commercial for TechTV (my fav channel) so it's probably not a good idea to post it. I dunno, may a few seconds would be OK just to show the capture quality. The only reason I kept it is that the commercial starts off with a new FP iMac back when the were 1st released. Guaraneteed you will see an improvement over the above clip - full screen or otherwise. I've never seen anything posted here from the Firewire tuners. So you might want to have something for comparison.

Mine was the older Formac Studio dv/tv (TV and radio tuners). The newer Formac Studio TVR has an improved hardware codec but no radio tuner - and likely even higher quality. Hopefully the same will be true for the upcoming EyeTV200.......joe

[blackbird_1.0]

i'm just concerned about being abe to export at a pretty good fullscreen quality mabe export to files less than 500 mb

see, i've got a birthday coming up soon at the end of the month, and one of my relatives was going to help me buy a capture device... and i need to know...either the newer formac for my g5...or the eyetv 200...

[GORDYmac]

As said before, no TV signal is going to look good full-screen on a computer monitor--regardless of the codec and resolution. Not even DVD's look good on computer screens IMHO. When you scale 640 x 480 to 1200 x 1600 things just look bad.

That being said, properly encoded MPEG 1 (320 x 240) files will look good on a TV screen. That's why I think EyeTV at high quality works fine for me.

[joe]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
i'm just concerned about being abe to export at a pretty good fullscreen quality mabe export to files less than 500 mb
...either the newer formac for my g5...or the eyetv 200...

I'm trying to choose between those 2 myself Both have advantages, both are about the highest spec and featureset you can get on the consumer side. Personally, I doubt you would be disappointed with either.

However, since you're goal is to compress to 500MB or less, it would probably help to know the length of your planned recording. According to the EyeTV200 FAQ it's MPEG2 encoder compresses to about 2GB per hour. The EyeTV200 software may allow you to compress it more afterwards - not sure since it's not mentioned in the FAQ and the product isn't released yet. The Formac Studio uses DV which is going to be larger. But since it works with iMovie, you can compress it down afterwards to any format supported by QT and iMovie (iDVD, CD, web, email, etc).

Of course the more you compress it, the less resolution and quality you're going to end up with. Maybe you might want to consider buring it to DVD (4.7GB) instead? The EyeTV200 should be a real timesaver since DVDs use MPEG2. You'll also need Toast according to their FAQ since iDVD won't work with the MPEG2 files created by the EyeTV200. regards........joe

[blackbird_1.0]

just for stuff thats 20 mins long mostly.

[joe]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
just for stuff thats 20 mins long mostly.

Since it's such a short video you won't have any trouble getting that to fit on a DVD. The EyeTV200 will save you time since it captures direclty to MPEG2, the same as used on a DVD. You'll also need Toast to burn the DVD if you don't already own it...........joe


PS - Keeping in mind the EyeTV200 is currently unreleased and untested. So no guarantees - I'm just going by the specs My Formac Studio was able to do the same, but you add an extra step going from DV to MPEG2 (iMovie to iDVD) which takes more time.

[MOTHERWELL]

What about the Formac studio? The software that it comes with looks really nice

[joe]

Originally posted by MOTHERWELL:
What about the Formac studio? The software that it comes with looks really nice

Sure, and the video quality is great too! But since it captures to DV you'll add an extra step (and more time) converting to MPEG2. OTOH, since DV is supported by iMovie and iDVD you won't have to buy Toast to create DVDs like with the EyeTV200.

In all fairness BOTH of these Firewire Tuners have advantages. The reason I was leaning towards the EyeTV200 above in blackbird's situation was for time savings. But we really won't know how the EyeTV200 performs until it's actually shipping and making it's way to consumers. The specs are very impressive though ......................joe

[blackbird_1.0]

it looks like on the site that it already out, the eye200 i mean

there's a 400 too?

i'm cofused

[joe]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
it looks like on the site that it already out, the eye200 i mean

It's not shipping yet according to Dr Bott.

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
a 400 too?

i'm cofused

You can compare the features of the different EyeTV models here:
http://www.elgato.com/index.html

To save you time, the EyeTV300 (digital sattlelite) and 400 (digital terrestrial) models won't work in North America. Only the EyeTV200 (CATV) will. However, the EyeTV200 comes with a/v inputs that you can use to hook up to sattlelite, camcorders, etc..............joe

[blackbird_1.0]

cool, thanks.

so there's no shipping date esimate for the 200? hmm.

[Paul_N]

Originally posted by joe:

The Formac Studio uses DV which is going to be larger. But since it works with iMovie, you can compress it down afterwards to any format supported by QT and iMovie (iDVD, CD, web, email, etc).

Keep in mind the amount of storage space you'll need upfront before you compress. Uncompressed DV runs at 13gb an hour. A 20min program will then require roughly 4.3gb, and then the space required to compress it. Depending on how you compress it, it can take a long time. For high quality, I'm sure you'll want to run it through a 2pass VBR encoding (I think Apple included 2pass vbr in iDVD4, not just FCE/FCP/DVDSP).

Then again, I have yet to see a cable provider that provides a pristine signal source. All of the noise is going to make it harder to compress the image. I'm waiting for Elgato to come out with the next version that will hopefully support recording of terestrial HDTV and digital cable. These are both open standards, and chips are available that decode these formats.. We just need a company to integrate them and sell them in a mac compatible device. The PC world has been recording the HDTV mpeg-2 stream for years now...

[joe]

Blackbird_1.0: Sorry, no confirmed ship date yet. And I just checked Monday when I placed my order for an EyeTV200 with Dr Bott

Paul_N: Agreed on the larger filesize of DV captures. I was just trying to point out that each tuner has unique advantages..........joe

[MikeD]

So you can adjust resolution (ie 640x480 or 320x240 etc), and the codec used to compress? Does it have hardware accelerators or something? Does this mean that you can record using 3ivx, or divx etc?

Mike

[joe]

Originally posted by MikeD:
So you can adjust resolution (ie 640x480 or 320x240 etc), and the codec used to compress? Does it have hardware accelerators or something? Does this mean that you can record using 3ivx, or divx etc?

I'm not sure about my EyeTV200 yet. It hasn't shipped and those questions aren't addressed in the FAQ. However, I can answer answer for the Formac Studio TV tuner. Yes, you can adjust resolution to just about any size/aspect you want up to 720*480 with Formac's own software. Vidi (3rd party) has adjustable screen sizes also and had a great feature where you could view with a smaller window while still capturing the full DV res 720*480. The hardware based codec is DV only and requires very little cpu.

As for adjustment, you can use ANY codec that QuickTime can use with any settings you want. However, choosing other than DV puts the load on your cpu. So you may run into dropped frames if using a high quality compression at the highest resolution. Example, my 1GHz Cube could capture 320*240 @ 30fps while compressing to high quality MPEG4 in real time without a problem. But when I tried the same settings at 640*480 I was only getting 15fps................joe

[blackbird_1.0]

joe, culd i use the formac to capture 30 min shows in good quality..i don't know much about video stuff, that's why i'm asking.

[Paul_N]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
joe, culd i use the formac to capture 30 min shows in good quality..i don't know much about video stuff, that's why i'm asking.

Absolutely. The main difference between the two is that with the Formac device, you will consume 6.5gb for the 30 minutes of video, verse 1gb with the EyeTV. Although no one has reviewed the EyeTV yet (shipping soon), I am guessing that both devices will output similar quality. The compression used by the EyeTV will produce more than adequate results, given the low quality of the TV signal to begin with.

The other factor to consider is the amount of time it will be required to compress the 30minute show. With the Formac, it is stored in MiniDV format, so you will want to compress it into another format in order to use it. You will most likely convert it to either MPEG-2 (to watch on a DVD) or MPEG-4 (to watch it on your computer). I don't know the speed of your system, but a rough estimate for compression is 2x the length of the clip. So assume you are spending another hour to compress it. Also, the compression is going to take more space on your hard drive, so now you are up to atleast 7.5 - 8gb of space for the 30 minute clip.

With the EyeTV it is already compressed to MPEG-2 for you. The 30min takes 1gb, so you can store seasons of episodes on the latest Macs without any concern. If you don't like the MPEG-2 compression, you can re-compress it at a later date to MPEG-4. People in the PC world have been doing this for awhile now when they are ripping DVDs. I'm guessing the quality is acceptable as thousands of movies are available for download.

So, in a nutshell, both devices will record high quality video. The difference comes down to what you have to do with the video after you are done recording. WIth the EyeTV you are ready to burn it onto a DVD. With the Formac, you need to compress it and always make sure you have room on your hard drive. With 60gb of space, you could store 60 30 minute clips from the EyeTV. With the Formac, you will be able to store a tad over 9 30 minute uncompressed clips. Big difference.

Another thing to consider is the quality of the software. I've heard bad things about the Formac software being unreliable. I've heard really good things about using Vidi (free) as replacement software. EyeTV might have software concerns, but as it hasn't shipped yet we don't know..

I'm in the same boat, I'm trying to decide between the Formac & the EyeTV. After a lot of thought, I am strongly leaning towards the EyeTV. The thing that clenched it for me was the lack of cable input on the Formac. With the EyeTV, I can just plug the "cable' cable right from the wall like a TV and can start recording basic cable channels. If I wanted pay channels, I'd have to hook the EyeTV up like a VCR. Without doing that, I can record a different channel while watching another on the TV. I like that.

Sorry for the long post, hope it didn't confuse you even more.

[joe]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
joe, culd i use the formac to capture 30 min shows in good quality..i don't know much about video stuff, that's why i'm asking.

Sure, I've captured 30 minute shows and longer from the CATV tuner and DirectTV DSS dish. I sold my Formac Studio dv/tv last year, but saved some of my favorite shows. If you want to see an example of the video quality I can edit out a small clip for you. Click the PM button and private message me if you're interested.......joe

[joe]

Originally posted by Paul_N:
Although no one has reviewed the EyeTV yet (shipping soon), I am guessing that both devices will output similar quality.

I'll post a mini-review of my EyeTV200 as soon as it gets here. But I'm betting it is on par with the Formac dv/tv and TVR in terms of video quality. Otherwise I wouldn't have ordered it in the 1st place ....joe