[danpixel]

Hi

I was thinking about buying the EyeTV 400 for my mac G4. If any one on this forum has the EyeTV 400, could you let me now what you think of it please.

The main points of interests I am after is the picture quality. I now it has a digital receiver built into the unit but that still does not give you an Idea of how good it is in real world use.?

If anyone out there has any news could you let me Know.

[thefunkymunky]

I am also wondering if anyone has purchased the EyeTV 400 or has seen it working close up. I am thinking about getting one for my PowerBook G4 12-inch. How well does it run on this setup?

I would like something portable without the need for mains power if possible and the EyeTV 400 seems like a good choice, if a little expensive. I understand that the '400 receives digital terrestrial TV, which means FreeView in the UK I guess. Is the included attenna able to receive a good signal?

Thanks.

Nick.

[Sir T Mann Esq.]

[double post]

[Sir T Mann Esq.]

Originally posted by thefunkymunky:
Is the included attenna able to receive a good signal?

Yes, the built-in aerial will be fine - Freeview doesn't actually *need* a great aerial to receive a perfect signal. If there are any problems, they're likely to stem from Freeview's limited bandwidth.

You see, a couple of months ago I was watching the football highlights on BBC1 (through our Freeview box) when I noticed an alarmingly large number of digital artifacts. I then flicked over to our Sky+ box and examined its broadcast of the same channel - the picture was crystal-clear. After a little research, I discovered that (due to bandwidth constraints) Freeview operates at a noticeably lower bitrate than Sky. Also, if more channels are added to UK digital terrestrial then the quality will decrease further (the bitrate of other channels will have to be lowered to compensate for new channels). In the case of $ky, they just have to stick up another satellite - leaving the old channels unaffected.

My concern is that, if I can notice artifacts on a television screen, there are likely to be an ever greater number of visible artifacts on a computer display.

What we really want is a way of digitally extracting Sky's broadcast streams. Unfortunately, due to Sky's "live encryption" method, it doesn't look like this will be possible any time soon (if ever).

Anyway, getting back on topic, I'd be interested to hear from someone in the UK who has used an EyeTV 400 - especially regarding picture quality.


Sir T Mann, esq
OBE, PhD, MA

[thefunkymunky]

Well I've gone ahead and ordered an EyeTV 400 from Apple Store UK (cheapest price I could find), should be arriving early next week.

As soon as I have set everything up, will post a review.

A bit off-topic I know but I might also consider purchasing a 1GB RAM module for my PowerBook G4 12-inch (Rev. A) as Crucial have just lowered their price to around £173 GBP plus VAT (£204 inc VAT) with free shipping. The same module at Apple is £468 plus VAT (£549 inc VAT). Why such a price difference?

Anyway the review of the EyeTV 400 will be coming soon.

TFM.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by thefunkymunky:
Well I've gone ahead and ordered an EyeTV 400 from Apple Store UK (cheapest price I could find), should be arriving early next week.

As soon as I have set everything up, will post a review.

A bit off-topic I know but I might also consider purchasing a 1GB RAM module for my PowerBook G4 12-inch (Rev. A) as Crucial have just lowered their price to around £173 GBP plus VAT (£204 inc VAT) with free shipping. The same module at Apple is £468 plus VAT (£549 inc VAT). Why such a price difference?

Anyway the review of the EyeTV 400 will be coming soon.

TFM.

My main concern (as I'm in Wales also!) is that freeview coverage is not good or even non-existant. You'd better check with the freeview website that your area is covered - www.freeview.co.uk - if it does work where you are then I look forward to reading your review.

DAlex

[thefunkymunky]

Well I've gone and bought my EyeTV 400 and had a chance to play around for a week or two. The quality of the picture is very good, I was actually surprised. I am running it on a Rev. A PowerBook 12-inch which unfortunately regularly uses 70 - 90 percent of my cpu. I also have 1.12 GB which I thought might help.

The reception however is a bit of a hit-and-miss affair using the included attenna. Think it depends on your location and surroundings etc. Using it outside might help. Connecting it to a standard roof-top arial makes a lot of difference though. I can pick up about 36 channels whereas only about 4 using the attenna. Just wish I had a more powerful Mac though or that Elgato can reduce the cpu usage of the software.

Overall though it is a great product with very good picture quality.

[mrwalker]

I received my EyeTV 400 at the end of last week. I fitted the largest 52 element, high gain TV aerial I could find to the top of the chimney stack in my building.

The reception for all channels is excellent, truely DVD quality as advertised. Playback of recorded or live TV uses 95% of the processor on my 500mHz Cube though, which is just about able to play fullscreen on a 20" cinema display. The picture is smother when played on a 1gHz powerbook

There are a few things I haven't worked out, which I think are bugs in the software:

1. When recording a scheduled program, the sound often plays until muted
2. If you are watching TV, scheduled programs will not record
3. BBC3 & BBC4 do not appear in the channels list, rather they are on the same channels as CBBC & CBeebies when the children's channels close for the night
4. The key mappings on the remote take a while to get used to

All in, I think this is an excellent device, but chances are you're going to need a new external aerial

-mrwalker