[Nebrie]

I just got mine and the software server doesnt want to start up on my iMac. Anyone else got theirs yet?

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Nebrie:
I just got mine and the software server doesnt want to start up on my iMac. Anyone else got theirs yet?

I don't have one but am hoping to get one. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the eyehome when you get it working. Please keep us updated on how things work out.

DAlex

[Nebrie]

I got the EyeHome server to work. It seems my music collection (16gb) was too large. I sent them my iTunes XML as they requested so hopefully they're checking it out. My current problem is that it's not finding my EyeTV files. I'm hoping it's not too big (70gb).

[C.J. Moof]

that's dissapointing, I have 30 gigs on iTunes....

I expect mine to show up tomorrow, just in time for me to leave for the weekend.

[DAlex]

Thanks for added info. Can you both post with any further experiences/thoughts when you get it running fine, cheers. I'm especially interested in hearing how the movie type files are displayed, are they full screen for example, or is there any jerkyness.

I've been searching the web but haven't found any reviews yet (bit early I guess) so any info you can provide to help me in my buying decision would be great!

Thanks

DAlex

[blybug]

A few comments on the EyeHome...

It requires that you have your Music/Pictures/Movies in their default locations in your Home folder. My media collection long ago outgrew my startup drive and I have a secondary drive partitioned into Music/Pictures/Movies with symlinks in my Home folder. EyeHome cannot follow the symlinks to find the iTunes and iPhoto libraries, although every other program I've used that accesses this info can. If the folders aren't there in their "default" setup, the EyeHome server cannot even start up media sharing. This is going to be a deal killer if Elgato can't fix it (their support tells me they will address it but can't say when).

The iTunes folder can be modified to accomodate this problem...just leave the Music folder where it belongs, allow the iTunes folder to be created with the iTunes Music Library files, but with an "empty" iTunes Music folder. In the iTunes preferences you can still redefine where the iTunes Music folder is, but the xml files must be in the default location. But after setting this up I also ran into the problem of my music library being too big so again, the server wouldn't start. Hopefully this will be fixed next week as Elgato support has stated. I made a small music library to test out the EyeHome and it plays AACs and MP3s flawlessly as billed, with a snazzy "visualizer" type screen which also displays the name of the song. It would be nice to have a choice of a few visualizers and also the ability to display the album's cover art.

There is no such workaround for iPhoto libraries or Movie file locations, so I haven't been able to test out watching slide shows or my own movies (except EyeTV files). I can't imagine that anybody with a media collection large enough that they would buy an EyeHome actually has all their files physically located in their home directory. They really need to fix this.

No problem with locating EyeTV files and playng them smoothly on the TV. They look a little grainy of course because they are MPEG-1 files from the USB EyeTV. Hopefully this will improve when I get my EyeTV 200 (FireWire, MPEG-2).

The web browser is a little clunky but it works. Main problem is of course the dimensions of the TV (what is it...720x480 or something) don't allow most pages to load their full content, they scroll off the right and bottom. And there is no "scroll" really, the only way to navigate is to arrow through the links. So if there is no link at the bottom of the page I haven't figured out how you are supposed to get down there.

One pleasant surprise was the physical size of the EyeHome. Somehow I was expecting a big VCR-sized device, but it it really small, about half the size of an iBook. Looks nice and very unobtrusive sitting on top of the TiVo.

Hopefully a few software updates will have this thing working seamlessly as a digital hub component. Right now it does not have the "plug it in and it just works" shine that I'm used to from Apple-branded products.

[Nebrie]

How big is your eyetv archive? Mine was 130gb, pared it down to 70gb but it still didnt work. I hope they will support large archives. I just bought a new 250gb firewire drive in anticipation of Eyetv 200.

Hopefully elgato will fix all this. I remember the initial reviews for eyetv were horrendous but they managed to fix most of the problems very quickly.

[Junk Magnet]

This is Nicholas Freeman from Elgato Systems Customer Support.

There will be an EyeHome update soon, probably this week, to rectify the iTunes Music Library bug. Currently, if the size is over 3500 songs or so, then there will be a problem (server won't start, or iTunes content won't show up). The upcoming fix will completely solve this. It will be given to affected users that contact Elgato.

Using symlinks to external content, like Movies content not in your Home directory, might indeed be possible. Users are reporting workarounds that we are investigating.

Here's something on that topic from a user, which is unconfirmed but something for users to explore:


"EyeHome will successfully recognize, serve, and display pictures if a symlink to the "iPhoto Library" folder is created inside the ~/Pictures folder, even if the actual "iPhoto Library" is in another location or on another disk. Similarly, a symlink to any folder called "Movies" placed in the Home directory will function properly. Apparently EyeHome doesn't like symlinks to drives or volumes masquerading as the Pictures or Movies folders, but if the symlinks are connected to folders it works OK."

There will be FAQ and Knowledge Base updates shortly. One note: EyeHome now plays WAV and AIFF.

See http://www.accelerateyourmac.com/fee...me_review.html for other user comments about EyeHome.

Please let me know if you have specific questions about EyeHome or EyeTV.

Nick Freeman
Customer Support

Elgato Systems LLC

900 Kearny Street Suite 750 San Francisco CA 94133-5145
[email protected] www.elgato.com

[blackbird_1.0]

Does anyone know when the EyeTV200 Firewire going to be released?

[Nebrie]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
Does anyone know when the EyeTV200 Firewire going to be released?

End of the month