12/17/2023 0 Comments Eyetv 3 downloadThe EyeTV Hybrid is one of several products in Elgato's line. While this would be a ridiculous proposition for live TV (which is, presumably, already hooked up to the live TV source in question), it's an interesting but convoluted wire-free solution for playing back that DVRed content on your home entertainment center or to a secondary TV in the house, provided you've got an Apple TV. While the TV content was put into a narrow box that didn't fill the screen, it also streamed with some loss of frame rate, and at a delay from the live broadcast.Ī recent update to the app adds Apple AirPlay functionality, allowing that streamed content to be sent to a nearby Apple TV and played on an HDTV. The app will also stream recorded shows on the EyeTV-connected Mac or PC in question. It's a lot like the SlingPlayer app, with a similar quality of resolution. The $5 app streams the live TV connection from a local computer over Wi-Fi, and even allows channel surfing. We tested the EyeTV app on an iPad, and found it worked pretty well, all things considered. Streaming to an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch It seems perfect for Mac Mini or iMac owners who are hungering for live TV recording and place shifting (live TV pausing) and don't own a DVR or a cable set-top box. It's cumbersome to keep plugged in on the average laptop, which is why we'd recommend it as a desktop/set-top computer solution only. The TV tuner stick is compact, but beware: we tilted the coax cable up and nearly cracked our tuner stick in half. It won't record HD video, however, and it's just a raw dump of whatever the source is (such as a cable or satellite box), without the ability to automatically change channels. The EyeTV Hybrid will record any analog signal this way, including stereo audio. Don't expect to be pulling HBO or any other premium channels onto your PC, unless you have the rare cable system that offers these networks unencrypted (most don't).Īlternatively, you could always experiment with the EyeTV Hybrid's composite and S-Video inputs (available via an included breakout cable). But it was mostly community access channels, C-SPAN, home shopping channels, and Spanish-language networks. It works well enough-we were able to get most of our local broadcast stations in HD, plus a handful of decent cable channels like TBS. Instead, it's designed to work only with the unencrypted cable channels that are available by plugging the RF coaxial cable directly into the EyeTV dongle-that includes analog channels and so-called Clear QAM digital ones. The EyeTV Hybrid doesn't work with a cable box (for that, you want the step-up EyeTV HD box, which includes an IR blaster). The DVR software can be programmed to record and offers a fair amount of flexibility, but we're not wild about paying for the guide service.Ĭable is a less straightforward proposition. The guide listings look and function like those on a DVR, but subscribing to TV Guide only gives Elgato users a one-year subscription for free after that, it's $20 a year. Users can also subscribe to a program guide with upcoming listings, courtesy of TV Guide. Using a standard UHF antenna, our EyeTV recognized over-the-air HD channels within seconds, and once setup was complete, we were able to channel surf with relative ease, using an onscreen interface or the included IR remote, which controls the USB stick. Then, the EyeTV 3 software begins mapping out channels. You'll need to supply an antenna or cable connection to the TV tuner stick, which in turn plugs into the Mac's USB slot. Software can be installed from the included CD or downloaded straight from Elgato (a registration code is included in the box). Setup of the EyeTV on Apple hardware was pretty simple. However, on a Mac, it's a different, and much more pleasant, story. It's hardly plug-and-play for Windows users, but it worked. But, once we started up Windows Media Center, it eventually recognized the TV tuner and was able to find over-the-air stations, as well as record shows using Windows Media Center's built-in DVR functionality. The disc wouldn't open on our Windows PC, and the EyeTV Hybrid USB tuner stick needed drivers downloaded from Elgato's Web site to be properly installed on a Windows PC. Though the EyeTV Hybrid says "Windows/Mac" on the box, buyer beware: the USB tuner stick's compatible software that's included in the box, called EyeTV 3, is Mac-compatible only. While it's suitable for most content viewing, it won't leave fans of HD-quality content happy. A word of warning on those resolutions, though: when we used it with our iPad, Elgato recordings were windowboxed (black bars on all sides), much like what we've seen on the SlingPlayer app.
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