Elgato releases EyeTV 2.3

[admin]

Elgato releases EyeTV 2.3
Thursday, July 27, 2006

Elgato has released EyeTV 2.3, an update to the company's video recording software. EyeTV is the software used to power Elgato's EyeTV product line of analog and digital TV input devices. The update features new Front Row integration with access to live TV, recordings, settings, schedules and program guide.

According to the company, "Make way for TV, because we've added one more seat to the Front Row. The Full Screen Menu enables you to sit back and relax while you watch and record television on your Mac as well as browse Front Row. And even if you don't have Front Row installed, the Full Screen Menu works just fine without it."

Other enhancements in the 2.3 update include a full screen menu, support for the Apple Remote, Windows Media exporting, better export speeds with all previously supported formats, and more. EyeTV 2.3 is priced at $80, and is available for download on Elgato's Web site. Existing EyeTV 2 customers can download the update for free.



http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/504.html

[ottmar]

Wow this makes the Eye TV ad even more exciting prospect! May have to move my Mac mini into the living room...or perhaps I will wait until the new Intel towers come out

[Texark]

[arikalish]

My TVMax came in yesterday and the first thing I did was download the new rev of EyeTV. Here's some first impressions of both:

Good stuff:
TV image Quality on a 27" Sanyo CRT TV is excellent. On an LCD it's at least as good as analog TV on my ATI HDTV Wonder.
Audio routes through to the Mac's digital output without problem.
Tuning takes about 1/2 second.
Integration with TitanTV is top notch.
Interface is pretty good, altho having to hit menu twice on my Apple Remote (haven't put batteries in the Miglia one yet) to get to the program guide is kind of annoying.
TVMax looks great on top of the Mini. I'll probably move it below, but it's good for now.
Found all my TV channels quickly (under 3 minutes for ~80 channels).

The not-so-good:
I get some stutters every once in a while if I pause the TV then jump to Live mode (skipping over what was recorded between when I paused and the present time). The stutters continue for a few minutes but are almost unnoticable.
Text is a bit small on the screen in the program guide and the overlays when the TV is running.
Hitting menu on the Apple Remote when EyeTV is running is supposed to start up the full screen menu... it doesn't work for me. Maybe I need to reassign the Front Row key combo?
Power LED is green and on the opposite side from the Mini's. I have a spare white LED around here somewhere, maybe I'll switch it out (assuming there's enough voltage available).

Other stuff:
Would be nice to have a small live picture while searching the guide (a la Time Warner digital cable boxes)

I haven't tried recording yet, but I have Monday's In the Actors' Studio set to record. I'll report back then.

Oh, I'm running a Mac Mini 1.83 Core Duo (thanks to the guide here) with 2GB G.Skill RAM.

--Ari

[curt]

Very cool, but it doesn't look like the software actually adds a fifth icon to Front Row. It looks like the software just opens Front Row to get to music, movies, dvd and photos. I've been contemplating buying the EyeTv 250 for a while now. This might get me to jump off the fence.
_________________
1.42GHz Mac mini
1.66GHz Intel Mac mini
2.0GHz 2009 Mac mini
46" Sony LCD
50" Sony KDS-50A2000
EyeTV 250 Plus
My Setup

[blazer]

[ammonkc]

I just started using EyeTV 2.3 with my miglia EvolutionTV on my mac mini. I love the interface. its very user friendly and intuitive.

The only thing that I can't figure out is how to set the hardware encoding to use Divx compression. EvolutionTV is able to do Divx hardware encoding. EyeTV does list evolutiontv as a supported hardware. but I can't figure out how to change the hardware encoding options for recording from mpeg2 to divx.
Anyone know how this can be done? or is the divx encoding just lost when I pair the eyeTV with evolutionTV hardware?

Thanks[/i]

[dajdenton]

I love the 2.3 frontrow interface (sooo much better than the dual window setup), but there's just one big thing that irks me about it:

When you exit the frontrow mode, you'd expect to see the desktop again (just as you would from frontrow). instead, eyetv flicks back to fullscreen mode, which is a bit inconsistent and really annoying. You then can't exit the fullscreen mode without mouse or keyboard intervention, which kinda spoils the illusion!!

Anyone else get annoyed by this, or is it just me? I've emailed elgato to see if they'll add an option, but would appreciate some support from other unhappy punters to also put in a request...

[stonykeys]

[arikalish]

[gboudreau]

[gboudreau]

Oh, and... I was able to trick EyeTV to get me a canadian EPG (faked TitanTV responses using Zap2It EPG data). If any canadian users of EyeTV would like to try it, just msg me.
I detailed what I did on my website here: http://www.pommepause.com/online.html
_________________
- Guillaume Boudreau

[steve65]

I've got an intel iMac (sorry I know this is a mini forum, I've ordered one as well!) which is used mainly as a media centre with frontrow and eyetv. This works brilliantly and all the family have got the hang of it as an instant on tv and media player. The only slight drawback was having to use a seperate remote for eyetv, so I was looking forward to the Frontrow 'integration'.

Now however with the new version 2.3 you cant put the mac to sleep by holding the play button down on the Apple remote!!!!!.
Effectively eyetv now completely takes over the focus and it is impossible to get out of it without getting the keyboard and mouse out!!!
So I've gone from 2 remotes to 1 remote plus keyboard/mouse

To me this is a major oversight and I will be going back to v2.2 and seperate remotes for the tv and frontrow until they fix it.

Unless of course anyone knows of a way round this?

[gboudreau]