| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
johnnytwoseven
New Member
Joined: 27 Sep 2007
Posts: 8
|
 Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:40 pm Post subject: I'm frustrated with my Elgato EyeTV-powered Mini HD DVR |
 |
|
Okay community, I need you to keep me from selling my entire setup and moving to a Tivo (booooo). I WANT to love my sweet, new, Mac Mini HD DVR setup but right now I'm frustrated with 3 issues (in no particular order). First I'll give you my setup and then give you my issues.
SETUP
- 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo Mac Mini w/512 MB RAM
- OS 10.4.10
- Elegato EyeTV 250 Plus (OTA ATSC only)
- EyeTV 2.5
- Acomdata Mini Pal 500 GB HDD
- Video connected DVI-HDMI to my Sony 50" HDTV (KDF-50E2000)
- Resolution dialed in via DisplayConfigX
- Audio connected via built-in optical out to my 5.1 receiver
ISSUES
1. Waking the mini from sleep to record a scheduled program.
Last night, I set EyeTV to record the season premier of The Office tonight (9-10p EDT) and then held down the play/pause button on the apple remote to sleep the mini. When I got home tonight (at about 10:30p), I checked to see if The Office had been recorded. It had not. The recording was still scheduled but had not awoken the computer from sleep to execute. What have I done wrong and/or what should I be doing to make sure that I don't miss a recording again?
2. Interlaced content (i.e., 1080i content) looks choppy.
I've messed with all the deinterlacing settings in the EyeTV menu but nothing looks as good as watching native 1080i content on my TV through the TV's built-in tuner. 720p content looks awesome but 1080i has that "PAL converted to NTSC" look (if you know what I'm talking about). Any tricks to getting that crisp, native 1080i look? Do I need to set up a custom interlaced driver through DisplayConfigX and switch between the drivers based on what I'm watching?
3. Kernel Panic
I will randomly get a KP while in the EyeTV software. I think I've read that this has something to do with using the built-in optical out. Any tricks to resolving this?
Thank you in advance for sharing your wisdom with me. I would love for my system to work the way I think it should. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
castaway
Senior Member
Joined: 21 May 2005
Posts: 405
Location: UK
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:16 am Post subject: Re: I'm frustrated with my Elgato EyeTV-powered Mini HD DVR |
|
|
| Quote: | 1. Waking the mini from sleep to record a scheduled program.
Last night, I set EyeTV to record the season premier of The Office tonight (9-10p EDT) and then held down the play/pause button on the apple remote to sleep the mini. When I got home tonight (at about 10:30p), I checked to see if The Office had been recorded. It had not. The recording was still scheduled but had not awoken the computer from sleep to execute. What have I done wrong and/or what should I be doing to make sure that I don't miss a recording again |
Elgato suggests that you try these three combinations.
1) Set up your Energy Saver to sleep your display and hard drive. Then, leave EyeTV running, close the Live TV window, and let your system go to sleep naturally. EyeTV should wake up your hard drive to record, and go back to sleep when done.
2) Set up your Energy Saver to sleep your display only. Then, leave EyeTV running, close the Live TV window, and let your system go to sleep naturally. EyeTV should record as expected.
3) Set up your Energy Saver to sleep your display only. In the General EyeTV Preferences, turn off "Always open Live TV window at startup". Then, close the Live TV window, quit EyeTV, and let your system go to sleep naturally. EyeTV should launch and record as expected.
You should also go to System Preferences > Security and make sure the "Require password to wake this computer from seep or screensaver" option is unchecked.
| Quote: | 2. Interlaced content (i.e., 1080i content) looks choppy.
I've messed with all the deinterlacing settings in the EyeTV menu but nothing looks as good as watching native 1080i content on my TV through the TV's built-in tuner. 720p content looks awesome but 1080i has that "PAL converted to NTSC" look (if you know what I'm talking about). Any tricks to getting that crisp, native 1080i look? Do I need to set up a custom interlaced driver through DisplayConfigX and switch between the drivers based on what I'm watching? |
When you say choppy do you mean a pixelated (blocky) picture or just choppy playback? Adding more RAM to your Mac mini may help with the latter. 512MB worth of RAM really isn't enough to cut it with Tiger. Especially considering that some of that RAM is being swapped with the Intel GMA 950.
_________________
1.42GHz Mac mini
1.83GHz MacBook
60GB 5G iPod
8GB iPod touch
16GB iPhone 3GS
Last edited by castaway on Sat Sep 29, 2007 2:59 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cclear
Member
Joined: 26 Sep 2006
Posts: 58
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 11:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
Agreed. I believe you should have a minimum of 1 GB of RAM for 1080i. (or HD for that matter)
And the kernel panic is TOTALLY from the digital audio output. SERIOUSLY-HAIR-PULLING FRUSTRATING. I had a bug with Elgato for 6 months about this, went around and around and got nowhere. The problem is 2 fold. Something on the EyeTV digital stream output is freaking out the audio side of OSX. OSX is not handling it correctly. Currently, I just leave the audio to System Output. - and use DD ProLogic II to decode. not quite as nice, but close ( and no crashes )
I have my fingers crossed for OSX 10.5 next month. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
johnnytwoseven
New Member
Joined: 27 Sep 2007
Posts: 8
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:39 pm Post subject: One Major Frustration down; Two to go |
|
|
Thanks to castaway, issue number one is resolved: I've adjusted my energy saver settings and did a successful test recording today.
In order to address the 1080i issue, I'll add more RAM. Once I can rub a few more nickels together, I'm going to upgrade to 2GB of RAM with this Crucial set from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/2md7j2
(Any thoughts on that?)
Would adding a M-Audio Transit be a suitable work around for the Kernel Panic issue? Obviously, this assumes that the KP is audio related (as cclear has reported). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
quannum
New Member
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
Posts: 5
Location: Sydney, Australia.
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:23 am Post subject: Re: I'm frustrated with my Elgato EyeTV-powered Mini HD DVR |
|
|
| johnnytwoseven wrote: |
2. Interlaced content (i.e., 1080i content) looks choppy.
|
I have the same issue - which de-interlacing settings are you using? I aso have only 512Mb RAM.
I also have the kernel panic issue, which I agree looks to be an optical out issue.
Please keep us updated with the improvement wit the RAM upgrade. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
eddlestar
Junior Member
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
Posts: 33
Location: Minneapolis
|
| Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 7:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| elgato put out a new entry into their FAQ about 1080i, progressive scan, and eye tv 2.5. Apparently before it didn't really run progressive scan @ 1080i and now it does...they recommend a core 2 duo, so maybe you just don't have the juice. As for me, upping my memory on my 1.66 core duo to 2gb didn't really help anything in eyetv, but then again I was using the hybrid which has software decoding. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
quannum
New Member
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
Posts: 5
Location: Sydney, Australia.
|
| Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| eddlestar wrote: | | elgato put out a new entry into their FAQ about 1080i, progressive scan, and eye tv 2.5. Apparently before it didn't really run progressive scan @ 1080i and now it does...they recommend a core 2 duo, so maybe you just don't have the juice. As for me, upping my memory on my 1.66 core duo to 2gb didn't really help anything in eyetv, but then again I was using the hybrid which has software decoding. |
Perhaps I wanna upgrade the CPU then... makes me wonder if it's worth getting an STB to do this, it seems like a lot of work/money to get the equivalent functionality. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
arecknor
New Member
Joined: 13 Oct 2007
Posts: 1
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
| I have the #1 issue as well. So set the computer to never sleep, the display to sleep, and the HD to sleep? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
quannum
New Member
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
Posts: 5
Location: Sydney, Australia.
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| arecknor wrote: | | I have the #1 issue as well. So set the computer to never sleep, the display to sleep, and the HD to sleep? |
I think you need to try the three variations in the post by castaway. YMMV. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
arikalish
New Member
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
Posts: 7
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I just got a TVMini HD and had issue #2. I have a Core Duo 1.83 with 2GB RAM. I found that turning deinterlacing from progressive to any of the other options fixed it for me. Motion adaptive looks pretty decent to me.
Good luck. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ 
Search 
Memberlist 
Photo Gallery
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
