OS X Hax

Just to see what it would do, I decided to set the mini mac's display resolution to 1080i and try to watch a 1080i stream full-screen. To my astonishment, it worked. The performance was almost exactly the same as 720p. Of course it looked just like 720p, since the TV was internally downsampling it. So as astonishing as it sounds, the mac mini 1.42GHz performs equally well as a 1.6 GHz G5, at least for the task of displaying full screen HDTV with EyeTV.

The mac desktop is not as nice in 1080i as 720p. For my tastes, the fonts are just a bit too small, but perhaps most importantly, the TV doesn't support the overscan compensation ("Wide PC" mode) on resolutions above 720p.

Cool deal! Do you know of any kind of a switch that would let me choose whether to send the video from the mini mac to my monitor or to my projector? All I can find is kvm switches that take multiple signals and put them to one display. I want to go the opposite way! Good work on the HDTV format. My projector supports all HDTV formats so I might go the EyeTV route.

I thought about getting the mini mac and us it for Music, DVD and HDTV in the living room. That's good news that it can support the eyetv, but how about Dolby 5.1. From what I have red, it does not have a digital audio port.

You can add a digital audio port via USB if you want 5.1. I don't have any 5.1 stuff, but I don't see why the EyeTV wouldn't support it.

For your 720p and 1080i tests, was the stream you were playing back mpeg2? That is, does the Mini have enough HP to decode and play a 720p or 1080i mpeg2 stream?

Yes. The streams were the same - a 1080i show recorded over the air from the EyeTV 500. The only difference was that for 720p, the EyeTV software was scaling the picture down.

I just wasn't sure whether the stream was mpeg2 or some other format. I'm not a Mac person, but I'm looking into front-end systems for HDTV with MythTV, the latest version of which runs under OS X, and the Mini very nice indeed.

I was considering Mac mini for my THX home theatre. It already has an Airport Express connected. Could I send audio from the Mac mini 5.1 with the EyeTv 500 using Airport? My TV/monitor is HD 30" Sony with DVI. Will the Mini support that as well?

Even if you could get the Airport Express to work (it is only supported with iTunes. There are hacks to let you play to it from other software, but), you'd find that it will add some latency that would end up as audio/video sync problems. With iTunes this isn't an issue, but for video applications, it's a show stopper.

I don't see why your TV wouldn't support the video output from the mini, but before you hook a computer up to it you need to make sure you can get it to display the video without overscan. If you can't, then the menu bar and half the dock won't be visible.

Thanks for the quick response. Does the EyeTV500 have 5.1 digital outputs? I can test the Sony 30" HD with my Powerbook as you did to come up with the right video output mix. You did mention a 5.1 usb digital output any recomendations of vendors? It's a shame Apple did not use the dual output as they did on Airport Express. I guess they did not think that their exisiting base would want to use it as a Home Theatre PC.

The only output on the EyeTV 500 is the firewire connection back to the mac.

If you go to the Apple store, the accessories page has a USB digital audio device for about $100 that aparently does 5.1.

I suspect Apple didn't want to raise the price of the unit - they were targetting switchers, not HTPC users.

I have an old studio 21 crt monitor which is very bulky and currently living on a PC. I think that it could make a good monitor when hooked up to such a system, and would in fact cost about as much as a true hdtv display, but would also have the ability to record.

EyeTV 500 >> mac mini >> studio display 21

one of the advantages here is that the studio display can show 1920x1080i or 1920x1080p natively without any scaling. ( I usually run it at 1600x1200 at 85hz.)

A question, have you tried purchasing quicktime pro? that gives you access to apple's mpeg2 decoder engine, which I think is hardware accelerated.

I get decent (but not great) results when hooking the mac mini dvi to my Sony Projection HDTV. How do I get rid of the overscan that hides the upper menu bar and half the dock? This happens even in modes such as 720x480. Is there something for the Mac like the powerstrip utility for PC's that allows you to adjust the stock video settings?

RE: correcting overscan issues on HDTVs. DisplayConfigX is an OS X app that allows you to set a wide range of custom monitor resolution and frequency combinations, if the display supports the EDID 1.2 standard. Apparently, it works with many VGA monitors and graphic cards, as well as DVI and HDTV devices.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13375

Just to clear up a little confusion. 720p is indeed a HIGHER resolution than 1080i and much better suited as a TV output from PC. Think of 1080i as more like 540p. Both are considered to be the HDTV resolutions and broadcasts can come in either form. One of the reasons that 1080i recording/playback/editing can take up more cpu is that the signal many times HAS to be taken as 1080p.

I just finshed having a group of people over and playing garageband through my mac mini to a panasonic rear-projection lcd hdtv with a vga connection. What a lot of fun to be able to quickly have my mac with a guitar, mike, keyboard, and some loops in a living room through surround speakers.

I was searching around to see if anyone had found a method to produce the black bars to correct overscan on the tv. Reason being that a true 1280-720 resolution is more crisp than a 1280-768 resolution which would be shrunk correctly by the TV. This is a problem I have found no solution with via mac or pc. In the mac help search there seems to be an option for allowing for overscan - though i haven't found it so I suppose its for the s-video out only.

In terms of actual resolution, 1080i is higher resolution than 720p. 1080i is 1920x1080, 720p is 1280x720.

720p requires higher *bandwidth* than 1080i, but that's not saying the same thing.

Hello,

I have a big request for you. I have a Hitachi 57s500 HDTV. And I have ran into the problem where I dont see the top menu bar, and the bottom menu is half cut off. I am soo lost, trying to figure out what to do about it. To me, buying another tv is not really an option (money issue ofcourse). You can reach me at cypherkin@yahoo.com -> if you can tell me what exactly I need to do to make this stupid mac mini work. The whole reason I bought mac mini was because I would get a chance to set that up with my HDTV, and enjoy listning to my mp3s, or my recordings and also so my parents can enjoy using the computer with ease. If you have any ideas at all; please let me know. Thank you.
Aj

Hello!

Does anyone know of a hack for an eyetv 500 so I can use it in the UK with PAL?

Corey

That doesn't make sense. The EyeTV-500 does *digital* TV. It's neither NTSC nor PAL nor SECAM nor anything else. It's MPEG2 over 8VSB. I don't know what the digital TV situation in the UK is, but is very, very doubtful that digital products made for North America will work elsewhere.

Hi, thanks for letting us know about your setup.
How well does the mac mini / eyetv work for watching/pausing/rewinding Live TV?

thanks,

Bhavesh

I have a sony 720p LCD rear screen HDTV. It's native resolution is 1280 X 720 like all plasma screens, LCD / DLP rear projection systems. I can get my PC with an ATI 9800 card to run at that resolution, but can not get any mac to run at that resolution only 1920X1080. You say that you got your mac mini to run at 1280X 720. What's the trick. I have a 1.25 g4 laptop and a Dual 2 gig G5.

There was no trick to it. It was simply one of the choices that showed up in the display preference pane.

I have a Dual 2 Gig G5 and when I record (or just watch for that matter) two things happen, the video gets all choppy at times but even more annoying is that the audio is out of sync with the video. I can't seem figure out how to clear either issue and I can't find any other info on it. Eyetv is the only application running on the machine and it can't keep up. Any suggestions?

I just got a mac mini and wanted to hook it up to a Sony HD TV. All i get is a black screen.

It'll work with my powerbook, but not the mac mini.

Any ideas on what's wrong?

BTW: it's a Sony 34inch Wega CRT HD.

thanks,

yk

Hey nsayer.. I have the 5063 DLP tv as well, and have my mac mini hooked up via VGA input. I used the Wide PC mode to set everything so it perfectly fits the screen... only thing ison some colors, like dark blue, etc.. My eyes catch a constant slight "flicker" not like rolling bars or anything, just a flicker. Have you noticed this at all? I have heard of programs like DisplayConfigX where you can adjust settings, but I am afraid I will screw something up.... Thanks.

There are two things this could be:

1. It could be an artifact of the analog-to-digital conversion. If you have a DLP input on your TV, you can eliminate this problem by using a DLP cable to hook the mac up to the TV. I strongly recommend going this route.

2. Occasionally out of your peripheral vision you can see a "rainbow" sort of effect. This is an artifact of the color wheel. DLP TV sets alternate between showing red, green, blue and white pictures, but they do it fast enough so that your eye blends them together. Occasionally, you can see the separate pictures. The next generation DLP TVs will use a spiral color wheel to effectively raise the rate at which the interpolation happens and make it much harder to see the rainbow. In any event, there's nothing you can do about the rainbow if you can, indeed, see it.

Thanks for you quick response Nick! I appreciate it. Now another question...

I am using the DVI port on the DLP for my Samsung DVD player that upconverts... So I can't go DVI-DVI.. however, I am not using the HDMI port. Is it possible to take the DVI - HDMI with some type of adapter?

Stansell

You can get a DVI-HDMI cable, and that will work.

I recommend using component out from your DVD player. DVDs are only going to be EDTV at best (480p), so using a higher quality input on the TV for DVDs is pointless.

Besides, you can play DVDs on the mac mini anyway. :-)

Nick... thanks for your advice. I got a DVI-HDMI cable and it works.. not more "flicker" so it must have been the digital to analog conversion that you mentioned...

The only negative: When I was using the VGA cable and port on the 5063, and you chose the "Wide PC" Picture Size setting.. it actually gave me controls similar to what you would have on a monitor, ability to make it bigger, smaller, center it etc... through the Samsung Wide PC option.

Now that I am using the HDMI though, I have the "black bars" that go around the screen in Wide PC mode and in the other modes I have the overscan... Have you used DisplayConfigX or anything to get rid of the bars and if so, do you know what the correct settings are for the 5063?

:-) I always appreciate you help...

Stansell

No, I didn't need to use any software. But remember: I'm using the DVI input, not the HDMI one. I suggest you use the DVI input for the mac and the HDMI input for your DVD player (using the DVI-HDMI cable). Any overscan problems are going to be far less important for your DVD player than your mac.

So using the DVI-DVI, you have no black bars at the top or bottom? The DVI correctly sets it up to take up the full screen?

I was assuming it would do the same as HDMI...

Stansell

Are you sure you've selected 1280x720 @ 60 Hz resolution?

yeah... :-(

You don't have a black border using the DVI?

just got my stuff set up and had several comments based on prior posts. TV is Sharp LCD HDTV. Using DVI-to-DVI to connect Mac to TV seems essential and it is spectacular. Very impressed that Mac (at least with Tiger) automatically recognizes it is Sharp LCD and knows all its possible resolutions. With Mac you really don't need DVD player, but if you do there are ones by Sony and Samsung that try to upconvert. These usually have a HDMI output and using HDMI-to-HDMI for that gives best results.

Mark,

For what it's worth, I have a dual 2.0 G5 with the EyeTV 500 and I've seen audio playback get out of sync occassionally too. Hitting Left Arrow (to rewind) seems to jossle it back into synchronization. In fact, I believe it will stay in sync even if you fast forward back to where you were.

I'm primarily pleased that EyeTV 1.8 & Tiger on my 1.67 Powerbook now plays back a test 1080i stream with almost no noticeable video skipping, where 1.71 under Panther would skip *juuuust a tiny* bit. CPU Utilization is down to 75% from 99% too :-)

Anyway, it's not a conclusive answer, but like I said, I've seen that audio sync problem before and Left-arrow seems to slap some sense back to it. Maybe I tried that trick because the Scientifc Atlanta 8000 DVR with Time Warner cable needs that trick to send live non-digital channel audio to its digital out, but I digress :-)

- edan

I recently purchased a Mac Mini to hook up as a set top box, with the wireless keyboard/mouse deal. I have an Akai 54" 1080i set that only has component inputs. I have a VGA to component cable that I used in conjunction with the DVI to VGA supplied with the mac Mini. I saw the initial startup screen, in pink however, and then once that went to the desktop it was an uninteligable flicker of pink and blue lines. Do I need a DVI to component adapter instead? Like http://www.cables.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CARA&Product_Code=DVIIDM-3RCAF-ADP

Any thoughts,

Thanks

There is no such thing as a VGA or DVI to component cable, really. You can get a box that does VGA to component conversion, but they're rather expensive.

The thing that you sometimes see being sold is a special adapter. The trick those devices typically use is that they tell the video card what they are, and the video card outputs component instead of RGB video. But those are going to be video card specific, and even if you had the right video card, it's doubtful that the mac firmware and/or drivers for the card will understand and put the card in the correct mode.

I think you need either a new TV or a DVI-to-component adapter box. It's unclear which way will be cheaper (selling your current TV and buying a new one vs buying the adapter).

I bought a VGA (HD15) to component(RGB) cable the other day at Electronic Express. Circuit City did not carry them but CompUSA carries them too. Worked fine on my Sony FWD32LX1 and my G5 dual 2gig. I'm looking for the EYETV 500 now after trying Comcast. I hear the EYETV will not beable to be sold after July 1, 2005. Is that correct?

bj

>> There is no such thing as a VGA or DVI to component cable

There must be, because I have a VGA (male) to component (female) cable that came with my television (a Philips 15" LCD TV).

Ok. Let me rephrase slightly.

When most people talk about component video nowadays, they're usually talking about Y/Pr/Pb. DVI-A and VGA connections use R/G/B. TECHNICALLY both are "component" signals, but most of the time nowadays component refers to the former. Your TV may have a special cable that turns VGA into R/G/B component signals which it then understands. There are also special dongles you can attach to a video card to provide Y/Pr/Pb outputs, but those dongles have driver support and make the video card itself output the Y/Pr/Pb color space.

The electronics to convert from R/G/B to Y/Pr/Pb are not trivial. They exist, but usually are in the form of a box that costs several hundred bucks.

I also have purchased a Mac Mini and have a couple questions. I'll break these into seperate messages so this doesn't get too long though.

I wrote Elgato and asked for some info on the EyeTV 500 and got this back:

EyeTV 500 records digital signals in SDTV (720 by 480, normal TV) or HDTV resolution, and only has two inputs.

"ANT IN" is coaxial, for digital antenna signals only.

"ANT OUT" (or "CABLE IN") is actually for unencrypted digital cable, using the Clear QAM format only. Don't use a cable box, connect the cable directly to that port. Only the few unencrypted channels will show up. 

EyeTV 500 can't use a cable box or satellite receiver, or any analog signals.

EyeTV 500 accepts no inputs that EyeTV 200 does. EyeTV 500 is digital only, while EyeTV 200 is analog only.

*******

EyeTV 500 will work on a 256 MB Mac mini, right out of the box.

However, the CPU will almost completely used just to show video. All video you see will not be in HDTV resolution, but instead a quarter of that. The frame rate will be good.

The recordings you make will still be in HDTV resolution, but your Mac mini can't play them fully. Thus, we scale down playback on the fly.

The quality of HDTV content will be very similar to a professionally made DVD (about 720 by 480).

More RAM is recommended, and a faster processor never hurts.

To see HDTV resolutions with all of the frames, you'll need a Dual G5.

Any EyeTV product can size video to fit your screen, or present it using black borders (to ensure aspect ratio). That can be cone automatically or manually.

*******************************************

So here's my question on this product. The Elgato rep mentioned you could only view HDTV at 1/4 resolution. Does that mean even watching live you can only view 1/4 resolution? That seems to defeat the purpose. Am I misunderstanding this?

Also, does anyone use this with Cox Communications? I was wondering if it worked with EyeTV500.

Thanks,

Mark

I have a question on screen resolutions. I bought a Toshiba 26HF84A 26" CRT HDTV monitor. It has an HDMI input which I connected to my Mac Mini via a DVI to HDMI cable. In the Monitors Preferences, there are a bunch of resolutions, most have (interlaced) or (stretched). None of these work (I'm testing using VNC). I can get two to work (1280x720 and 720x480).

So, some questions:
1.) If you use iTunes and turn on the display full screen, it wants to switch to a different resolution which won't display. I've heard people having luck with SwitchResX but I found this more confusing than DisplayConfigX. Does anyone have any ideas?
2.) DisplayConfigX lets you add new resolutions. Is there any way to remove existing ones? Like the interlaced ones that don't work?

Any other advice for settings with DisplayconfigX on a CRT with HDMI in?

Thanks,

Mark

I have a Sony HD 50 inch grand wega and hooked up my G5 dual 1.8 via DVI. I have been trying to do this ever since I got the TV
2 years ago but until Tiger I always got a squashed resolution. Now
I get not only the right proportion but also very hi res. 1350X 1080.
It is truly stunning. I tlooks almost as good as my 30 inch monitor.
I don't get why Apple does not let people no about this, or at least
I haven't seen any thing on it at the sight. My video card is the Nvidia 6800 ultra. All my games work and itunes visualizer. The only odd thing is sometimes the TV comes up black if I don't have a second monitor
hooked up. I found that if I unplug the dvi connection to the mac and then plug it in to the other port when the tv and mac are on
it then recognizes it and it comes on. I have know way to stop
the overscanning. So I'm going to play around with displayconfigx and see if I can get my menus and dock into the picture. I will then most likely have black bars on the left and right side because HD TVs are not the same size as computer wide scren monitors.
Thanks for all the great posts. I stumbled into this sight and
it made my weekend because I have been trying to get this to work for a long time. Now I have a 50 inch kick but monitor.

Hi, I am interested in purchasing the eyetv 500 mostly for recording NFL games so that I can watch them later. Are you able to record ESPN broadcasts, in either SDTV or HDTV?

I've got an Eyetv 500 with a maxed out Mini and a Dell 2005 FPW screen. RS powered indoor antenna. Bought the EyeTV solely to watch Grand Slam tennis OTA. Am not recording at all. And you know, it works well! Way better than my snow filled, untunable 17 y.o. analog CRT TV. The Mini's fan does come on after a couple of hours in a warm room when using the EyeTV. Very occasional de-synch of sound, occasional artifacts. But for my purposes, this set up is way better than going out and buying (say) a 20" LCD TV and HDTV tuner. Best broadcasts are the two local HD broadcasts, but everything I get is really pretty good. Will be trying Mini+EyeTV with a friend's Sony Wega 30" using DisplayconfigX later today....

what's the best bet for me to receive TV on my Imac 2 Ghz G5, 20" display 1.5 gb ddr sdram with Virtual PC . How does MyTV compare to EyeTv and do i have any other viable choices? ty

what's the best bet for me to receive TV on my Imac 2 Ghz G5, 20" display 1.5 gb ddr sdram with Virtual PC . How does MyTV compare to EyeTv and do i have any other viable choices? I'd also like to connect up toa Sony 50" HD Grand WEGA. Possible? ty

I recently got a mac mini the 1.42Mhz version and hooked up the DVI to the DVI on my 6" Sony DLP and I can't see the periferal area around the screen. Half the dock is below the viewing area and I can't see the top menu or the sides. Any help? The TV won't allow me to change the mode (full, wide, wide zoom, etc) It automatically goes to full with the Mac plugged in. The screen is great, but I can't see around the edges....

John

I just figured it out. Turned off 'overscan" in the options. Thanks, I found it in an earlier post when I searched the board!

John. THIS is web tv!

Has anyone considered or tried a CableCard on their HDTV? Does the cable connection go through the EyeTV 500 first or separately? I'd love to avoid the cable box by using the card, plus get all available digital channels including HD. It seems the 500 limits to only HD receptions. Do I need an EyeTV 200 to complement?

The Sharp AQUOS LC-32D5U has a tuner slot as well as the usual DVI, Composite, HDMI, and Component connections running on 1366 x 768 resolution. I've got one of the new Mac mini 1.5GHz stacked on a miniMate FireWire external drive.

TIA, D9

I have a 50" Sony and I am having a hell of a time hooking my mini up to it. The tv has an HDMI connector, but not a DVI one. I purchased a DVI-HDMI connector and have followed the directions on http://tenant.com/mini.php , but I have not been able to get it to work. The screen flickers on startup and then goes black. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Darek

Ok... so I know this is supposed to be a page for Mini Mac/EyeTV issues but it seems to be the closest thing I could find. I'm using a 27" LCD at 1280x720 with an AMD 64 machine. I put an ATI Radeon 9200 video card with 128mb of ram in the machine to get the machine up to the display standards of the TV. And it looks GREAT!! I'm sitting on my couch with my wireless keyboard typing this message, in fact.

Since there seems to be a lot of HDTV-as-monitor fans in here, I have to ask: have any of you encountered problems running the iTunes visualizer at full-screen?? I tried it when I first put my setup together and it ran at about 40 frames/sec, looked awesome. But now I just can't get it to work for the life of me. I've tried clearing as many tasks out of my memory as possible, even tried slightly overclocking my video card a bit, but nothing has worked. The visualizer appears, runs for up to 8 seconds or so, then just craps out. It's driving me crazy. Do I just need a more powerful video card? Anyone have any suggestions?

Hi,

I have a Sony Wega HD 50" and off air HD signals for the networks (all except CBS for some reason here in Sarasota, FL).

My question is; now the MacMini with intel is out will the Eye TV 500 still work i.e. running in emulation mode? Or will we have to wait for them to recompile the program in the new Intel format? Or maybe they have already? I have written to El gato but no reply as of yet. I'm ready to buy soon as I know it will work.

Even if the software works under Rosetta (which is not guaranteed, since there is hardware involved), the performance would be horrible for watching the video. You'll definitely want to wait until a universal binary is available.

From the FAQ page:
http://faq.elgato.com/index.php/faq/more/370/

[EyeTV 2] EyeTV is now 100% Intel Mac compatible (Universal Binary)

EyeTV now takes full advantage of Intel Macs.

EyeTV 2.1 is an Universal Binary, that will run natively on an Intel Mac
http://www.elgato.com/downloads/eyetv21update.dmg

This build can play full resolution HDTV, like from EyeTV 500, using any Core Duo Mac (1.66GHz and above, which is to say any Core Duo Mac mini, MacBook Pro, or iMac).

It also works on PowerPC macs, since it is an Universal Binary (both Intel and PowerPC code are included).

I am currently using EYETV500 with an Imac PowerPC G5 2000MGHZ machine for recording & playback. My antenna is a "Stealth" (bomerang shaped 24" wide) mounted in the attic of my 1 1/2 story house.
I get 5 HDTV over the air signals in this area (which is great since I do not have cable)
I have had great success watching & recording with the eye TV product on the wide 17" screen.
I am waiting for a new in the box G4 1.42 mghz Mac mini (with superdrive) I just bought. I intend to dedicate it to HDTV reception, recording, and burning.
I am planing on getting a 20" Apple Cinema display to use with it as a TV. I like the other options possible with this set up rather than buying a amaller screen digital TV that recieves over the air signals (not many choices out there.
I appreciate information others have posted and will add my expereinces soon.