Elgato Systems has released EyeTV 2.4, a free update to its EyeTV 2 software which now includes one click export for Apple TV. The feature functions in the same way as EyeTV 2’s easy iPod export button; simply select a video from the list of recordings and click the new Apple TV button in the menu bar. Alternatively, the export can be automated as part of the recording schedule.
EyeTV 2 is a software solution for television on the Mac. It enables users to watch live TV broadcasts on a Mac and record them onto the Mac’s hard disc; edit the recordings in an integrated Editor; export the recordings to iPod, Apple TV, DVD and iApps; and burn the recordings to DVD. The software offers an integrated Program Guide (tvtv, IceTV or DVB guide) with full-text search, as well as a Full Screen menu for a comfortable control option (Apple Remote or EyeTV Remote) for TV viewing from the sofa. EyeTV supports technologies such as Dolby Surround, high-definition television (HDTV) and progressive scan. A Universal Binary application, EyeTV 2.4 supports older Macs with PowerPC processors and new models with the Intel chip set.
EyeTV 2.4 also adds support for Apple’s “Spotlight” search technology. Users can now enter part of the title or a description of a recording’s content in Spotlight and quickly find the sought-after recording without opening the EyeTV application.
In addition to English, French, German and Japanese, localized versions of EyeTV are now available in Italian and Spanish.
EyeTV 2.4 adds more features to the Program Guide. Program description texts supplied by tvtv are now considerably more detailed. Areas of the timeline in which broadcasts are scheduled for recording are now highlighted in pink, providing the user with a quick reference. A progress bar now tracks Program Guide updates, an improvement that is particularly valuable for users of satellite solutions with many channels for which a large amount of program data must be transferred.
Users with multiple monitors can now specify on which monitor the Full Screen Menu is displayed and whether the remaining displays should be darkened. Those who frequently use the Full Screen Menu will also appreciate that they can now place the Mac in standby using an EyeTV remote control or the Apple Remote.
Elgato rounds off this free update with numerous bug fixes as well as added support for TerraTec’s Cinergy T XE, a USB stick for DVB-T reception, and Hauppauge’s WinTV Nova-TD, a USB stick for DVB-T reception with two tuners and Antenna Diversity.
More info here.
Standby? oh you mean sleep mode, you can already put the Macs to sleep with the Apple remote.. everything else sounds cool tho.
(Hold down the Pause/Play button if you were wondering)
If you are really good and really fast baiting a fish hook, does that make you a master baiter?
I’m on this like a duck on a June bug….
iPod export is so painfully slow, even on my Quad Mac Pro with 16GB RAM. I’d like to see an improvement!
In the US, standard TV is going to be phased out by 2008.
Unless you have a EyeTV 500, you won’t be able to watch ClearQAM (cable) or ATSC (“over the air” via antenna) unencrypted HD stations on your Mac.
Of course forget the encrypted or HDCP protected content on any legal device.
Now hardware breaking the HDCP, that’s a toy I sure would like as I can stream the Playboy Channel directly to my AppleTV.
Wohoo, Bunnies!!
plum pickled-
The iPod export is nice for automatic conversions, and yes, it is very slow, so what I do is to edit the commercials and then use VisuaHub.
Of course, the main problem is converting from MPEG2 to MPEG4. If Elgato had some way of allowing automatic MPEG4 encoding, I believe it would be much, much quicker.
I think I got that right….
I for one am completely dubious that the standard TV is going to be successfully phased out in 2008. The number of TV’s still in use daily on the standard networks is staggering. Most people are still completely unaware that digital is replacing standard TV.
You can’t tell me that in 12 months all those legacy televisions are going to suddenly become landfill fodder without a huge uproar. I predict at least a 2-year extension before the standard signals go dark.
Psst WiseGuy, the 500’s been replaced by the Hybrid. Which kicks ass, btw. It’s a nifty little USB jobby about the size of a jump drive. Works great AND operates just fine with the Apple remote. Elgato’s remote is not quite as elegent as it’s hardware.
Anybody else having problems downloading this?
blucaso
They have already extended it. This is the extension. Also, the feds are supposed to offer coupons to people to go down to Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, or wherever to get a set top converter. Of course, they will still have to put up a new antennae if they don’t have one for UHF.
OB
yeah, their server must be gettin hit pretty hard.
Obill-No you are not the only one-took 50 minutes to download the 37.1Mb file on my 6mbs dsl line.
This fixes the issue with USB Hybrid where you got could not initialize device error after sleep or long down time.
I tried from the VersionTracker web page and browser, both only got about 8 KB/sec. Went to elgato.com and got it at 22.0KB/sec on a 4Mbps cable link.
Still VERY slow-20 minutes or so.
your age
@ blucasso…Actually the FCC has stated that all analog broadcast will indeed be terminated in February of 2009. A local newspaper in my area has stated that the FCC will provide voucher of $40 per unit maximum of 2 units per family for set top boxes to ease the transformation to 100% ATSC terrestrial broadcast. The following below is an abstract from this article.
Money and Careers section 3/25/2007 Newsday:
f you have TV sets that pull in stations through antennas, listen up: The federal government will give you two vouchers worth $40 apiece to buy converters to keep those sets from going dark when broadcasters switch from analog to digital signals in less than two years.
Analog sets that receive today’s broadcasts over the air will stop working on that date – unless they’re equipped with a box containing a digital tuner that converts the new signal into an analog stream that the old TV can display. Many viewers also may need new antennas.
Lots of them will decide to buy new, standard digital TVs – as opposed to the high-definition sets many consumers have already purchased. Of course, the standard sets will cost more than the old analog sets they are replacing. That will reverse a long-term downward spiral in prices for consumer electronics – a state of affairs that has manufacturers drooling with anticipation.
I had problems downloading from within EyeTV using the ‘Check for updates’ option. Yet I was able to download it directly from their web site. Works well, especially the AppleTV (same quality, smaller size file), but I would have preferred the option to automatically delete itself from the EyeTV app AND the ~/Movies/ folder once it had finished converting and installing into iTunes. This would have reduced my admin tasks. If they set the TV show as a video podcast it could be automatically deleted once watched.
Yes, the Application’s own software update does not yet recognize this update, so you must procure it via the link kindly provided by MDN.
FYI, the old EyeTV 200 hardware (more expensive predecessor to the current EyeTV 250) can do straight MPEG-4 encoding. Mine is doing that right now. However: 1] even at the highest quality setting (~1500Kbps) the video quality isn’t very good; 2] exporting from an MPEG-4 recording to an ipod-friendly MPEG-4 file is still pretty slow (roughly real-time, on a G4 machine) and entails a significant degradation in quality… it seems like it does the whole transcoding process even though it’s the same file type.
Note that I’m using the old v1.8 software… maybe the video encoding has been improved. Btw anyone know if it’s possible to get some kind of upgrade deal on the new software? Seems kind of outrageous to pay $80 for an upgrade, after I already spent $300 for the product. Definitely not in my budget.
Magic word: having, as in “me needs to be having eyetv 2.4 + digital cable!”