EyeHome Macintosh PVR

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EyeHome Macintosh PVR

"Dr. Mac" reviews Elgato's EyeHome wireless module for the EyeTV PVR platform.

EyeTV, if you don't know already, is the little USB (and now FireWire) device that lets you watch, record, and play recorded network or cable television programs on your Mac and store the files on your hard drive. I've heard it called a "Mac TiVo," a DVR (Digital Video Recorder), and a PVR (Personal Video Recorder). I don't have a TiVo so I'm not sure about that one, but the other two fit.

EyeHome is a small silver cigar box-sized device that plays media files from your Mac's Home folder -- movies, pictures, songs, and EyeTV recorded material -- on a TV and/or stereo even if it's in another room, over Ethernet or wirelessly over 802.11g (AirPort Extreme), It is plug-and-play over Ethernet, but requires additional hardware, namely, an Ethernet-to-Wireless Bridge

I haven't had a chance to play with either EyeTV or EyeHome, but together they sound like a great platform for Mac users who want PVR capabilities. Anyone have personal experience with either product?

The Mac Observer: Dr. Mac: Rants & Raves - EyeHome: A Must Have [macobserver.com]

by Gen Kanai March 14, 2004 in Products

Comments

I returned my EyeHome last week.

In its favor, it does exactly what it says it does, play movies (MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX), show photos, play music (even iTunes Music Store music!). As LeVitus writes, it is a snap to set up with one or Macs on the same subnet using Rendezvous.

Why I ended up returning the product is this: the usability of the product is horrible. Here are the highlights:

If you have number of albums or artists in your library, you have to page through screen after screen after screen to get to what you are looking for. There are no page up / page down keys on the remote, nor are there quick ways to jump to specified points in your library.

The remote control buttons react slowly. This could be the EyeHome reacting slowly to the remote, but, either way, something isn't quite right here.

It shows the word INVALID all the time before it starts playing music or movies. Buttons that should work on the remote - like the forward and back buttons for the web browser - do not work for other content like pictures and music. It is inconsistent in ways that don't make any sense.

The screensaver that shows while music plays is lame and the scrolling area for the text should vary more. If one were to keep their TV on all the time, a line would eventually burn where that text bounces back and forth.

Streaming radio hiccups after it plays for 20 minutes. No matter the radio station.

Given the target audience for this product - Mac users - you would think that the user interface for this product would be easier to use.

After using it for a few weeks, I can't imagine anyone but a geek thinking it was an acceptable way to work with this media. Using it has made me reconsider the usefulness of any device that requires the TV to be on to navigate music.

In my dream world, I would take the iPod user interface, controls and screen and put them on a remote control. That remote would control a box (like the EyeHome), and would allow you to play your music, movies and photos, but the entire control interface would be on the iPod (sans storage) remote. Let's hope Apple or someone makes it for us.

Posted by: Willie Abrams at Mar 15, 2004 8:05:14 AM

If they (or anyone else) can figure out how to record HD I'll be all over it. For now I wait for Comcast to figure out what they're doing...

Posted by: Dave Cook at Mar 15, 2004 8:55:54 PM

The best collection of EyeTV comments are: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/eye_tv_review.html#updates

You can check out the online "tv guide" at www.titantv.com

If you have a desktop, this has also been getting good reviews:
http://www.miglia.com/products/video/alchemytvdvr/index.html

If you have the money, AJA makes high-end pro editing gear so you should be able to use a combination of their converters to get HD into FCP: http://www.aja.com/

While not an HD solution, if you're interested in the canopus (who might also have a HD version), the Panasonic DVR and bringing in files as VOB to convert to MPEG4 or DV to edit, check out my blog link:

http://homepage.mac.com/metroxing/iblog/B1641024610/index.html

Keep in mind that I believe that an hour of DV is about 10 GB - you will need a MASSIVE drive to edit and store and re-encode HD.

I think right now, while you can do it, you'd be spending hundreds of dollars to "rip" a HD file - and no logistiacl way to back it up yet.

As for a Mac video/mp3 streamer - it seems like the best have split functions ...

http://www.macsense.com/product/homepod/
http://www.slimdevices.com/

Or even simpler with an ipod remote ... though that does not give you streaming everything.

Posted by: jbelkin at Mar 15, 2004 10:54:16 PM

I bought this and can't tell you how right but wrong the original poster is.

Sure - it's not perfect - but it does provide a simple to use interface that works for under $200 bucks.

I bought it because I wanted to watch DIVX and MP2 and MP4 files on the TV and use a remote to pause - play and fast forward. You can't do this (and don't bring up Remote Desktop or Remote Wonder) with any other product with any ease.

My old set up was using Remote Desktop (see I brought it up) and controlling a G4 Cube 450. There are tons of use issues here and you don't want to open the laptop - login into the cub - etc everytime.

In general though the interface is not great - it isn't bad either. My wife can use this but couldn't deal with the straight remote desktop solution which was much slower.

The 1.5.2 update also is a big move forward - and though it's not a mac interface - hey it's on my TV and it's easy to use. It plays my files - it references my iTunes and iPhoto - and until Apple makes something better (or ever does) - then it's the best solution for this content and control / aggregation issue.

Great job Elgato - keep updating it and making it better.

Posted by: Jay Brewer at Feb 15, 2005 8:57:26 AM

EyeHome Macintosh PVR

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