Apple HDTV Tuner?

[sancgreal]

a hdtv-tuner option for the imacG5- would be a great

imacG5 that comes with a hdtv-tuner would sell well, especially in australia.

since analogue television is being phased out: by 2007, a release of an imacG5 with hdtv capabilities would be well received. The whole elgato external tv-tuner thing available right now in aus is very expensive: about a third of the cost of buying the imac itself.

but yes, apple may not be ready yet to compete with hdtv-lcd enabled sets available today.

 

[ftaok]

imacG5 that comes with a hdtv-tuner would sell well, especially in australia.

since analogue television is being phased out: by 2007, a release of an imacG5 with hdtv capabilities would be well received. The whole elgato external tv-tuner thing available right now in aus is very expensive: about a third of the cost of buying the imac itself.

but yes, apple may not be ready yet to compete with hdtv-lcd enabled sets available today.

Personally, I don't see this happening, at least not in the next 5 years or so. Right now, the standards for HD around the world are all scattered. Apple would have to have different iMacs for different regions of the world. It's not like pre-loading Macs with different language OS's.

Besides, if Apple were to put HD tuning capabilities into Macs (not just the iMac), who's to say that they wouldn't up the price to what an eyeTV costs?

What they might do, is come out with their own HD box that would connect to any newish Mac via Firewire. This box would have the necessary inputs and outputs. Stuff like component inputs, 5.1 audio, HDMI, CableCard (for the US), etc. Probably wishful thinking on my part. Especially with other dedicated options that are much cheaper and more reliable (i.e. Tivo, Cable company's DVRs, etc.)

 

[wdlove]

The United States is due to phase out analog TV in 2007 also. The majority of customers still aren't ready. The TV sets are too expensive for the average customer. TV stations have a way to go also. At least this is what I have observed. As of now would just prefer to stay with basic cable, $9.16/mo.

 

[Lacero]

2008 will see mass adoption of HDTV. It's been 20 years since I've heard of HDTV and I can't wait any longer. By that time, computers will be fast enough to handle HDTV and we'll see an explosion of HDTV content. (downloaded via broadband, no doubt)

 

[watanabe]

Next gen consoles

I think HDTV purchases are going to skyrocket in 2006, driven
by the next-gen consoles coming out this christmas that will
be able to drive games at HDTV.

And a cheap 27" HDTV is only $500.

 

[jtt]

And a cheap 27" HDTV is only $500.

Where would you find that?

 

[watanabe]

Best Buy

I'm sorry, I mispoke. I bought a 27" HDTV over a year ago, looks like
the low-end is even cheaper now!

Best Buy has a 27" Advent HDTV. HT2751A. $399.

I ended up going with a Samsung 27" HDTV for $550, it was an open box
that was normally $750.

Neither are widescreen, and its not a famous brand name, but when
I looked at it a year ago, its picture was pretty decent, and HDTV is
just so much better than standard def.

Widescreen is a mixed win, imo, with HDTV not being widespread yet. You
still end up with black bars for a lot of TV content. But for games, I expect
they will be able to handle both widescreen vs normal, since it is computer generated.

 

[Archi-tech]

A cool solution

I have one of these and it is really nice for HDTV content. Lots of HDTV bit-torrent content out there, it can be burnt to DVD and played in this thing at HD quality. Also anything you can author in iMovieHD you can burn to DVD and play with this box.

http://www.iodata.com/usa/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=AVEL&pId=AVLP2/DVDLA

I like it and I thought you might too.

 

[Maccie]

Apple 30" Display & EyeTV

I have an Apple 30" Cinema Display and just bought an EyeTV 200. I must say that although I can't say I know much about video, I expected more and I'm disappointed. I've seen other postings and I can see that I'm expecting too much. First, DVD's on the 30" display aren't that great. Then, the EyeTV is worse. It's OK at the Normal setting, but full screen is worse than VHS.

Am I simply waiting for DVD and EyeTV to catch up with the Cinema Display? Are there HD DVDs out there at least? Would purchasing the EyeTV 500 be helpful?

If anyone has any answers, please let me know.

 

[csimon2]

The EyeTV 200 looks pretty darn good when you consider what it is it is capturing and playing. NTSC is only 640x480, your 30" display is 2560x1600, WAY more and requiring A LOT of stretching to fill that screen. The results are similar to watching SD on a HDTV. Only, it is even more so because the 30" resolution is even higher than HDTVs.

An EyeTV 500 WOULD help you out quite a bit with quality, but even at full screen there will be some stretching. Also, the EyeTV 500 only can display ATSC and QAM, and there is a lot less available content in these formats than there is SD NTSC.

 

[DavidCar]

Shouldn't SD NTSC look the same on any 30" screen that can display at least 640x480? Then shouldn't a home theater screen look worse than a 30" HD Cinema display for SD TV? It would just be the case that the 30" HD Cinema could look so much better with a higher resolution signal, such as from an EyeTV 500.

My TV just died, so I'm thinking this through as well. I expect I could still get network TV in digital off the air with an EyeTV 500, but my VHS collection would become useless. My DVDs would still work, and I would be ready for HD DVD when that becomes available.

 

[ffakr]

LCDs ALWAYS look like crap when they aren't running at native resolution. The problem with the HD setup on the 30" cinema display is that the Display is too good for the video. If you try to go full screen with a lower resolution video screen it will look like crap.. just like if you bought a 30" HD LCD TV and ran old analog TV on it.

Try to get the video to play with the monitor at native resolution. There has to be a way to do this, though You'll get a black border around the video. You should see that the quality of the video increases significantly though it will be smaller in spacial dimension.

 

[Rod Rod]

I have one of these and it is really nice for HDTV content. Lots of HDTV bit-torrent content out there, it can be burnt to DVD and played in this thing at HD quality. Also anything you can author in iMovieHD you can burn to DVD and play with this box.

http://www.iodata.com/usa/products/products.php?cat=HNP&sc=AVEL&pId=AVLP2/DVDLA

I like it and I thought you might too.

That thing simply rocks. It can play video from USB hard drives and USB flash media (pen drives, etc.), as well as (as you said) files burned onto regular DVDs.

As for playing iMovie HD stuff burned to DVD, for HD material you'll have to export it to a WM9 HD or DivX file (otherwise iMovie's built in DVD export will downconvert it to standard def.)

 

[DavidCar]

Court yanks down FCC's broadcast flag

The broadcast flag, which was once a subject on this old thread in relation to ElGato's EyeTV 500, has, at least for the moment, been struck down.

http://news.com.com/Court+yanks+down+FCCs+broadcast+flag/2100-1030_3-5697719.html?tag=nefd.lede

 

[wdlove]

The broadcast flag, which was once a subject on this old thread in relation to ElGato's EyeTV 500, has, at least for the moment, been struck down.

http://news.com.com/Court+yanks+down+FCCs+broadcast+flag/2100-1030_3-5697719.html?tag=nefd.lede

It's good to see that the courts are keeping up with new technology. The same problem occurred when VHS tapping was introduced.

 

[GFLPraxis]

There are about four different HDTV tuner cards for the PC, but none avalible for the Mac.

Unfortunately, since the PCI buses of most PCs can't handle the full uncompressed HDTV sugnal, it has to output it through the card, using the video card as a pass through and the output is only VGA so you have to buy a $400 adapter to get it to work with an Apple display.

On a lighter note, the HDTV cards for the PC compress the signal using hardware down tp 19.2MB/s so it fits nicely into the bandwith of FW400 with plenty of room to spare in FW800.

Considering the G5 has PCI-X, it should be doable.

 

[weldon]

Considering the G5 has PCI-X, it should be doable.

We've already been over this on the previous page. The post you are quoting is full of errors and misconceptions. Let it suffice to say that you can use the Elgato EyeTV 500 to receive ATSC or QAM HDTV programming and display it on your Mac. In order to decode HDTV with this product you will need a dual-processor G5.

If you are really interested in doing uncompressed HDTV in real-time, you need something other than a Mac. PCI-X isn't fast enough to handle real-time uncompressed HDTV processing.

 

[DavidCar]

Anyone using an EyeTV 500 with a 30" display? I'm curious how that works in practice.

A comment at MacCentral claims that Core Video will not support GPU accelerated decoding of MPEG-2 Transport streams, or even that "OS X does not recognize nor support MPEG-2 transport streams". I had speculated on this thread earlier about ElGato possibly being able to use Core Video, but that apparently is not possible. I also thought ElGato's software would allow me to do anything I wanted with the files.

http://www.macworld.com/forums/ubbt...ewsthread&Number=322138&page=0&view=collapsed

 

[csimon2]

In order to decode HDTV with this product you will need a dual-processor G5.

Dual processor 1GHz G4 with at least 1.5GB RAM and 128MB video card will suffice for ATSC HDTV playback on the mac.

If you are really interested in doing uncompressed HDTV in real-time, you need something other than a Mac. PCI-X isn't fast enough to handle real-time uncompressed HDTV processing.

WRONG! Where you got this misconception, I'd like to know. But I edit and playback 720p Uncompressed all the time on my maxed out Dual 1.25GHz G4, and 1080i Uncompressed is easily doable on my Dual 2.5GHz G5. I don't know what you mean exactly by "realtime". Yes, not all rendering and effects are realtime, but the same is true for SD and D1. FCP5 will add more HD realtime-capable effects though. BTW, in order to capture HD Uncompressed, all you need is a Dual 2.0GHz G5 with a BlackMagic HD capture card in the PCI-X slot and a fast enough disk array. This works fine.

 

[csimon2]

I also thought ElGato's software would allow me to do anything I wanted with the files.

What do you want to do, that you think you can't? With the proper tools, trust me, anything can be done to your captured files.

 

[weldon]

Dual processor 1GHz G4 with at least 1.5GB RAM and 128MB video card will suffice for ATSC HDTV playback on the mac.

From the Elgato EyeTV 500 spec sheet...

"Dual G5 processors required for full frame rate HDTV playback at full
1920x1080 resolution."

WRONG! Where you got this misconception, I'd like to know. But I edit and playback 720p Uncompressed all the time on my maxed out Dual 1.25GHz G4, and 1080i Uncompressed is easily doable on my Dual 2.5GHz G5. I don't know what you mean exactly by "realtime". Yes, not all rendering and effects are realtime, but the same is true for SD and D1. FCP5 will add more HD realtime-capable effects though. BTW, in order to capture HD Uncompressed, all you need is a Dual 2.0GHz G5 with a BlackMagic HD capture card in the PCI-X slot and a fast enough disk array. This works fine.

We're talking about different things. Of course you can capture HD, edit HD, and playback HD on a PowerMac G5. I was just responding to what I thought were erroneous notions about how uncompressed HD is handled for display on a computer. The OP was saying that PC's can't handle uncompressed HD for capture and real-time display. I was pointing out that if you really wanted to bring 1.5GBps in on a PCI-X card, process it for display (eg. filter, scale, deinterlace), and then send 1.5GBps out over the PCI-X bus, you were going to max out the 2GBps bandwidth of the PowerMac. That's what I meant by real-time - processing HD for display as it comes in.

As you pointed out, the PowerMac G5 is more than adequate to work with HD for capture and editing.

 

[csimon2]

From the Elgato EyeTV 500 spec sheet...

"Dual G5 processors required for full frame rate HDTV playback at full
1920x1080 resolution."

Weldon, I thought you have been following this discussion for a while... I have mentioned numerous times that the specs listed by ElGato are just the recommended specs listed so that playback will be fine if someone hasn't done any kind of upgrade to their system over the stock configuration. I am a high-level tester for ElGato products, and I have tested the EyeTV 500 and other products for them on multiple systems. From these tests, that is how I was able to determine that 1080i playback, without dropped frames and at full-resolution, is possible on a dual G4.

I was just responding to what I thought were erroneous notions about how uncompressed HD is handled for display on a computer. I was pointing out that if you really wanted to bring 1.5GBps in on a PCI-X card, process it for display (eg. filter, scale, deinterlace), and then send 1.5GBps out over the PCI-X bus, you were going to max out the 2GBps bandwidth of the PowerMac. That's what I meant by real-time - processing HD for display as it comes in.

Guess I'm a little confused as to what you are referencing here. Most editors who work with HD, don't scale or worry about filtering it on input monitoring. Can't really see a point to it. Also, if you are bringing it in, why would you send it out at the same time? The only thing I can come up with is monitoring the signal on an external dedicated display, which can easily be done with the DeckLink HD Plus, or similar cards. Boards like that have hardware builtin so that the mac isn't involved in tedious processes that a dedicated chip could do better.

 

[DavidCar]

What do you want to do, that you think you can't? With the proper tools, trust me, anything can be done to your captured files.

The poster at MacWorld provided some clarifying comments, and he was lamenting the lack of support of MPEG-2 transport streams in OSX, so that I could not play back an EyeTV file in Quicktime without first doing a conversion. And also that Windows users can use the GPU to accelerate MPEG-2 decoding, but Mac users cannot. Otherwise, he likes his EyeTV 500, and has ordered a second one.

I don't understand the lack of GPU support. I would expect ElGato could get some specifications from ATI directly on how to use the GPU decoding features.

BTW, I found a review indicating the latest iTunes can play an EyeTV MPEG file, but it does not say which version of EyeTV.

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/h264/

I'm still trying to grasp all the issues here. My TV just died, I may be able to justify buying a new computer, and there is an EyeTV 500 rebate available until the end of June, so I expect to make a decision by then. I've also noted various posts of people buying extra EyeTV 500 cards, so I hope there's not a run on them.

 

[csimon2]

The poster at MacWorld provided some clarifying comments, and he was lamenting the lack of support of MPEG-2 transport streams in OSX, so that I could not play back an EyeTV file in Quicktime without first doing a conversion.

Conversion is simple and quick with MPEG StreamClip, so no real worries there. Also, VLC plays transport streams fine, and the EyeTV software itself does a great job converting transport streams to QT compatible program streams. Though, I must warn that QT does not have a proper AC3 decoder, and therefore cannot decode the audio correctly. This is where VLC is again handy.

I don't understand the lack of GPU support.

This is an issue with Apple, in that they do not allow access to the hardware MPEG-2 decoding aspects of the video card to third parties.

BTW, I found a review indicating the latest iTunes can play an EyeTV MPEG file, but it does not say which version of EyeTV.

Sounds interesting, but from my guess, I would say this is for EyeTV 200 users, due to QT's limitations currently.

 

[Rod Rod]

This is an issue with Apple, in that they do not allow access to the hardware MPEG-2 decoding aspects of the video card to third parties.

Apple's own DVD Player application decodes MPEG2 in the CPU (not the GPU) as far as I can tell.

I agree about MPEG Streamclip. It's worth having the MPEG Playback Component (20 or 30 bucks) to use that free piece of software.