HDTV on Your Mac: HDHomeRun From Elgato
Reviewed by Tim Verpoorten from Surfbits
Elgato Systems GmbH
Nymphenburger Str. 14
80335 München
Germany
Elgato Systems, LLC
900 Kearny Street
Suite 750
San Francisco, CA 94133
USA
SiliconDust USA, Inc. is based in Livermore, California
and is a wholly owned subsidiary of SiliconDust Engineering, Ltd., a New
Zealand company. HDHomeRun is a trademark of SiliconDust USA, Inc.and
SiliconDust Engineering, Ltd.
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_hdhomerun
Released: July 2007.
$200 USD.
Comes with: HDHomeRun dual-tuner network device, EyeTV 2
software for two computers, two RG6 cables, an Ethernet cable and AC power
adapter.
Requirements: Digital TV connection, DHCP Server connection for
IP address assignment.
FAQs: http://faq.elgato.com/index.php/C125/?catlink=direct
Forum: http://www.silicondust.com/forum/
Strengths: Cross-platform. Network device for TV access by
computers.
Weaknesses: Does not work with Analog signals. Requires more
licenses beyond 2 computers for EyeTV (3-packs). Few High-Definition channels
available. |
|
Introduction
Over the past year or so I’ve tested and reviewed several hardware
solutions for watching and recording TV on your Mac. The TVMicro and the
TVHybrid. Both of them did a good job and used the EyeTV software for a solid
solution to scheduling and recording. But I was never really thrilled with the
picture, It seemed small and snowy, especially after I started watching my
Plasma HDTV in the family room. So when Elgato introduced their new HDHomeRun Digital Network Connected HD Tuner for the Mac,
I jumped at the chance to review it.
Let’s look at the specs and the features:
The HDHomeRun for Mac is an unique centralized digital TV tuner that
connects to your Ethernet network, and can be shared by any Mac using the
included EyeTV software. Thanks to its dual tuners, two users can be watching
or recording different programs at the same time. Because the HDHomeRun is a
network device, you don’t need to have an antenna or cable TV outlet near your
computer. You just locate the HDHomeRun tuner wherever you have a convenient
antenna or cable outlet and connect it to your network.
The HDHomeRun for Mac bundle includes the award winning EyeTV software
for two computers. Additional users can be added in affordable 3-packs. Users
who already have an EyeTV tuner on their Mac will be able to use both the local
and network tuners through the same EyeTV software. EyeTV records digital TV in
one quality setting, Lossless. The digital stream is recorded unaltered, so you
get full quality digital content as encoded by the broadcaster. With EyeTV you
can: Watch digital television on your Mac,Watch and record live TV
simultaneously or watch two channels, Picture-in-Picture, Rewind, fast-forward,
and pause live TV, Browse EyeTV menus in Full Screen mode, Record hours of
favorite TV shows directly on a Mac’s hard drive and edit out unwanted content,
Find TV shows using the built-in Program Guide, and Store your collection on an
external drive, or burn it to disc. You can also export to iPod, iPhone, or
AppleTV format.
If you access the HDHomeRun from a Dual PowerPC G5 or an Intel Core Duo
processor, you’ll be able to enjoy watching 720p or 1080i HDTV (MPEG-2) in
addition to the other digital television standards. Since I tested it on my Mac
Pro, I had some beautiful HD channels from the HDHomeRun. In fact, the software
along with the hardware gave me pictures as nice as my Plasma right there on my
Apple Display. The networking feature actually worked better then I’d ever
expected.
Getting Started
Bottomline, HDHomeRun worked as advertised and more, but, there are some
major hurdles that you need to know about before you purchase this $200 HD on a
Mac solution.
This comes directly from Elgato, so it’s not something they’re trying to
hide from you. HDHomeRun can only receive digital signals. It cannot receive
analog antenna, analog cable, composite or S-Video. It can only receive digital
antenna (ATSC) or unencrypted digital cable (Clear QAM). These are standards
only available in North America, so the HDHomeRun is only for that region. If
you need to receive analog signals, then consider another EyeTV unit, like
EyeTV Hybrid or EyeTV 250. HDHomeRun cannot work with any cable box, satellite
receiver, or other external box. It cannot work with any analog (NTSC) input. The
HDHomeRun can receive digital TV over antenna (ATSC) or unencrypted digital
cable (Clear QAM) only.
Next is the issue of what channels can be received by the HDHomeRun. If
you have 500 digital cable channels that you receive with a cable box, then the
majority of these channels will be encrypted. A Clear QAM tuner can’t receive
encrypted digital cable; HDHomeRun can’t receive the majority of your digital
cable channels. Therefore, HDHomeRun only receives a few cable channels, those
that are Clear QAM (unencrypted). It cannot use a cable box, and it can’t
receive most of your channels. The channels it can receive vary city by city,
and some channels may be there one day, and gone in a few months. Essentially,
your cable company reserves the right to encrypt and decrypt channels at will,
but usually you’ll see the networks, and some other content. That said, Clear
QAM tuners can receive HDTV content, if available. If you use digital cable,
please be aware of the strengths and limitations of Clear QAM tuners before
purchasing HDHomeRun. You may want to contact your cable company to find out if
any of their channels are in Clear QAM format.
Finally, once you have found all the channels on your cable
that are in Clear QAM format, you’ll need to find out what stations they are.
Since cable companies are not required to transmit names or program information
along with the channels that they rebroadcast, there will be some Clear QAM
channels that the HDHomeRun can’t identify. In order to see program
information, you’ll need to go through those manually and match them up with
their names in the TitanTV guide. That proved to be difficult for me, it may
have been the local cable company or maybe my TitanTV guide software, but I
seemed to have a lot of channels that were playing shows not on my guide.
The one positive note that came out of it was that Elgato
tech support was right there to answer my questions and help me through the
problems I had on set-up.
Conclusion
For $200 you can have HDTV on your Mac (If it meets the min.
requirements) and the picture is superb. The bottom line also is that for $200
you’ll have to be patient and do a little work to set up the HDHomeRun. The
choice is yours, but the HD is beautiful.
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