Media Centre – Replacing Sky

Something happened in my recent life where I decided it would be good to rationalise my monthly outgoings, and one of the things I decided to eradicate was Sky!  Now, I’m not an avid watcher of broadcast TV (honestly!), I prefer to accumulate TV that I like and watch it when I want.  Sky+ did give me that option but I don’t think the TV we get in the UK is worth the money!  If I want to watch a sporting event, I’ll go to the pub and watch it with friends!  Call this my attempt to stick it to the money grabbing b’stards at Sky.  They’ve had my wonga for quite some time and it had to stop.  I doubt I’ll be going back either or at least not until they stop charging an extra tenner a month for HD! Even when I do decide to go full HD.

The other thing that really bugs me about Sky+ is that you can’t export the content you record onto something useful…and you know I’m talking iPod or iPhone (or any other portable digital media you may have). It really is becoming increasingly behind the times.  Sure, you can watch Sky Sports on the web occasionally, but you need to have good bandwidth wherever you go and don’t get me started on the 3G coverage for O2 in the UK!  Needless to say, if I can record it, export it and watch it where I want, I’ll be happy.

Please welcome eyeTV!

 

On screen graphics, courtesy of Elgato

I already had an eyeTV diversity stick, which I’d been using on my iMac G5 sporadically when it was in the office but I decided it would be an ideal replacement for Sky, by hooking it up to FreeView and saving a little money.  The “diversity” model was equally ideal as it comes with 2 tuners built in, so if you have a boosted aerial you can use it to feed the two tuners with no ill effects, so immediately it’s just like sky, albeit with a few less channels, but a lot more possibilities!

 

eyeTV is a pretty good piece of software, simple to setup – I think my dad could even do it if he took his time – and the picture quality is very good.  The mac Mini doesn’t falter when recording two shows at once, even with the stock hard disk that I have installed in it (250Gb).

So what else does it do:

EPG:

Pretty good Electronic Programming Guide, courtesy of TVTV, first year subscription is free and subsequent years are around £10 for the year so not expensive at all!

Record and export:

I can now record a show and once complete, the software will convert it to a format of my choosing.  Most of the usual variants are covered including ipod/iphone or AppleTV.  The beauty of it is, once converted, it can be stored on a central location of it will add it to iTunes for me. The next time I dock my iPhone or iPod Touch 1st Gen, I get the show sync’d and ready to watch on the move!  If I want to keep the show that has been recorded, I can also, with the software provided, edit-out the adverts and store it in whatever format I choose.

In-built editor:

If I want to keep the show, I can edit out the adverts, credits and pre/post over-run time with the really simple built-in editor, so I get just the show and nothing else! I so wish I had that capability when I first recorded Star Wars as a kid on my parents’ Betamax video recorder…I knew each advert intimately and has left mental scars of post-Christmas sales and holiday bargains… but I digress.

Remote viewing:

Another function which the software offers is to connect back to the TV while I’m remote, from say my iPhone and watch TV that I may not have yet sync’d! I’ve not been able to take advantage of that due to the aforementioned bad 3G coverage for O2 in the UK and the fact that my BT-based broadband only has 476Kbit upload speeds.  I feel another rant brewing…upload speeds, now THERE is a pet hate of mine!

So all-in-all I am more than happy with eyeTV. Check it out here at the Elgato web site.

All-in-all I do not miss Sky+ at all, except for the fact that I can’t get Norm and the New Yankee Workshop on Freeview hehe!

I have my eye on the new eyeTV FreeSat unit that they have just released.  If that comes out with 2 tuners, I would be sorely tempted, especially since my sky dish is still mounted and 2 feeds begging to be used!

I think I might put the remote-viewing on my todo list and report back with my findings…in the interest of research of course.

PL

A “new” iMac comes home!

I thought the Mac Mini post would be my last “My Macs” post for a while but I’ve just come into the possession of a 2nd-hand iMac 20″ and it’s simply superb.

I was having an eBay moment.  I’ve had good and bad experiences with eBay like the majority of people I imagine but on this occasion, I felt like someone was smiling down on me.  I’d recently sold some old hardware items I had gathering dust, components and such from workstation, servers etc and made a nice tidy sum.  A sum that really *needed* to be re-invested into IT hardware!  So I thought I’d look for some Apple kit.  My main focus was to acquire a Time Machine for the house so that the AirPort Extreme could move into the home office outside.

The evening turned into a mix-bag of fortunes because I narrowly missed the TimeMachine auction I wanted because my 10-seconds-to-go manual bid didn’t come off because my Broadband/Safari session paused on me mid-transaction and I missed it. If there had been anything in the vicinity to hit, it would be hurting…but…the very same seller had an iMac for sale, so with the money I didn’t spend and the remainder of my recently acquired coffers, I decided to look at how the bidding went in the next 30 minutes for the iMac.

Long story…short…I won it for just over £700.  That doesn’t sound like too much of a bargain, except it’s spec is:

Dual Core 2.4Ghz, 4Gb RAM and a 2Tb disk and Snow Leopard installed.

On top of that, I had a voucher from eBay…the first one I have ever had, which entitled me to 10% off an auction upto the value of £70, hey, 10% of 700 IS £70, so I got it for £630!  It doesn’t end there though…

I hadn’t realised when I placed the bid that this also came with an additional 20″ TV/Monitor.  None other than the Samsung SyncMaster T200HD, worth at least another £150+. This screen comes with 2 HDMI ports, DVI and 15-pin D-Sub and a built in FreeView Tuner. Included were all the connectors anyone would ever need to hook it up too!

There is a suberb review of the T200HD <here>

I actually did a little dance around the room…yes very sad I know…but I kinda felt I was in bargain city!

So…now I have a super-fast replacement for my iMac G5, which was still going strong but I knew it was only a matter of time before I would need something more.  What’s more, I have since sold the iMac G5, to a friend for a mutually beneficial price, so all these goodies really only cost me £100 after I take off all the sales!  Fantastic.

I’ll post if I do anything out of the ordinary with this machine, but I think it is just going to well-versed in day-to-day stuff for a little while!

If you have any *great* uses specifically for an iMac, please let me know!

PL