# Aplpe TV - Hauppauge HD PVR



## interact (Mar 11, 2004)

*Apple TV - Hauppauge HD PVR*

I have a Shaw Cable HD box (non PVR) connected to a Hauppauge HD PVR by component cable. This is connected on my MacPro using USB 2.0 and the latest Eyetv software.

Nice setup (Hauppauge HD PVR is fussy,) but I'm not happy with the one button export to Apple TV built into Eyetv. The colors are much darker in Apple TV export. Really, really disappointing.

Here are 2 pictures from Family tonight. I've tried to split each picture between Peter's eyes. You'll see the brighter, truer color on the left and the Apple TV export color on the right. I've yellow circled some areas to compare.

Any suggestions on what I could do?


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Hmmm. Did you find it had a pretty big impact on your enjoyment of the program?


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

What fjnmusic said, but I'll just add that you're starting with a compressed signal (cable) which is then re-compressed by the EyeTV for export to AppleTV.

I think some degradation is therefore unavoidable, but you should show these pics to the EyeTV people and see what they say.


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## Macified (Sep 18, 2003)

fjnmusic said:


> Hmmm. Did you find it had a pretty big impact on your enjoyment of the program?


Wow. That was brimming with insight. If you aren't going to offer a helpful suggestion, maybe capping the opinion is in order. Who are we to question the OPs capacities.

I am with Chas_M on the 'send it to Hauppage' suggestion. They might be able to recommend a better profile for the export. How does this difference look on live-action content. I find animated stuff can be finicky with various pieces of equipment.

Good luck.


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## interact (Mar 11, 2004)

I know what you're saying about enjoying the program, but so far two of the most non-techie people I know have both commented (while watching) about how dark the program looks on the Apple TV. In person, the experience is quite pronounced and isn't truly captured in the pics I posted.

My expectations are based on iSquint taking a DVD rip and converting it for Apple TV. The video (of course) gets softer/fuzzier, but doesn't get darker. Unfortunately iSquint and Video Monkey won't convert the Eyetv captures. On a side note, the Eyetv captures are amazingly high quality. 

I'll try the Hauppauge suggestion. Thanks.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Macified said:


> Wow. That was brimming with insight. If you aren't going to offer a helpful suggestion, maybe capping the opinion is in order. Who are we to question the OPs capacities.
> 
> I am with Chas_M on the 'send it to Hauppage' suggestion. They might be able to recommend a better profile for the export. How does this difference look on live-action content. I find animated stuff can be finicky with various pieces of equipment.
> 
> Good luck.


OK, I will cap my opinion. I THINK THE OP IS NITPICKING. I don't honestly see enough of a difference to warrant a big concern, and it looks something that could be easily rectified with tweaking the color control on the TV set. It also looks like an SD-TV signal, for gosh sakes, which always have ghosties and color shifts. Now if we were talking about wrong colors on a properly calibrated HD-TV signal, on the other hand, I could see the cause for concern.


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## kevleviathan (Apr 9, 2008)

There is clearly a difference... the right side is blurry and off colour. Why would you adjust your TV colour settings specifically for one program?


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

You wouldn't. The point is that it's all relative. If you watch the same AppleTV on two different brands of sets you'll also see similar color shifts. I do see a slightly lower resolution, however, which could get annoying. Not sure why that is.


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## interact (Mar 11, 2004)

fjnmusic said:


> I THINK THE OP IS NITPICKING.


I'm a new to Eyetv/Hauppauge/video encoding and I'm not sure what to expect as normal. 

When I moved my Family Guy DVDs to the Apple TV, I used handbrake and there was (as expected) a softening of the image. I was happy with the end result and it looked really good (colors were very close to DVD, basically same brightness, some de-interlacing but acceptable.) 

I'm now capturing 1080i off the Hauppauage and it's stunning. I understand that by moving to an Apple TV format, I'm choosing convenience over quality. If 480i makes me happy, surely an encoded version of 1080i will blow my mind...

The problem is that it's not. I'm now convinced posting the pictures were a mistake. In person, on my TV, it's noticeably dark to people that aren't tech/ savy or even HD aware. It's darker than the 480i DVD I encoded, darker than the HD iTunes rentals/tv show, darker than SD/HD TV - probably the darkest videos I have. 

If I could go back, I should have asked this:

When I encoded a DVD to Apple TV format, I would say there was a 10% reduction in quality. Why would I be seeing such a huge (40%) loss in quality - and almost 100% of it in brightness?


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## Ottawaman (Jan 16, 2005)

Do you have any other way to capture?


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## interact (Mar 11, 2004)

Ottawaman said:


> Do you have any other way to capture?


I'm sorry. I'm not sure if I've even really explained the setup properly.

1) Shaw HD cable box pushes 1080i or 720p via component to Hauppauge HD PVR.
2) Hauppauge HD PVR doesn't have storage. It encodes in MPEG-4 or h.264 (not sure which) and pushes that into my Mac via USB 2.0.
3) On my Mac, I use Eyetv software for the program guide and to "capture" the stream from the Hauppauge.

What I'm capturing is amazing quality. Both the 720p and 1080i out of the Shaw Cable box are impressive. I can hook up a MacBook to my HD TV via DVI and watch in full quality, but the average movie is 10Gb and show is 3GB. I'd prefer to archive in lower quality and Apple TV ready.

Are you asking if there's another software program? That's not a bad idea.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Actually, I have an interest in your experiment as well. Also have a Shaw HD box which records in spectacular clarity, but has a limited memory, meaning you have to dump your recorded programs eventually to free up space to record new programs, and HD shows are memory hogs. I'd also like to be able to take the keeper-content off the Shaw cable box and encode it for iTunes to play on AppleTV or even burn it to disc. Haven't figured out the process yet. I'll let you know if I discover anything.


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## Ottawaman (Jan 16, 2005)

Hi,
Is this the PVR?
HD PVR Product overview



> Specifications
> Hardware encoder
> H.264 AVCHD video encoder
> AC-3 audio encoding
> ...


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## interact (Mar 11, 2004)

Ottawaman said:


> Hi,
> Is this the PVR?
> HD PVR Product overview


Yes it is. In Canada, the HD PVR model 1212 is actually model 1219 (because it includes a french instruction manual.) I bought mine at Futureshop.

I've upgraded my firmware twice (now running the beta) and it only "crashes/over heats" every 3-5 days. It was crashing every 20 minutes on the original firmware. Hauppuage will gladly warranty replace with a revision E1 (I have a D3.) Since I have 30 days to return it to Futureshop, I haven't done the warranty exchange. Revision E1 (based on the forums) seems to have no issues.

Another tip - firmware upgrades require Windows. You can't use VMware Fusion - never finishes the upgrade. Bootcamp was 100% successful.


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## interact (Mar 11, 2004)

Ottawaman said:


> Do you have any other way to capture?


SageTV is another option. I'll check it out in the next couple of weeks.


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## feggymango (Oct 14, 2004)

*Does the IR Blaster/Receiver for the HD PVR work under OSX-Mac*

I am glad to read about this Hd Pvr working with EyeTV-since i already have a copy of the software from my elgato (it died). The only thing i didn't like about the elgato was that i could not find a IR blaster/receiver in the Oshawa area. So can you tell me if the HD PVR's IR blaster/receiver functions work under osx-10.5.7-I really need this to control my look tv (dont laugh) box


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## livintheilife (Jun 26, 2009)

*Why US Only?*

I'm interested in putting together a system like this. Are there any technical problems in setting up a Hauppauge-EyeTV-IR-blaster system in Canada, or is it just illegal for Canadians to put such a system together? I'm confused. What's with all the "US Only" crap in this EyeTV knowledge base article? As far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping Canadians from buying a Hauppauge HD PVR, a ZephIR, and a copy of EyeTV 3.1 for Mac, and hooking them up?

Maybe it's just that, at the time this KB article was written, EyeTV didn't include a Canadian EPG?


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