Elgato EyeTV netstream DTT
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 11:04AM 
I twittered last week about a new product that had been launched by Elgato - the netstream DTT - a network based freeview box with dual tuner built in.
I've previously done screencasts for Elgato and I'm a big fan of their products, but still, I have to admit to some shell shock when 24 hours later, a new review unit turned up at my door! So disclaimer - this blog post is based on the review unit that has been supplied to me by Elgato.
The unit itself is relatively small (23 × 119 × 119 mm), and only has three connectors - power, a co-axial aerial socket and an ethernet port along with a reset button.
If your already familiar with the Elgato range of products, you'll be aware that these are TV tuners that allow you to view and record TV on your Mac from various sources based on the hardware device in use. The EyeTV netstream DTT is currently only compatible with TV systems in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and in the UK, is compatible with FreeView. I'm sure plans are in place to bring this device to other countries. What's unique about this particular model is that you don't need to physically plug it into your Mac! It transmits the TV data across your home network allowing any Mac on the network to access the TV channels - either via a wired connection or Wifi.
Wifi!
Yes, TV on your iPad anyone? More about this later.
Installation was a breeze, I just plugged in my terrestrial TV aerial, hooked up the ethernet port to a spare port on my network switch and plugged it in. The single indicator light turned from orange to green and we're good to go.
The next step is to install the EyeTV software on a Mac. I have to say I did try and access the device from a Mac that already had EyeTV installed (and the current version) but it didn't have the EyeTV netstream DTT as an available device in the list. Anyhow, I installed the supplied version of EyeTV on my MacBook Pro and started the Setup assistant. This time I discovered the EyeTV netstream DTT was available in the list and ran through the autotune to start receiving channels. As I was using the terrestrial TV aerial, the signal was strong and all the available channels were picked up. You can also sign up for a free 12 month subscription to TvTv during or after the install, a TV listings service that gives you an integrated TV guide within the EyeTV software.
As an aside, the EyeTV 3 software is great and I really should think about doing a show on the latest version. As well as pausing live TV, you can also record individual shows or create schedules, you can create Smart guides based on your own criteria, create playlists, edit captured video and export to all your Apple devices. An excellent piece of software.
In operation, the EyeTV netstream DTT worked flawlessly and with having two tuners built in, you can use up to two Macs independently to view or record. You can even view one channel and record another on the same Mac, not forgetting, the device can be tucked away behind the TV or anywhere you have an aerial connection and an ethernet connection.
I've been toying with the idea of installing a TV and a Mac in my kitchen as home entertainment/communications hub but had been put off by the thought of having to route a TV cable and an ethernet cable to the middle of the kitchen. Now I can install a TV and a Mac mini in the middle of the kitchen and receive the TV signals over Wifi - brilliant!
According to the Elgato website, you can expand your capacity by adding multiple EyeTV netstream DTTs to your network, plus it will support 720p or 1080i HDTV signals if broadcast by DVB-T. I don't receive any of these channels so wasn't able to test the HD output, but the SD quality is great.
There's even a web browser built in to the netstream DTT to monitor and configure the device over the network.
As well as accessing the EyeTV netstream DTT over the local network using the EyeTV software, you can also use the EyeTV iphone client to access both live TV and recorded programs, not only at home, but also whilst you're away from home using Elgato's free My EyeTV service.
The only caveat to this is that you can't access the EyeTV netstream DTT device directly, you access a Mac running EyeTV which in turn uses the EyeTV netstream DTT device. So you will need to have a Mac switched on and loaded with EyeTV software for this to work.Of course, the EyeTV iPhone client should work just a treat on the iPad, allowing you to watch TV directly on your local network (or even away from home over 3G or Wifi via My EyeTV). Superb!
One final thing is that the EyeTV software automatically integrates with the Elgato turbo.264 HD, so if you have one of these attached to the Mac, it will boost your encoding and conversion if you need to export to another format. It will also enhance live streaming by offering adaptive streaming to give you the best streaming experience dependent on your available network speed - very neat.
As I mentioned before, the EyeTV netstream DTT is only currently available in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and retails at €249.95 / £229.95 plus shipping - Elgato Store
Reader Comments (7)
Now I know you discounted the whole adopting me idea, but I don't think you thought it through completely so I am willing to let you reconsider ;-)
Like yourself I am a big fan of the Elgato products and have always found them simple to use and reliable. However in this space I still find the SlingBox Pro a far better product and for a lot less money (Currently £155 on Amazon UK).
Okay so the SlingBox Pro only allows a single connection and doesn't allow you to record, but does allow up to four devices to be connected at the same time and does allow connections directly over the Internet from both the laptop and iPhone.
Food for thought!
I have a SlingBox Solo! Did I mention I have a gadget problem! They really are aimed at completely different requirements. Slingbox is aimed squarely at playback - no TV guide, no editing, no pausing of live TV, no recording. I have to say that the quality of the image is no where near as good as the EyeTV.
I got the SlingBox Solo for my lad at uni so he could connect whilst away from home. Performance is pretty dire I have to say, especially when trying to change channels.
And don't forget, the SlingBox app for the iPhone isn't free - £18 with no access to recorded material.
Sorry Mark, you've not convinced me.
And I'm still not adopting you ;-)
Don, you didn't mention how it ties in with existing EyeTV hardware.
If you already have an EyeTV DTT connected to one of your computers, how would you select the Netstream DTT without losing your existing DTT on that machine? (If you were already recording using your USB DTT and wanted to watch a channel off the network)
Did you try using a shared library? What about pointing all the computers to a single eyeTV Archive on a server - would they all try to start recording at the same time because the schedules are stored in the same folder? This could be hours of fun!
Got my netstream today, very happy with it... my family collectively own several mac devices (ipad, itouch, iphone, imac, mac book...), so these are all now effective TVs and everyone is very happy about that! Also, works fine on our Windows and Linux boxes (the most convenient way we found for Linux was loading the m3u file into vlc). I am curious though as to why the ipad app can't access the box directly though, and instead required the mac for transcoding, I'd have though this could be done locally on the ipad?
Hello
I've been thinking about buying one of these devices. I'm running a wireless network via a Time Capsule. I've configured a Airport extreme as wireless bridge off the time capsule, so I can use the ethernet port on the extreme to connect to the netstream and onward to my wireless network.
My question is - can you watch two different channels at the same time over a wireless network. I only ask this because my UHF cable is nowhere near either of my mac's and I will need to access the netstream wirelessly.
Thanks for any info you can offer.
Mark.
As far as I'm aware you can!
Hi,
I couldn't understand if this Elgato product can accept a cable TV signal (DVB-C). Is it only EyeTV Hybrid that does this?
Cheers