Sky TV on my Macintosh

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The Doctor

The Doctor

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I have a Intel Duo Mac. I currently have a Miglia TV mini which is great, but for christmas my dad is getting me Sky :). So my Question is what hardware will I need to watch Sky. So I will have the Sky Box and then what will it need to be plugged into?

Thanks for any help!

The Doctor

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You'll need a video input box such as the EyeTV200 (Firewire). This box is obsolescent but some stores might still have one left. Try Computers Unlimited in London.

Warning! It's not cheap.
 
Doesn't the Miglia TV card already cover what you'd buy the EyeTV200 for?
 
The Miglia TV mini is a USB Freeview (digital terrestrial) receiver. He needs an analogue tuner or, preferably, a video input box as I suggested. The EyeTV200 has RCA (phono) inputs that can be connected to the Sky Digibox Scart socket with a suitable lead or adapter. It also has an S-Video input socket which can be used with any SKY+ Digibox and some Grundig models.

Although you'd think there'd be a cheaper alternative, I don't know of one!
 
No, I'm wrong, the Elgato EyeTV EZ USB 2.0 Analog TV Receiver appears to do the job at just over £100. However this is just an analogue tuner. It does NOT have S-Video or AV inputs. So it will give somewhat indifferent picture quality and the audio will be mono (because that's what comes from the Sky Digibox RF output).
 
Thanks, and I thought no one will reply :)

hmmm, not easy is it? lol I really want full Sky Quailty on my Mac to show off to mates and because my iMac is bigger then my TV lol

If you have any more ideas please tell me thanks

The Doctor
 
I'm out of ideas. If you want good quality the EyeTV200 is my only suggestion. Keep a look on eBay. You might find one going cheap. ElGato USA are offering them (refurbished) for $200 (£105) which is a bargain.
 
if you want to go with elgato, get the eyetv250. its a usb2 hardware encoder, that comes with a breakout cable with s-video and rca connecors on it. also the 250 is a current product and works great. i have one and love it.
 
sinclair_tm said:
if you want to go with elgato, get the eyetv250. its a usb2 hardware encoder, that comes with a breakout cable with s-video and rca connecors on it. also the 250 is a current product and works great. i have one and love it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice .. but do you watch Sky on it?

The Doctor
 
Sorry, can't edit my post ... Still would like to know what typeof TV you watch... But looks great and sounds like it would work on the Sky Box, however ... what cables would connect to what? i'm used to scarts and haven't been at the back of a Sky Box in ages.

The Doctor
 
So if i get this right ... scart at the back of sky box and then phono cables plug into the adpater and then the other end goes into the SVideo?

I got it right? And thanks everyone for all your help, I Love this site!

The Doctor
 
well, i don't even know what sky box is (nor has it been defined yet in this thread). i have my psone plugged into my eyetv250 so i can play it on my lcd, and i have an antenna attached to the eyetv250 too because it has a built-in tv tuner. so i get the free aired tv stations. as long as this sky box has an atenna out, rca video/audio out, or s-video out, it will plug into the eyetv250 to allow you to see the shows on your mac. and the software that comes with it lets you record stuff to your hard drive for later viewing, or to burn to dvd, or editing in imovie.
 
If you don't know what Sky is or live in the UK you won't know .. .But I can check what the connections are, however Satcure will be able to help further due to he lives in the UK. Thank you for your help anyway and I will keep in mind what you said

The Doctor
 
It was a real hassle sorting this problem out. I use the EyeTv 200 Firewire box hooked-up to a 2.66 Mac Pro, linked to my PACE SKY box via the second RF output, and get pretty good results (re. the post above, the sound seems to be in stereo). I use a simple 'magic eye' device to change channels (you obviously don't get the TIVO functions of EyeTv with this set-up). I don't get a good terrestial digital signal where I live, so this was the only real option.

The EyeTV 200 box seemed the best choice as it has more powerful hardware than the other Mac options. It will also link to a VHS recorder via an S-Video or Composite to SCART connector.

A warning on getting the EyeTv 200 if you decide to go that way. The early ones had waking from sleep problems, so look out for one with Hardware version 3. Also don't buy from America as it will be NTSC rather than PAL.

But if you're getting a separate SKY box I suppose you could look for one that has S-Video out. Or possibly you could look for a SKY box with digital out and wait for someone to produce a Mac connector that has USB or Firewire digital in.
 
Hi, thanks ... From what I know Sky have changed from Pace, unless to go into my personal life a sec, me or my brother can have the OLD sky box (perfectly fine) and then me or my bro have a new one and my dad has Sky + downstairs. So ... I will choose the Pace one ... But, I need in plain English all the hadware I will need for good quailty please.

Thank You SO much for everyones help

The Doctor
 
Which bit didn't you understand?

You either buy one of the cheaper EyeTv (or similar) devices, the EyeTv 250 (USB) being probably the best bet for you as it is in production and has a 'break-out' cable to connect to the SKY box via S-Video / RCA.

Or you could try to get hold of the more expensive and better (but recently discontinued) EyeTV 200. This connects to your computer via Firewire and is a much better piece of hardware (it will compress video to more formats and uses less of your computer's processing power). If you decide to go this way see my previous post about getting the latest model, and it being PAL (the European television standard) rather than the inferior NTSC (the American television standard).

Both will connect via a coaxial cable (the easy and 'normal' tv cable connection). If the SKY box is close enough to your computer you could use SCART to S-Video and RCA (for sound) cables for a slightly better video and audio connection than you'd get from the coaxial. You can buy these leads from PC World, ebay, etc.

Either way you won't get a true digital connection with the SKY box.

Or, lastly, you can wait for someone to introduce a better solution (i.e. digital / high definition).

I'm afraid a bit of technical jargon is necessary for this type of question!
 
It wasn't mainly the techincal jargon, it was so many people have said diffrent stuff in diffrent ways lol.

The Sky Box would be v. close to my Mac and will be better then watching on my TV (due to size and it being far away)

Thanks guys for ya help

The Doctor

Oh! p.s so if they discontuined it ... shouldn't there be something in it's place?
 
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