[brzilian]

Why have the system requirements all of a sudden changed with the 2009 EyeTV update when decoding HD 720p and 1080i signals? Why is a Core2Duo required all of a sudden?

My 1.66 CoreDuo Mac Mini easily handles 2 USB tuners (Pinnacle and Hauppauge) both tuning HD content simultaneously with EyeTV 3.

Did Elgato do a poor job in selecting components for its "own" USB stick which put a larger strain on the CPU or is it just bad software coding?

Doesn't make much sense to me and I hardly consider this an "upgrade"...

[Nick Freeman]

Executive Summary:

The CPU requirements are exactly the same, even though the text seemed to note a big difference. Your 1.66 CoreDuo Mac Mini is just fine for EyeTV Hybrid 2009.

Digital TV in the US (via ATSC or Clear QAM) is a MPEG-2 Transport Stream. The processor requirements have not changed for MPEG-2 playback in EyeTV 3.1.

EyeTV Hybrid 2009 will work just as great as the other models already in the market - it will work fine on your Mac mini, or for any Mac that already can use any other ATSC or Clear QAM receiver via EyeTV.

Things in 3.1 are just the same as in 3.0.4 or earlier, in the case of ATSC or Clear QAM capture and playback. EyeTV Hybrid 2009, 2008 and 2007 are exactly the same in this area - the capture the digital file as is, and then EyeTV software plays it. That playback has not changed - no extra CPU is needed for their use in EyeTV 3.1.

(Same for EyeTV 250 Plus, EyeTV 500, HDHomeRun, or anything that deals with ATSC or Clear QAM)

We apologize for the confusion due to the requirement text change you noted. See below for more details, and what CPUs are needed for digital playback.

*****************************

The EyeTV 3 software handles playback, and you can play the same video with an older or newer Hybrid, on the same Mac, with the same performance.

The requirements were adjusted for EyeTV 3.1 software, and not that particular hardware unit. HDTV in MPEG-2 doesn't need a Core 2 Duo, but HDTV in H.264 (for Europe) does. The same EyeTV software works all over the world, so this adjustment reflects the higher needs for H.264. ATSC and Clear QAM is MPEG-2, and you can receive and play that no problem on many older Macs.

Any EyeTV product that has ever received ATSC or Clear QAM has the same processor requirements for playback. Dual G4s aren't a good choice, Dual G5s are great, Core Solos are OK, but a dual core Intel is the way to go (Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, or higher).

You can try a lesser powered Mac (like a Dual G4, or single G5), but performance may suffer. On slower Macs, EyeTV will scale down HD video during playback - your HDTV content will be scaled to 1/4 of the normal resolution for playback (DVD quality), but the recorded file is still full HD.

For the technical - the only issue is the CPU needed to play back MPEG-2 Transport Streams properly. The requirements for HD playback are the same in EyeTV, ever since EyeTV 1. If a new product comes out next year for ATSC or Clear QAM, then the basic requirements for decoding and playing that stream are same. An older or newer Hybrid does nothing to that pre-encoded stream - it just places it in your Mac for processing. CBC, NBC, FOX or whatever station you're tuned to already encoded the file into MPEG-2, and all EyeTV does is a file capture from the stream - no encoding for digital happens in the EyeTV hardware. This is why the CPU requirement has been consistent - EyeTV 500 from 2004 has the same requirements as the EyeTV Hybrid 2009 for ATSC or Clear QAM.

EyeTV 2 needs a bit more CPU than EyeTV 1, and EyeTV 3 needs a bit more than EyeTV 2, due to all of the other features that have been added over the years. Beyond that, things will be the same.

We apologize that our specs led to this confusion. Playback requirements in 3.1 are the same as 3.0.4 and below, when using our products in the North America for digital TV.

[stackowax]

So how is EyeTV Hybrid 2009 different from 2008?