Is EyeTV 4 worth it?

[NeilDeWheel 3]

I'm currently running V3.6.9 on Mojave but want to upgrade to Big Sur. The only thing stopping me is EyeTV 3 doesn't work on Big Sur. After hearing of the mess that EyeTV 4 was at launch is the current release any better? Does it work well enough to justify an upgrade? 

I have tested out OTA TV on Plex and NextPVR and although they work well they haven't got all the features that EyeTV has.I don't want to spend £40 on EyeTV 4, plus a subscription to Gracenote, just to find it's just as terrible as I have heard.

 

[Einar 0]

EyeTV 4 is as terrible as You have heard. Especially in comparison to EyeTV 3. Do You have special needs? To watch tv is possible at least! To sort the programs into a individuell order is not possible, e.g. ...

[NeilDeWheel 3]

Thanks for replying Einar.

I regularly record programs then send them to itunes to watch. I also record from my Sky HD box via a HDMI Multiplexor. I have set my own channel and can record any clips I want to keep then export them to video files.

EyeTV is also great for setting up Smart Guides. I can, almost, what do I need in Plex and NextPVR but neither are as easy to do what I can do withEyeTV. For example in EyeTV I can set up a Smart Guide so I can record QI, Season 20, BBC2 HD, New Show. Neither alternative program has this functionality.

I know at release EyeTV 4 was awful but I was hoping it had improved enough to be usable even if Geniatech are not interested in keeping it going long term.

[M|S 9]

I think EyeTV 4 is showing a lot of promise, but it had a lot of rough edges when it was released. The problem is that it was hardly touched since then. So it is still kind of "unfinished".

[Chris M 1]

On 4/17/2021 at 11:55 PM, NeilDeWheel said:

I regularly record programs then send them to itunes to watch. I also record from my Sky HD box via a HDMI Multiplexor. I have set my own channel and can record any clips I want to keep then export them to video files.

EyeTV is also great for setting up Smart Guides. I can, almost, what do I need in Plex and NextPVR but neither are as easy to do what I can do withEyeTV. For example in EyeTV I can set up a Smart Guide so I can record QI, Season 20, BBC2 HD, New Show. Neither alternative program has this functionality.

I know at release EyeTV 4 was awful but I was hoping it had improved enough to be usable even if Geniatech are not interested in keeping it going long term.

Exporting is one of the things which is a disaster compared with Eye TV3. You can't export to iTunes unfortunately, and in any case, editing recordings is extremely clunky compared with EyeTV 3. EyeTV 4 was a complete waste of money. At least I'm lucky enough to have an old Mac Mini running Eye TV 3, which is far more advanced, stable, and easy to use than EyeTV 4. It's a real shame.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Chris M

[Nathalie 0]

Hello, I have a Eye Tv Hybrid 3 correctly working on my Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6 . Now I have a new Mac Catalina10.15.7 and this eye TV key 3 seems not working anymore. Could you please specify if I need to buy the new Eye TV Hybrid 4 ? thank you in advance.

Nathalie

[MacPit 0]

Hi Nathalie

no, it's not the receiver, it's the software which can run 10.14.x max. EyeTV 3.x is 32 bit and won't work on 64-bit-only Systems such as 10.15.x and newer...  I therefore use a old MacMini 2011 with 10.13.x , not having to upgrade to EyeTV 4.x.

hope this helps - Pit

[starliner 3]

I ended up having to go to Big Sur also.

After reading months/years of complaints about EyeTV4, with people sounding like they are about to jump off the roof in despair,  it was surprisingly different than expected and surprisingly similar to 3.6.9.

I haven't had any problems with it, and after about the first day, had adapted and didn't particularly miss EyeTV 3.6.9 -- which I can still run on a virtual  machine running Mojave under Big Sur/Parallels). Very serviceable replacement.  I think Geniatech got a bum rap on this.

The little on-screen "remote" is gone, but I realized I didn't miss it ... it was just something to push to the corner of the screen to get it out of the way, never used. The 4.0 controls at the bottom fo the screen + keypad seem easier anyway.

Minor things here and there could be  tweaked, but for example, it has NOT missed program records, the program guide works well, the display is fine with no lines or bars, or artifacts, etc.

While I was trying to avoid upgrading my Mac to avoid "losing" EyeTV functionality, it turned out to be a non-issue. I wouldn't worry about it.

That said, I'm running EyeTV 250+ harwdware, which does the heavy-lifting of encoding and just passes the result to the sw for display.  So it is possible people with modern "stick" tuner hardware that passes the encoding job on to the computer's CPU & sw may have a different issues.