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Satellite and EyeTV

Any analog EyeTV device can receive signals from a satellite receiver. That can be achieved using a coaxial, composite or S-Video connection, in the same way you would connect the satellite receiver to a TV. That will be standard video, and not HDTV.

When using a satellite receiver, change channels using the satellite receiver’s remote, and not EyeTV.

EyeTV 250 Plus and EyeTV Hybrid have analog inputs that can be used with a satellite receiver.

To learn more about how to set up EyeTV with Satellite, click here.


	1. Record TV programs from the live buffer 2. Enable Wi-Fi streaming of my EyeTV recordings to my iPhone and iPod touch 3. Customise Turbo.264 exports 4. Send video from EyeTV to the iPhone 5. Export from EyeTV to the iPhone or iPod touch More tutorials...

1. Are their two different models of EyeTV 250 Plus in North America?

2. How do I recover my lost EyeTV activation key?

3. Which EyeTV products can work with Digital Cable?

4. Which EyeTV products support HDTV?

5. Which EyeTV products can work with Satellite?

6. Error Message: Connected to USB 1.1 Port

More FAQ's...

EyeTV Hybrid and EyeTV 250 Plus Comparison

The main difference between the Hybrid and the EyeTV 250 Plus is the presence of on-board hardware encoding in the EyeTV 250 Plus.

The EyeTV 250 Plus encodes analog video as it is imported into your Mac from the tuner, freeing your Mac of the effort of processing this signal. The Hybrid does not include this onboard encoding functionality and will simply pass along the video for your Mac's processor to deal with.

This allows the EyeTV 250 Plus to offer superior analog quality, but it also gives the EyeTV Hybrid the small size and flexibility to be used in more portable settings - like on vacation using a laptop, for example.

➔ Comparison Chart

Featured Support Topic

H.264 Playback in EyeTV has additional requirements for best performance

EyeTV 3.0.2 has added a new playback engine for H.264 video. H.264 is a very efficient codec, that can create high quality images with a low file size and bit rate. H.264 is increasingly used for DVB broadcasts, and EyeTV’s new engine can play SDTV and HDTV resolutions in that format.

Decoding the incoming H.264 stream for playback in EyeTV takes more CPU power than earlier formats, like MPEG-2. This means a modern dual processor G5 or dual core Mac is the minimum needed for the best performance.

EyeTV offers the option to further improve the image via the Display Preferences, and the Deinterlacing settings. These settings, especially Progressive Scan, will further increase the CPU power needed for good playback.

If the H.264 video signal has any drop-outs or distortions, then the resulting EyeTV playback may have missing frames. This is due to the exacting nature of H.264 broadcasts - a minimal data loss can have a large effect.

When using EyeTV to capture and display H.264 streams, please be aware of how your Mac’s CPU strength, along with your EyeTV Preferences and overall signal strength and quality, can adversely affect playback.

Our engineers are exploring ways to optimize the H.264 playback, so that a wider variety of Macs can play such content. Such optimizations should be available in future updates to EyeTV.