Eye TV for iPhone

Eye TV is a Mac software developed by Elgato Software that allows you to watch live TV broadcast on your Mac using their TV Tuner or other compatible TV tuners. EyeTV for iPhone is an application that when run on your iPhone allows you to connect to your EyeTV tuner on your Mac and watch all TV stations or video sources connected to the TV tuner on your iPhone.

Eye TV allows you to capture videos from a VCR, or any video source connected to the TV tuner.

It is a DVR (Digital Video Recorder). Any Live TV being played is automatically recorded on your Mac for a period of time you specify.


Therefore, you can pause a TV show, or rewind if you missed something. Then you can jump to the live feed again. Eye TV can also display the guide of your TV channels.

EyeTV is compatible with many TV tuners including Hauppauge and TerraTec TV tuners for the Mac. See the complete list of compatible products with Eye TV.

Eye TV has been available on the Mac since 2002 from Elgato Software, and now it is available on the iPhone and iPad. It costs $149.00 USD and the iPhone application is available from the App store for $4.99.

Connecting the TV Tuner:

The TV Tuner that comes with EyeTV looks like a simple USB memory cartridge. It plugs to any free USB port on your Mac.

It has a small connection on the side that can receive composite video, audio, and S-video sources. On the other end it has the cable connection to plug to your Cable TV source.

The iPhone application allows you to watch live TV channels from the cable TV or any video source connected to your TV tuner. Then after the channels are scanned you can flip, pause, rewind, or record any channel.

Setting up eye TV is easy. First connect your video source to the TV tuner which can be your Cable TV, or any video source through the provided break out cable, and then plug the TV tuner to a free USB port on your Mac. Finally, install the software.

Installing the software on your Mac:

When you start the Eye TV application on your Mac, the set up assistant will start automatically.

You can access the setup assistant from two locations if you need to, either from the EyeTV menu, or from the Help menu.

Once you run the set up assistant, you will be directed to agree to the license, and then select your country, and then select what type of signal is connected to your TV tuner. Select the hardware or TV tuner you have, and then click next. Enter your activation key from your installation CD.

From this screen, you can set up your Eye TV account, so you can access your TV stations while on the road. Just enter an email and a password to create a free account.

The last step is to select your service, either Cable TV, Digital Antenna (ATSC), Antenna NTSC or FM radio. After you click on auto-tune, all your available channels will be scanned and be listed for you to watch on your Mac and also on your iPhone.

The channel scan indication will appear showing you how many channels are available. This example is showing FM radio being scanned.

Eye TV - iPhone Settings on Mac:

Most of the controls for the TV channels are done on the Mac side. For example, recording, editing, scheduling, and exporting are all doe on the Mac side.

I will cover the most important settings for your iPhone here in this page so you can get Eye TV set up and running.

In Eye TV preferences,  go to the General tab and select iPhone-480x360 H.264 from the "iPod/iPhone button export format" options menu. This is the format used when exporting your recorded live TV shows or videos.

Create an Eye TV account:

Click on the iPhone tab at the top of your preferences window on your Mac, and check both the boxes. The first box allows you to access your TV tuner from your iPhone, while the other box allows access to your live TV on iPhone over the 3G network using an iPhone Web App which I will cover later.

Click on the Change button to create a login and passwords if you haven't done that in the set up assistant. This login and password will allow you to login to your Eye TV account while you are on the road to access your live TV on your iPhone.

Adding a computer to EyeTV for iPhone:

When you install Eye TV for iPhone, the application will discover the computers running Eye TV from your local network or local wifi.

For example, my MacBook was automatically discovered as shown in the picture on the right as it was running EyeTV for Mac.

I also created another EyeTV network manually for external wifi access.

You can add your EyeTV computer manually by tapping the Edit button at the top right, and then entering the required information about your network.






The first screen asks about your email and password for the EyeTV server which you have already created when you ran the Setup Assistant, or you can create from preferences.

Logging in allows you to watch live TV on your iPhone through iPhone safari running a web application.

Tap the Advance button to specify your computer information.










From the Advance menu, all what you basically need is to enter your computer IP address which is the computer that has EyeTV installed and running.

You have to have port  2170 open on your router in order to access your TV form outside. Tap save to save your computer settings.

Then just enter your main computer IP address, and give your TV a name.

After you you add your computer, you will access all your channels from your Mac on your iPhone  from any wifi or hot spot in the world.

Watch live TV on iPhone:

If you have EyeTV installed on a Mac on your network, and you have Eye TV app for the iPhone, the first screen will show available computers on the network with EyeTV installed.

When you tap on one of the available computers, you can access all live TV from that computer on your iPhone.

Tap the Live TV button to see a mix of TV stations and FM radio stations that are scanned from the TV tuner. Also, tap the button at the top right to change your bit rate to control the quality of the live TV.

Move the slider all the way to the right on a local fast wifi network, and move it to the left as the network becomes slower.

To watch your channels on your iPhone from any wifi in the world, you will have to set up your router to open port 2170.

Recording and viewing TV on iPhone:

To start a recording on your Mac you can simply click the record button on the Mac controller.

Once you click the record button, your TV show will be recorded and will be displayed in the recordings area in the EyeTV Programs window.





With Eye TV you can record your favorite shows, and then watch them later at any time on your iPhone.

First of all, you have to set up EyeTV to convert the recorded show into an iPhone video format. This is accomplished by going to the Window menu and select the EyeTV Programs menu.

Select the Recordings button to see all your recordings. In order to watch your recordings on your iPhone you must prepare or export the recording first. Just check the box next to a recording to allow it to be exported to an iPhone format.

You can automate this process by going to Eye TV preferences, and clicking the iPhone tab, and then More Options.

If a recording is not prepared, you won't be able to watch it on your iPhone .

Accessing recorded TV on iPhone:

Tap the Recordings button on EyeTV app for iPhone to access all the recordings you have created on your Mac.

The Library button will show you all Recordings.

The Exporting button shows you what recordings are being exported, while the Recording Now shows what you are recording on your Mac.

Past Week shows you previous recordings done last week.

If a recording is exported, then you can tap the Watch Now button to watch it on your iPhone.











You can also schedule recordings of your shows. You can select the time, date, duration, and how often you want the recordings to take place.

This will allow you to have all your favorite shows recorded, and prepared for your iPhone to watch anywhere in the world.

Watch Live TV on iPhone over 3G Network:

There are two ways of watching live TV on iPhone using the 3G network instead of wifi.

The first method is to create an account with Eye TV running on the Mac, and then logging to your account with your iPhone using Safari for iPhone.

Enter https://live3g.eyetv.com in the url area of Safari for iPhone, and you will go to an iPhone web app to access the EyeTV server login screen.

Enter your login and password from the account you created and then tap Connect.







When you are connected, the screen will look like the EyeTV app for iPhone except that it is running in a Safari browser interface using a web application.

You can add this page to your favorites by tapping the Plus button. Now you can access your live TV from Safari using the cell phone 3G network.

In the Web App you can watch live TV on iPhone or watch your recordings.

This can be done over the cell phone 3G network. EDGE is not supported as it will be too slow.






The Second method of watching live TV on iPhone with Eye TV over the 3G network is for a jailbrocken iPhone. This method requires installing an iPhone hack called 3G Unrestrictor from Cydia. This hack allows you to watch live TV on iPhone using the Eye TV for iPhone app without any restriction. Therefore, you can watch live TV on both wifi, 3G, and even EDGE.

The quality of the TV over wifi is really good, and you can control the quality of your stream by adjusting the bit rate or kbps (Kilobit Per Second).

If the network is not fast enough then you can lower the bit rate by sliding the slider to the left.

Or you can set it up to use the highest quality on local networks by tapping the on-off button.

Tap save at the top right to save your settings for the next session.

If the network connection improves, then you should increase the kbps or bit rate to a higher rate.

Conclusion:

Watching TV on iPhone is one of its most exiting features. Eye TV for iPhone is an iPhone application that delivers live TV at its best. If you have a cable TV, that you like to watch on your iPhone, and if you are a Mac user. Then Eye TV is the solution.

It will convert your Mac into a fully functional DVR (Digital Video Recorder) that can be accessed from anywhere in the world with your iPhone.

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