Pocket EyeTV for DTT - an apology

First things first, an apology is in order. My brief (first impressions) review of the Pocket EyeTV device turns out to be next-to-useless. Perhaps I should refrain from a first impressions review in the future? (My Nokia 6680 review on the other hand is still pretty fair).

I have now got 3 different problems with the EyeTV device in my configuration. And, while I was initially happy with the responsiveness of the support people, that seems to have dried up when you send a second email in on the incident which demonstrates you've already done the obvious things.

Problem 1 was observed when watching sports. Cricket and football seemed strange. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. But then I stored a few frames using the screenshot feature built into Mac OS X. I noticed that there were often 2 images of player and/or ball in the same frame. Despite trying different eyetv preferences and different screen settings and frequencies, I could not eliminate these problems. It might be solely due to the use of an external plasma display via DVI or VGA but it is extremely annoying, and despite sharpness/colour advantages makes watching such events a problem.

Problem 2 comes usually after a few days of typical use (which for me involve leaving the computer on sleep much of the time). After a while, the live TV window no longer picks up a signal. It sometimes gets hung only on the higher number channels or even specific signals, but then degenerates into a complete inability to receive any channel. Rebooting the computer does NOT fix this. Only unplugging/replugging the device in the USB port fixes it. That indicates a firmware problem with the device - only in this situation is firmware reloaded, as during restart power is still provided by USB. I have seen this exact problem reported elsewhere. This means the device cannot be relied upon to record shows unattended (a prime reason for having this device). I don't know the exact circumstances as to why it goes into this mode - I suspect its something to do with sleep and/or restarting the application rather than leaving it permanently on.

Problem 3 also happens intermittently. When watching a recording, I note a lot of stuttering frames or brief (up to 1/2 sec) pauses. These pauses happen in the same places indicating the problem took place on the recording, rather than during playback. I have been keen to keep other applications off when running the EyeTV software. So, it should easily be able to keep up. Yet, even after a system restart, memory use seems much higher than on my powerbook (both 512MB RAM). Whether this is the EyeTV app or something else I don't know. My suspicion is however that the stuttering recordings are created when the machine decides to do a lot of memory swapping. Some recordings don't exhibit this. My suspicion is that these are recordings made soon after a restart, and that over time, the machine becomes increasingly incapable of making a smooth recording.

All of these problems mean that the device is not achieving what I had hoped for - a replacement of my Pace PVR. I will have to consider a return which will be a hugely disappointing blow in my quest to build a reasonable HT/media centre setup.