Digital TV on Mac Mini, part 2

Monday 30 March 2009  –  Filed under: Various  –  12 Comments

Mac MiniFor those of you that just want to know if it works or not (see part 1), the answer is yes. Yes! It works! Gladly, I didn’t order the various hardware and software components for nothing. I can now watch digital (HD) television, movies and listen to music on the Mac mini using a single remote.

These are the ingredients I used:

Hardware:

Software:

The Mac and FireDTV+AlphaCrypt were all delivered quickly. Unfortunately it took quite a while before the Ziggo smart-card ended up in my mailbox, so I had to wait a couple of tantalizing days before I could actually start setting-up the whole thing. Also, I didn’t realize that the new Mini has a firewire 800 port, so I couldn’t connect the FireDTV to it with the supplied firewire 400 cable. A quick bicycle trip to the nearest electronics shop solved that problem though.

FireDTV from Digital EverywhereCombining the FireDTV with the AlphaCrypt Classic CAM and Ziggo smart-card works great.

My only worry was the Ziggo smart-card / AlphaCrypt CAM combo. As I explained in part 1, the CAM module uses the smart-card to decode the encrypted digital TV signal. However, there’s no guarantee that my cable company supports my setup, I had to rely on the info I gathered from a couple of forums. Luckily, inserting the CAM + card into the FireDTV resulted – after a couple of “initializing CAM blah” messages – in perfect picture quality on the Mac.

For watching TV, I use EyeTV 3 from Elgato. EyeTV comes with support for tvtv.com EPG data and it also supports pausing live TV (by streaming it to Mac mini the hard-drive) and scheduled TV recording.

Plex Media Server

Besides EyeTV, I also installed Plex. Plex is a free application for Mac that basically turns it into a media-center. It also includes support for your existing iTunes and iPhoto libraries as well. However, the most interesting part of Plex is definitely the App Store. There are dozens of plugin available in the store that enable access to all kinds of online sources such as Southpark, Youtube, MTV etcetera. What’s even cooler, the Plex developers are currently working on integrating EyeTV into the Plex interface.

On a final note, as the Mac is placed somewhere out of sight, I needed a remote that works on radio-frequency instead of infrared. I opted for the Keyspan Frontrow RF Remote in combination with Remote Buddy software to program the Keyspan’s buttons.

Kudos to coworker Arjen.

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12 Responses

  1. Mac OS Tutorials - MacProNews.com says:
    Wednesday 15 April 2009 at 22:11

    [...] Comments About The AuthorMartijn de Visser focuses on User Experience Design at Lost Boys in Amsterdam. There he works on media-rich online campaigns, Rich Internet Applications and desktop tools for clients such as KLM, Heineken, Nuon, Volkswagen and Hi. He maintains a blog at http://www.martijndevisser.com and works on various projects such as FLV Player and Screenweaver Open Source. [...]
  2. Martijn says:
    Wednesday 29 April 2009 at 22:33

    Hi Martijn,

    Thanks for sharing this knowledge: exactly what I was looking for. As I have no Mac hardware at all, some questions before I will follow in your footsteps:

    If you stream video/music from an external disk via normal UTP: did you encounter any stuttering problems?

    The quality of the video: how is it?(Big LCD screens tend to show too much ;) )

    Does the Mac player play VOB-Files and can it directly “grab” img?

    I am in Ziggo territory too and I have a subscription to extra channels, does your solution work on these too?

    I am looking forward to your experience now you have been using it for a month or so.

    Kind Regards,
    Martijn
  3. martijndevisser com Blog Archive Digital TV on Mac Mini part 2 | Wood TV Stand says:
    Monday 1 June 2009 at 00:05

    [...] martijndevisser com Blog Archive Digital TV on Mac Mini part 2 Posted by root 1 hour 42 minutes ago (http://www.martijndevisser.com) Monday 30 march 2009 filed under various 1 comment mac mini mac mini apple 23 cinema hd display firedtv for digital tv reception alphacrypt cam powered by wordpress 2 7 1 design based on the miniml theme Discuss  |  Bury |  News | martijndevisser com Blog Archive Digital TV on Mac Mini part 2 [...]
  4. Isamu says:
    Monday 15 June 2009 at 12:34

    Hello Martijn,

    How is the picture quality? Could you post some pictures? I have all the ingredients for this setup except for the FireDTV & AlphaCrypt CAM. I currently use Elgato’s EyeTV Hybrid to watch TV on my Mac but the picture quality is quite poor. I’m watching Ziggo HD using the Humax IRHD-5000 on my LCD-TV where the picture quality is superb. Is the quality throught FireDTV anything like that or at least nearly as well?
  5. Martijn says:
    Saturday 20 June 2009 at 12:57

    @Isamu – the picture quality is great. After all, it is digital TV, it’s just that I’m watching it on a different device (Apple Cinema display instead of a TV).

    I also receive a couple of HD channels (Discovery HD and History HD are among them). The quality of those channels is superb. Pausing the tv stream is like watching at a photograph.
  6. Rune says:
    Tuesday 21 July 2009 at 11:06

    Hello Martijn

    Im working on a project much like yours, except i’ll be using an Irdeto CAM, to go with my carrier – Stofa (Denmark).

    As i was about to order the FireDTV, the friendly guys from Digital Everywhere told me that there could be some problems with EyeTV3 and FireDTV.

    This link explains it:
    http://forum.digital-everywhere.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=136

    Have you noticed anything like this, or does everything work great?

    /Rune
  7. Martijn says:
    Wednesday 5 August 2009 at 19:30

    Hello Rune – I have not experienced any incompatibility problems at all, the FireDTV + EyeTV3 combo works great for me.

    Best of luck, Martijn.
  8. Rune says:
    Friday 7 August 2009 at 15:30

    Got all the parts home now and it works perfectly!

    Thanks for the inspiration.

    /Rune
  9. JoepFH says:
    Tuesday 11 August 2009 at 15:29

    Hi Martijn,

    thank you for sharing this. This convinces me to set up this configuration as well. Just one question: hwo much does this approx. cost?

    JoepFH
  10. Frans says:
    Monday 17 August 2009 at 15:15

    Hi Martijn,

    I have the EyeTV solution running for about 2 years now. Initially issues, was due to what turned out to be a defect Alphacrypt, it lost keys. Took a year to be solved as I did not have parts to try. Also started with EyeTV 2, now 3 is much better, especially like the Smart Guides!
    I am running the Elgato EyeTV 610 for DVB-C, according to websites almost identical to the FloppyDTV (only much more expen$ive…). Also running Ziggo in Utrecht.
    Moved from an 1.64MHz CoreDuo with Tiger to a new Mac Mini 2.24MHz Mini with Leopard to play HD, which works like a charm.

    I have periodically problems with tvtv, where channel info is missing. SmartGuide misses recordings, and there seems to be no manual recording or programming if the EPG does not contain the info.
    Also now EyeTV seems to lock up once in a while, leaving ‘Encrypted’. Stop and start of EyeTV software solves the issue. Any such experiences?
  11. Sky Bundles says:
    Monday 5 October 2009 at 23:57

    Thanks for a very interesting article – as a Mac fan and a digital TV writer I’ll be trying some experiments of my own now (thanks to this). Not sure I have quite your level of knowledge though…
  12. Jammyman says:
    Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 17:29

    I just bought new mac mini and FireDTV and I must say I was surprised how smooth installation was and how great they seem to be working right now, digital output and hdmi cable to my AV amplifier (finally to Mitsubishi HC6500) and that’s it.

    Installation of this setup took something like 3h, with windows it takes few days to get things happening usually so I were pleased. 1080 HD movies playing smoothly so what more can you wish for, WOW seems to be playing well too so that’s a bonus ;)

    I don’t have remote buddy, so I cant comment that. I have some problems with plex and network disks and getting them to sync right and automatically get movie covers from net but they probably work well if you use local disk.

    Perfect solution for my living room, and what is most important to me, quiet!!! Thanx for great article.

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