Watching cable TV

can you watch cable TV on a mac g4????

Yes provided you have a firewire port and running Mac OS X Tiger.
You have around two choices,
A EyeTV 500 for a few limited "FreeHD" (non-DRMed) digital stations coming over your bare cable wire or rooftop antenna. (no HDCP DRM decryption or cable company descrambling, most of the "good stuff") If the cable box outputs a "clean" ClearQAM signal, then the EyeTV 500 will display it on your Mac.
A EyeTV 200 for analog cable stations (most popular currently, but slowly switching over to digital stations by 2008 sometime in U.S.)
Both are external devices, Firewire 400 and take coax cable inputs.
If you have a cable box with Firewire ports, you can hook up a 6 pin F 400 cable and by using special software, watch and record TV on the Mac.
I haven't tried it yet, but plan on doing so, here's something to get you started.
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2349&p=3
You can use a ATI Remote (programmable) to control the screen from afar which is better than Front Row by a mile.
It's a bit of a chore to learn all what's going on with it all, so you'll have some work cut out for you.

Similar Messages

What is the best solution to watch cable TV wirelessly on my MacBook Pro?

Hi all. I know this isn't a direct AppleTV question but I thought I may find a solution in this forum.
I just purchased a MacBook Pro and I want to watch cable TV wirelessly. I have an old Formac Studio TVR thats held up pretty well over the years which I have hooked up via FireWire to my PowerMac.
I have...
-Comcast Cable Box w/DVR
-Formac TVR
-Netgear WPN824 v2 Router (ethernet 10/100 only)
-MacBook Pro (core 2 duo 2.4ghz)
I'm open to purchasing new items but I want to hear what solution works best before doing so. I've seen some specs on Slingbox but I wonder if Apple has or is working on a solution.
thanks in advance.

I have the $149 Slingbox Solo. It connects directly to my Digital Cable box/DVR. You can watch it on a wired or wireless connection. Quality varies according to the speed of the connection. On a local network, the quality is actually excellent. You control the box by an on-screen remote control. As note by others, you can watch remotely from anywhere with an internet connection. It works very well with my Mac as well as various laptops (MacBook pro and a Sony Viao). I also have an Elgato and a Miglia tuner - neither of which can do anything wirelessly. The Slingbox does take control of the cable box. Overall, I am very impressed with the Slingbox and would highly recommend it.

Watching cable on my imac

How can we legally watch cable on our Mac? Our subdivision includes free cable w/ our rent. However, we've never used it. We only have computers, & no tvs. We want to watch the olympics, & be able to see the commentaries, athlete highlights, etc, not just watch generic live streaming, which will be at inconvienent times. We would need the local channels. Our cable company says we can only watch cable via an actual tv monitor. Surely this isn't truly the case, is it?
It looks like MacTV pro is a scam.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

No sure wht you mean by the 2nd to last sentence but I suspect you are misguided.
At any rate look at www.Elgato.com

Can I watch Cable TV on my MacBook?

So I have a MacBook (Snow Leaopard) and I have cable TV, but I don't have a TV. I wanted to know if there was anyway I could plug my laptop to the cable so that I can watch cable TV on my laptop.

...I know it only works with Windows, so I could just use it on my Windows partition, right?
You could, but do you really want to have to leave OSX every time you want to watch TV?
If you do decide to use a Windows tuner, make sure your Boot Camp partition has a lot of free hard drive space. TV tuners work by taking the video stream and saving it to a temporary file, and displaying the contents of the file in real time. (This is how they're able to pause live TV.) But that means that you need a lot of scratch space on the hard drive. And Windows really doesn't like not having free space. I'd recommend always having 10GB or more of free space when watching TV. I've done it on less, but Windows tended to freeze.

How do I use my macbook to watch cable tv?

Does anyone know the best way to hook my macbook up directly to a standard cable jack to watch tv?
Thanks!
Colette

I prefer the eyetv products.
http://www.elgato.com/
You cannot hook directly to a cable tv jack without an interface such as one of these.
Mort

Watch cable tv through Horizon II 27"

I have a Lenovo Horizon II 27". How do I switch back and forth between the computer functionality and watching tv without pulling the hdmi plug in and out? I want to watch tv in a window on the device when the computer is running.

Through a roundabout method I have achieved what appears to be your ultimate goal of watching HD TV on an iMac. I purchased an El Gato EyeTV 250 Plus HD capable TV tuner (current model). I then ALSO obtained an additional HD TV cable tuner box from my cable provider Comcast. I hooked my incoming house Comcast coax cable into the back of the Comcast HD TV cable box, ran another short coax cable from the output of the Comcast cable box to the input of the El Gato EyeTV tuner, and I then ran the required USB 2.0 cable from the output of the El Gato TV tuner to a USB input on the iMac. (Whew!) You then need to set the El Gato TV tuner to cable channel "3", and use the Comcast HD tuner cable box Remote to control what HD channel you are watching. The TV audio is obtained from the usual iMac sound output that you use. It works Great! I have been watching my iMac TV shows for months now.
Giving credit where credit is due, it was the Comcast Cable TV technical support people on the phone who originally walked me thru the thinking of how to watch HD TV shows from Comcast on my iMac.

Watching cable tv on the macbook

I see plenty of forums about connecting the macbook to your tv, but I'd like to use the macbook AS a tv. My buddy, who is a PC guy, has his cable (tv connection) plugged into his pc and can watch the cable channels on his monitor. The instructions I found online for how to hook this up mentioned that it doesn't work for a mac. Is this true? Is there a way to watch the cable channels on my macbook? I don't have a tv, and it seems some adapter to get the channels on my computer would be cheaper than buying one.

What might be of interest if don't want to be limited to free TV:
http://www.terratec.net/en/products/TerraTecH791101.html?premium=1
I'm using this Terratec H7 myself including payTV Channels. It's capable of HDTV reception, but this requires the additional purchase of ElGato EyeTV 3 full version; the included EyeTV Lite is only capable of SDTV.

Watching cable tv on iMac

Am trying to figure out the best way to watch TV on my iMac using my Comcast cable service. I've tried the ElgatoHD but it only allows me to view non-encrypted channels (that would otherwise be available over the airwaves) but I would like to be able to watch the encrypted Comcast channels that I am currently paying for such as ESPN, CNN, Bravo, etc.

SlingBox would work, from what I've read. It essentially takes over your cable box; the cable box does all the channel selection and decoding, and the Slingbox just takes the video output and sends it across your network. If that suits your needs, a Slingbox might do the job. You may want a second cable box, though.
This might be of interest:
http://techtips.salon.com/connect-slingbox-comcast-21961.html
but also
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/10/17/buyer-be-cautious-with-the-new-slingbox- 500/
If all you want is output from your cable box, the Slingbox Solo might be sufficient, and is signficantly less expensive than the Slingbox 500. Sling has refurbished units going for $99.95 right now on their web site.
Regards.

No surround sound while watching cable TV

We have been trying to get our Coby 5.1 system to play surround sound while using our cable/dvr box. It works just fine when watching dvds, but we can't figure out what is wrong when connecting it to cable box. We connected an optical cable from our cable box to the dvd player...and still nothing. We have picture and sound from the projector, but no surround sound when watching TV...but we still have surround sound when watching dvds. Our projector does not have an HDMI cord, although it is an HD projector. Any help will be greatly appreciated! We have tried everything we can possibly think of! Thanks!

Check the settings on your cable box to see if it can put out a signal that is compatible with your audio system and select the appropriate output that works for your setup. Look for a selection that says Dolby Digital.

Is there a service that I can subscribe to, to watch cable or satellite on my Apple Tv?

I live in China and want to watch my good ol American Tv. Is there a way or a service I can subscribe to?

Not natively. There are apps available for those who already subscribe to a cable service that can then be airplayed (when applicable) via ATV.
You could try searching for apps from American Networks (i.e. ABC) but they are likely not available in your iTunes store.

Watch cable television tv on my laptop

Hi all,
My tv's being repaired and i just want to hook my laptop up to my cable box so i can watch in the meantime. Does anyone know how to do this? I was looking at Slingbox, but I feel like I don't need anything so fancy, I should be able just to do this with a cord of some sort! Can anyone help me? I have a MacBook Pro and a Time Warner Cable Digital Cable DVR box (not HD). Many thanks!

Do you have a miniDV camcorder. Most can be used to convert S-Video from a cable box to FireWire, which can be viewed with iMovie or Vidi
<http://www.mitzpettel.com/software/vidi.php>
If your cable box has a FireWire port, try iRecord
<http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/>
I don't know if it can display directly, so you may have to record a program before you can watch it.
If iRecord won't work with your cable box, you will need a video input device, such as EyeTV 250 Plus
<http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/250plus/product1.en.html>

Watching Cable TV on my iMac

I have a 27" iMac and a cable service with cox cable. I want to connect my box (HD DVR) to my iMac and use it to display TV. How do I do this?

Look into the ElGato product line;
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products.en.html

HT3180 I just upgraded a new version of Apple tv yesterday, Nov. 17, 2013, and now I can't go back to just watching my regular cable tv. It was fine before yesterday. What do I do??

Apple TV was working fine and I could easily switch back and forth to watch my regular cable tv. Yesterday a box appeared on the screen asking me to upgrade Apple TV. Since I did that I cannot switch out of 'HDMI' back to 'TV' and watch cable tv. It says 'Channel not available (no signal).
What happened and how do I fix it?

Thanks again for your help. I ended up calling my local cable provider who simply told me to make sure the channel was on 03. Then I could once again switch back and forth from Apple TV to the cable channels.
I never had to use channel 03 before when I changed the source and since then I haven't needed to make sure it was on channel 03. It works just like before from any station.
Maybe it was just for the first time after I had upgraded. Who knows?? It's fine now.Thanks again for your input.

1st generation vs. 3rd generation Ipad and Cable TV Viewing app.

I recently had the opportunity to borrow a 3rd generation ipad from work. I brought it home and loaded the optimum online app. from my cable company that allows you to watch cable anywhere you are within range of your home WIFI supplied by them.
I was really surprised when I was able to take the ipad out back to the furthest most point of our property, where a summer screen house is set up,
and although the signal from my Netgear WNR834B v2 router was hovering around 1 or 2 signal strength on the iPad3, the quality of the TV signal being streamed did not waver at all. The picture was absolutely pristine (after a few seconds) and there were absolutely no drop outs of the streaming video. Again, THIS with absolute minimum signal strength.
I had to return the device to work, but picked up a used 1st generation iPad on ebay, and loaded the same optimum online app. onto it. On the 1st generation device, the signal was both visually fuzzier (at that furthest point in the backyard) and had freezes and breaks in the streaming video at that same furthest point outside at the edge of the property. It works great inside near the router or in most points in the house and is pristine.
My first question...did they updgrade some technology between the 1st and 3rd generation iPads that would account for the difference in the way the weak signal drops out on the 1st generartion device, but did not on the 3rd generation ipad? Or could that be the app itself somehow making use of the upgraded technology between the two generation of devices?
My second question....I'm trying to figure out how to boost and extend the WIFI signal to that furthest point in the backyard, which is several hundred feet away from the house. An Airport Extreme doesn't seem to provide that distance level of extention, unless I bought two, but that would require one of them being outside to cover the distance I'm trying to get to. I'm contemplating purchasing an Amped Wireless Repeater and range Extender that advertises 10,000 square feet extention, but the reviews on the device are mixed.
Any input would be appreciated.

The major difference between the two versions is that Generation 2 and higher products allow simultaneous dual band wireless operation.
Your Time Capsule will produce either a 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz network, but not both simultaneously. Since you have iPhones connecting to the network, you are using the 2.4 GHz band.
Most of your newer devices are capable of connecting at the much faster 5 GHz speeds, but if you set your current Time Capsule up to operate at 5 GHz, the iPhones and iPod will not be able to connect.
A newer version Time Capsule produces both a 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz signal simultaneously, so faster devices would connect to the 5 GHz band and slower devices connect to the 2.4 GHz band.
That being said, there is also something to be said for leaving well enough alone. Your call.

How can i diplay cable hdtv on my 23inch cinema display

i have a 23inch cinema display and have heard i can watch cable hdtv on it... any ideas on how to make this work? My cable box has a fire wire out put which my computer is recognizing... so where do i go from there?

What do you mean your computer is recognizing the output?
If your computer recognizes the output from the cable box on the FireWire port then an app that can display video from the FireWire port should work like QuickTime, BTV, Final Cut, etc.

Watching cable TV

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for