EyeTV Netstream DTT: A first look

With my parents moving into the house there have been some rethinks around how my media is distributed around the house (something I've talked about at length here over and over and over again).

The biggest thing was trying to get commercial TV everywhere (not that I really watch that much) with only one antenna point in our master bedroom. With so many iDevices and two AppleTVs in the house the logical solution looked like the EyeTV Netstream DTT.

In reality is hasn't been so perfect though. The setup was quite easy although it failed to work on my G5 iMac (not a show stopper I know but a little annoying) and the installer disk didn't actually work with the Netstream, you had to download a different EyeTV app from the web. Once those hurdles were done though it wasn't all smooth sailing.

I've had nothing but reception issues with the unit. First off I must say that my current Panasonic plasma is running on a $5 set of bunnies ears without a hiccup. The Netstream by contrast can't seem to get more than about 29% even plugged into an external antenna.

One thing that has helped was moving it a long way from my time-capsule with which it doesn't seem to have a good working relationship.

To be fair when I can get enough reception to get a picture it works brilliantly streaming wonderfully to my iPhone/iPad and laptops. I can even airplay it to the AppleTV and the ability to convert to iTunes is very handy. With that said though, with so many receptions issues I'd have some serious second thoughts about adding this as a DVR solution.