Usb-tuner support for macOS

[dennis]

Hi everybody,

I stumbled upon Nextpvr while searching for alternative software for my tuners. I own a tvbutler and an eyetv hybrid, and now i have to run both  TVMosaic and eyetv4 (beta) seperately. If i run both at the same time, i experience problems. I was hoping that running Nextpvr would solve those problems, and it would be just nice to have one software solution for both tuners.

After installing Nextpvr v5, I unfortunately found out the macOS version doesn’t support usb-tuners.  

Can we expect support for usb-tuners on macOS in the future?

Hope so, cause Nextpvr looks like amazing software!

Cheers!

[sub]

Unfortunately, unlike Windows and Linux, there is no drivers, or api available from Apple, for interacting with TV tuners on macOS, so there is no way for NextPVR to use these tuners.

What you tend to find is that the couple of tuners that are compatible with the mac only work with the software that came with the devices. This software is made by the manufacturer of the hardware, and is built around the proprietary knowledge they have of the device...ie, they're directly interacting with the USB interface, downloading firmware to the device, and sending whatever proprietary control messages are required to interact with the device. Unfortunately it's not practical for a 3rd party app to do that - we have no idea what firmware is required, how to send that firmware, and what the proprietary control messages are.

I know it's not what you want to hear, but realistically HDHomeRun, SAT>IP, and IPTV are the only options available on macOS. Sorry!

[dennis]

That’s too bad. Typical Apple though. Love macOS, but I hate how they close off everything.

Thanks for the information.

[dennis]

Hello Sub,

I'd like to have a final try on making my usb-tuners work on macos. I recently read about Docker, which is also available for macos. Would it be possible to install docker on macos, and then connect both tuners to it, and then run nextpvr for linux (and the linux drivers) inside docker? Maybe that way I can circumvent the whole proprietary-issue.

I'm willing to experiment a bit with it. Unless you can tell me upfront that this will never work. Then I'll just dump the tuners, and buy a network tuner instead.

Cheers!

[sub]

I'd like to have a final try on making my usb-tuners work on macos. I recently read about Docker, which is also available for macos. Would it be possible to install docker on macos, and then connect both tuners to it, and then run nextpvr for linux (and the linux drivers) inside docker? Maybe that way I can circumvent the whole proprietary-issue.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. With docker, the devices (with drivers already loaded) are passed in from the host. In this case the Mac wont have the device (or the drivers), so not possible to pass them in to Docker.

[dennis]

ok, too bad. thanks for the quick reply

[sundtek]

Well for what it's worth, our tuners (Sundtek USB) support the LinuxTV API on MacOSX.
SAT>IP local API is early beta.

[mvallevand]

Well for what it's worth, our tuners (Sundtek USB) support the LinuxTV API on MacOSX.
SAT>IP local API is early beta.

Does it also support v4l on macOS?  I am looking at the ATSC device and it'd like to try the analog support.

Martin

[sub]

Well for what it's worth, our tuners (Sundtek USB) support the LinuxTV API on MacOSX.
SAT>IP local API is early beta.

We already support SAT>IP natively on Mac.

[mvallevand]

We already support SAT>IP natively on Mac.

I think he's meaning a SAT>IP server running on  the Mac.

Martin