My experiences with the Elgato EyeTV Netstream 4Sat

Guest review by Ian Webster (@krakli)

For some years my previous arrangement for distributing satellite across various devices in my home was a PC (located in the loft) fitted with a total of 4 satellite cards. 2 of these were Hauppauge S2 units, the other 2 sources being provided by a Pinnacle dual card offering standard definition feeds only. The signal for these is provided by 4 feeds from an octo LNB.

The excellent DVB Logic software was used, which as some will know combines the signals from the various feeds and allows for streaming on a number of different devices, DNLA clients, iPads, android tablets 7 phones etc. This had always worked well, the only hiccups being hardware related. PC updates, power outages and the PC failing to re-boot successfully causing scheduled recordings to be missed. I deal with computers as part of my day job and so am used to finding them valuable and frustrating in equal measures.

However, recently the PC failed completely, refusing to start up at all. Normally I would spend hours rebuilding and re-installing but this time I had seen the Elgato EyeTV netstream 4Sat advertised and wondered if it offered a better solution.

On the surface it seemed to offer a perfect fit. It consists of a 25 x 12.6 x 4.1 cm box with the bare minimum of controls and interfaces. 2 leds on the front panel, round the back there are 4 LNB sockets, a Cat5 ethernet socket, 2 USB ports (only used for maintenance purposes.. not sure why it needs two?) and a power socket and switch for the supplied wall-wart.

Having connected the 4 LNB feeds and the Cat5 lead I powered the unit up and waited a few seconds for the ready LED to light. You have a number of options for the next part of the setup. PC and Mac software is provided with the device, or you can download the software for iOS or Android and continue from there.

In my case my Dish is pointing to Astra 28.2 so I merely had to select that, in the software, as the preferred source and away we went!

I installed the Eye TV software on the Mac-Mini that I have connected to my TV, initially, and was immediately surprised at the quality of the Video. The Netstream device has hardware encoding on board and it shows with pin-sharp HD content. I next tried the iOS app on my iPad and this equally impressed, albeit HD was a bit more hit or miss with my WiFi not being the best. The netstream unit does limit you to 4 concurrent clients being connected at once which may seem a little frustrating for some users.

In my experience setting up the guide features was a little more tricky and I did have to resort to other’s experiences via the internet to help me out. However on balance it was no more troublesome than DVBlogic’s setup and certainly less time-consuming.

As previously mentioned the unit comes complete with install discs for Eye TV for the Mac and PC users are catered for with terratec Home Studio. In both cases these packages allow for timeshifting of Live Video as well as scheduled recordings onto the Mac or PCs local storage.

The Netstream adheres to the SatIP standard and to that end there are a number of other clients available that are compatible with that standard. The following are listed on the SatIP website.

• DVB Viewer Lite for Windows
• Panasonic TVs with integrated SAT>IP
• Inverto Volksbox
• WatchTVPro for Windows
• HD+ Android App
• HD+ iOS App
• DVB Viewer Pro for Windows
• Telestar Digibit B1
• Schwaiger DSR41 IP
• Schwaiger DSR51 IP HDMI Stick
• GMI SAT>IP STB 9510
• Kathrein UFS 924
• Inverto Airscreen Client
• Kathrein UFS 906
• Vestel STB
• DVB Logic/Link
• Televes IP LAN-Receiver
• MegaSat SAT>IP Receiver
• Telestar TD 2520 HD
• Telestar TD 2510 HD

I have downloaded a couple of these but none of the examples that I tried offered much to recommend them over the Elagato offerings.

So far I have been extremely pleased with my purchase. The list price is £250 but I was able to find it for £200 on Amazon and that compare favourably with PC hardware especially if you factor in the cost of the Satellite cards (which I suppose I can sell now). So far the unit’s performance has been rock solid and it offers the extra benefit that the recorded video is standard H.264 AAC audio.

If you have a working solution already or rely on Freeview tuners then the Netstream will not be for you, but for satellite users especially those with multiple LNB feeds or Unicable systems it offers a really solid solution.