Mac products: MyTV, MyVideo and MyView Troubleshooting notes

For further Information, please visit Eskape Labs Support page.

I'm an iBook user. I'd like to know whether I could use MyTV or MyTV/fm with my iBook?

Yes it does work with an iBook. But since there is no "Sound In" port you need to hook your external speakers directly to the sound out port of the MyTV. Or purchase a USB Powered HUB and a Analog Audio to USB converter.

I've noticed that lip-sync is off if I run my monitor at a resolution higher than 640 x 480 and play MyTV in Full Screen mode.

Depending on the speed of your system and the graphics accelerator (built-in or 3rd party) you may notice lip-sync being off. This has to due with non-linear video scaling. The best way to insure accurate lip-sync is to play MyTV so the graphics accelerator isn't asked to perform non-linear interpolation. To do this, play MyTV at ½, Normal or Double resolution; and if playing Full Screen, by setting your desktop resolution to 640x480.

How do I set my system to get the best frame rate and lip-sync performance?

1. Turn Virtual memory off.
2. Turn File Sharing off.
3. Turn Apple Talk off.
4. Run in Thousands color mode.
5. Play TV in one of the preset window sizes (1/2, Normal or Double); or if playing Full Screen - set your desktop resolution to 640x48.
6. If your system has advance settings in the Energy Saver Control Panel, make sure "Allow process cycling" check box is NOT check.

Do any of the Eskape products work on a G4?

Yes. All of our products will work on G3 and G4 systems.

Will any of the Eskape Products work on an older system with a G3 or G4 processor upgrade card?

No. All of our products require your system to be a native Apple G3 or G4 system.

Do any of the Eskape products pass audio and video over the USB cable?

No, all of Eskape Labs USB devices currently pass only VIDEO over the USB cable. AUDIO is dealt with by connecting the audio output from the audio source, (DVD, VCR, etc.) to the audio-in port on MyTV-MyTV/fm and then connecting the audio-out of MyTV-MyTV/fm to your Macintosh audio-in ("Mic"" port. All cables for this audio installation are supplied with your MyTV or MyTV/fm purchase.

I hooked up a MyTV device, but I can't seem to hear any audio. Why?

MyTV and MyTV/fm DO NOT pass AUDIO over the USB cable, only video. AUDIO is dealt with by connecting the audio output from the audio source, (DVD, VCR, etc.) to the audio-in port on MyTV-MyTV/fm and then connecting the audio-out of MyTV-MyTV/fm to your Macintosh audio-in ("Mic"" port. All cables for this audio installation are supplied with your MyTV or MyTV/fm purchase.

Why would I need a PAL/SECAM version of MyTV?

You would need a PAL/SECAM MyTV if you live in a country that transmits in these broadcast standards. To find out if you need a PAL/SECAM unit, check out the TV Tuner Compatibility List at www.eskapelabs.com

Does the MyTV family of products support closed captioning or Teletext?

Not at this time, but we are in the process of adding these features to future products.

How many megabytes does 1 hour of video capture use?

MyTV and MyTV/fm use a highly efficient Motion JPEG compression algorithm. With MyTV or MyTV/fm one hour of captured video requires approximately 3GB of hard drive space. By way of example, the same hour of video captured from a DV video stream would require over 18GB of drive space.

I installed MyTV on my G4 running OS 9, why is lip-sync off?

Several things need to be disabled on a G4 system in order for lip-sync to be correct. Set your system thusly:

1. Turn Virtual memory off.
2. Turn File Sharing off.
3. Turn Apple Talk off.
4. Run in Thousands color mode.
5. If your system has advance settings in the Energy Saver Control Panel, make sure "Allow process cycling" check box is NOT check.

What are your plans for improving the EskapeTV application?

The EskapeTV application will have periodic updates that will add the following features: Automatic Channel Scanning, Timer Record Features, Tele-Text for Europe, and Closed Captioning for the US.

How many of your USB video products can I run on one computer at a time?

At this time only one USB video device can be run.

Why do I get a white video screen when I launch EskapeTV?

A white video screen usually means that there is an extension conflict. The most common conflict occurs when MyTV is being installed on a system that has had XLR8's Interview USB Capture solution previously installed. The Interview extensions must be removed before a valid install of MyTV-MyTV/fm can occur. To get rid of the Interview extensions, delete or remove the following files from the "Extensions" folder:
Nt1003.sys.interrex
Shell Interface Library
Shell Settings Panel
Shell Video Digitizer

Also, make sure the MyTV is plugged directly into the USB port on the MAC, not through a HUB.

You may want to disconnect the HUB altogether as a test.

Make sure no other USB devices are connected to the machine they maybe eating up the bandwidth available.

And close down any unnecessary applications running on the machine.

Also make sure you have the newest version of QuickTime installed on the machine.

And if all this fails it maybe the MyTV unit itself is defective and needs to be replaced.

Why is the Country selection grayed out and stuck on Antigua?

This can mean three different things:

1. The EskapeTV Preferences File is corrupt
2. There is an extension conflict.
3. You have a defective device.

To fix:
(Please make sure that EskapeTV is not running when performing the following tasks)

Uninstalling the Eskape Software

Open the System folder and delete any files beginning with Eskape.

Open the Preferences folder and delete any files beginning with Eskape.

You can also search for any files beginning with Eskape using the search option, and delete any files found.

Once all of the Eskape files have been deleted, you can then reload the software like a new installation.

Deleting the EskapeTV Preferences

1. Open your "System Folder"
2. Open the "Preferences" folder
3. Locate and delete the "Eskape Preferences" folder.
4. Launch EskapeTV.

Weeding out an extension conflict

1. Launch Extension Manager.
2. Pull down the "Selected Set" menu and select "Mac OS X.X Base.
3. Next scroll down and enable the following the extensions:
4. USB Video Driver
5. USB Video Driver Interface
6. USB Video Output Interface
7. This will ask you if you want to make a different set, click on the "Duplicate Set" button and name the set.
8. Then click on the "Restart" button.
9. Launch EskapeTV and check the Country selector.

If the Country selection is still grayed out after performing these two tasks, then please contact Tech Support for further assistance.

When watching EskapeTV, everything seems fine for about 30 seconds. Then video slows down and gets real choppy. My only solution is to keep moving the mouse in order to get real time video. What can I do to fix this?

Open the Energy Saver Control panel and select the Advanced option. Make sure "Allow CPU Cycling" is turned off.

If you can't access the Energy Saver Control panel, then launch the extension manager and make sure that it is enabled. Restart the system and then do the above steps.

EVEN IF the Energy saver control panel is disabled, turned off, and extensions are all deleted, the cpu cycling is turned on by OS automatically by default. So, you must go in, and enable the energy saver, and then turn off the "Allow CPU cycling" setting in there.

I hear a strange audio "hum" sound in the backround of the main audio when using the MyTV device

Engineering is currently looking for a solution to this problem. It is recommended to also check to be sure that the audio cables are all connected correctly, and firmly, and be sure that no cables are overlapping each other.

I hear Phantom noise/static spontaneously coming through the unit even when the viewer software is not running with MyTV

This is caused by the system throwing out interference, the tuner picking the interference back up. And then sending it over to the speakers. To get rid of this completely, plug the audio from the box directly into your speakers.

I hear One blip of the same kind of noise when the USB devices are being mounted at start-up

Same as above. This is caused by the system throwing out interference, the tuner picking the interference back up. And then sending it over to the speakers. To get rid of this completely, plug the audio from the box directly into your speakers.

When using MyTV, the image freezes, and may result in random lines, and static audio

This usually happens when the signal is too weak, or there is a lot of interference coming from some other device. Try moving the cables around, and make sure they aren't crossing any power cords. Also try another device, such as a VCR. If it does it on this, then maybe you have a defective unit.

Occasional lock-ups during computer start-up before any extensions are loaded?

This can be anything from an extension conflict to the system just crashing. Try booting up with the base extensions on, and only our extensions enabled and see if it still happens.

MyTV freezes when I initialize the Video Source

The presence of other Video digitizers on the system will cause this. Simply disconnecting the other devices , and removing the associated extensions should correct this.

MyTV will not tune in any channels?

Open the MyTV and go to edit, preferences, make sure the proper country is selected. Then go to control, manual tunning, select the video source, "Antenna or cable", and the format NTSC (U.S.), etc.. Place a channel number and then click on "GO". Also try going to the control, channel presets, and click on antenna or cable to scan for channels. If the screen continues to be blue then there is a signal problem. Check the cable that is being used on another video source.

MyTV will not display an image when a VCR is connected to the video.

Go to Control, select video, choose NTSC, then click on GO. If the image is still blue this could indicate a signal problem, make sure that the proper source is selected, Svideo or video. Also go to edit, preferences, make sure that the proper country is selected.

MyTV will capture and display as a quicktime file, but the file is not recognized.

Go to control, video settings, and make sure that "Motion JPEG" is selected for the compressor. Also update to the latest version of quicktime.

I get slow mouse movement when mirroring when using MyView

Try turning off CPU cycling. It is also recommended to update Quicktime. The mouse still may not be as smooth as in the mirroring, as it is on the system. This is due simply to the poor bandwidth of the USB port. MyView only runs between 5-20fps, depending on the speed of the system. This is all also relevant to the image quality as well.

When mirroring image to a TV set with MyView, and playing live video on imac, the image will be frozen on the TV set

It is recommended to update to the latest version of Quicktime. Also, be sure that no other programs are running at the same time.

Why are the sharpness, black lev, white lev controls not selectable/greyed out in the MyTV software?

These are not selectable by the hardware, and are present because of the standard QuickTime dialogue box.

Why doesn't the software remember the video and sound settings made after exiting?

The current application does not save the levels. This should be addressed in a future software update.

Can I use Appleworks or iMovie with MyView, MyTV, or MyVideo?

No, this currently will not work.

If you use something like Quicktime Pro, you can convert the file to the DV (digital video) format that iMovie uses, and import the file to iMovie this way.

How do I get audio to work with one of your products if I am using a G4 Cube or other Mac system that lacks an analog audio input?

Apple has been releasing systems lately that lack analog audio inputs. So far the systems without analog audio are:

• iBook Cube Titanium
• PowerBook
• New iBook

*We expect all future systems to follow this digital audio strategy.

Solution for audio is to connect separate powered speakers, or headphones directly to the MyTV unit to hear the sound.

Users can otherwise use the iMic by Griffin, if they also wish to capture audio during video capture as well . Apple has recently addressed an ongoing issue with Griffin that prevented the on-screen display of our video when USB audio was selected as the audio source. Apple's fix is included in QuickTime 5.0 available for download from Apple's web site: www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Griffin has also released the iMic Control Panel: www.griffintechnology.com/audio/imic_control.html

The iMic Control Panel allows the user to select between either mode.

Will any of the Eskape products work on Mac OS X ?

The MyTV/X Drivers work with the following products: MyTV & MyTV/fm - All NTSC, PAL and SECAM units MyTV2GO & MyTV2GO/fm All NTSC PAL and SECAM units MyCapture II MyVideo (Video Capture and Viewing only - no video out) Note: OS X drivers do not work with MyVIEW and do not provide "video out" support on MyVideo.

MyTV Fails after installation of Quicktime 6

This is a known issue within QT6 and it is currently being looked into. You can restore QT5 on the system with the download provided by Apple. 

Click HERE for OS 9 instructions.
Click HERE for OS X instructions.

There are also instructions on how to revert back to Quicktime 5 on Apple's web site.

Can I use any of the Eskape products with the Mac Performa Line?

No, the Eskape products work only with Imac, G3, G4, and Ibook.

I'm having problems using MyTV or another Eskape productThrough a USB Hub?

If the MyTV is not working, and it is connected through a USB hub, disconnect the hub, and plug the MyTV directly into the USB port on the Mac. Reload the software for the MyTV and get it configured and working. It is not recommended to connect any of the Eskape products through a USB hub. Connecting directly to the USB port on the Mac is required.

Reloading or Updating the OS on the Mac

When reloading the OS or updating the OS, be sure to first disconnect the Eskape product from the USB port, and reconnect it once the OS has been installed.