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Television Media Software Entertainment

Latest SnapStream PVR App Reviewed 208

Posted by timothy from the requires-windows-though dept.
martensitic writes "Yahoo! posted this positive AP review of the newest version of a third-party PC app designed to compete with TiVo and Microsoft's Media Center. SnapStream 's 'Beyond TV 3' (sounds like something Fox would produce) allows streaming to standard web browsers for watching on other computers in your home, and promotes automatic commercial break recognition that has been downplayed in other products. (Previously mentioned here.)"
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Latest SnapStream PVR App Reviewed More

Latest SnapStream PVR App Reviewed

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  • two questions. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by k_head ( 754277 )
    If anybody has one of these I have two questions.

    1) Does your PC have to be in the same room as your TV.
    2) Does your PC have to have somebody logged in? In other words can it run as a service under W2K.

    Thanks is advance.

    • Re:two questions. (Score:5, Informative)

      by pineapples10 ( 685792 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:46AM (#8489576)
      1. As long as the PC was a cable connection coming into it, it can record, it requires no TV. If you wanted to, you could put the PC, lets say in the basement, and run cables for video, and one for the IR remote (most IR remotes use common 1/8th audio jacks, so you could get an extension cord rather easily).

      2. BTV3 CAN be run as a service. It can also be run in a window, or fullscreen, and can be configured to open on startup as such.

      • Re:two questions. (Score:3, Informative)

        by Cylix ( 55374 ) *
        In addition, files that have been compressed into divx or some other supported compression screen can be viewed from any pc via a web interface. Yes, you could share the folders out.

        The divx compression is nice, as you can /cron/ recorded files to be automatically compressed over night. There are many options for quality of encode as well.

        I've been using snapstream trial for a few weeks now. If I manage to get my ide transfer rates up on this godforsaken nforce board I can start working with mythtv.

        So, y
      • Do you know what the range on the IR is? I need it to go far so I am figuring I might need to make my own cable.
    • From the article: The software streams to Web browsers, so you don't have to buy another copy for remote viewing. It's fairly simple to enable security so strangers don't have access to your television signal or recordings.

      IMHO, this appears to not be for TV sets. It requires a PC for recording, and a PC for viewing. As shareware, it has a 45-day trial, so if you are someone with a capture card and Win, you can see for yourself..Exciting indeed.

      OMG!!!1! I karma-whored by RTFA!

    • Re:two questions. (Score:4, Informative)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:30AM (#8489691) Homepage Journal
      Thought I should chime in, here. I used to use Snapstream for capturing shows I wanted to watch. Eventually I replaced it with a Replay. No regrets really, but it was a different animal.

      "1) Does your PC have to be in the same room as your TV."

      Only if you want to watch on the TV. Watching on the computer was fine for me, though. I went on several business trips, each time I had a bunch of shows queued up ready to watch.

      "2) Does your PC have to have somebody logged in? In other words can it run as a service under W2K."

      Actually I don't remember. I think it does run as a service, but I wouldn't swear on my soul over it. I had a dedicated machine for it. It's not something you want running while you have a game or something playing. (Maybe if I had a dual proc machine for it...)

      Frankly, I think there is room for both a TiVo and a Snapstream (or similar) system. The TiVo is great for catching those shows you definitely want to watch within a few days of capturing it. The Snapstream system, though, was much better for archival of shows. I don't expect many would find that all that interesting, but boy I sure did. When I first got the itch to try it, I found out that Quantum Leap was on at 4pm. DOH! I'm at the office at 4! A couple of weeks after I found that out, I noticed that the reruns would be starting over again from season 1. SWEET. So I set up the machine to record at a respectable data rate, then just let it record. When time permitted, I started watching the episodes in order from the beginning. Could I do that with the Replay? Eh maybe. The thing is, though, I don't have a whole heck of a lot of control over how small the files end up being. With the Snapstream, though, I had it doing roughly 300kbits a second at 320 by 240. A little blocky? Sure. A little blurry? Sure. Worse than VHS? Yeah somewhat. You'd be surprised how quick you get used to it, though, especially when the story's so engaging. I could fit approximately four eps per CD. I had a large hard drive so that wasn't an issue. Before long, I had something like 12 gigs of ALMOST every single episode of Quantum Leap. (Got a hell of a lot of MST3K and Enterprise for a while, too..)

      The machine was Win2k. Make all the jokes you like about the stability of Windows, but that thing stayed up an average of 3 months, capturing video all the time. Eventually, though, the sound-driver gave up, and I'd have to reboot the machine. Oh well. Linux it is not, but it was more than acceptable, and I had to do very little fiddling to make everything work.

      I wish I still had it today. Unfortunately, I just haven't had time to tinker with it. It'll probably be resurrected before too long, though. I'm finding more and more shows I'd like to watch.

      Sorry for rambling here. Just brought up some fond memories here. I hope I can figure out how to get a PC talking to the Digital Cable box so I can enjoy the broader content.
    • 1) Does your PC have to be in the same room as your TV.

      I have the PVR in my office. TV out into a modulator into house antenna wiring allows the PVR to show up as a TV channel on any other tv in the house. Most modulators are around $20 or so at best buy or radio shack. Mine were a bit more, as I wanted to dictate more than channel 3 or 4 as the output.

      2) Does your PC have to have somebody logged in? In other words can it run as a service under W2K.

      In short, yes.
      http://www.snapstream.com/Community/

  • ATi (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How is this software different from the ware in ATi all in wonder stuff?

    How does this compete with Tivo, I mean it's just software. The hardware still needs to be supplied.

    • Re:ATi (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's pretty similar to All In Wonder's EAZYLOOK stuff. It has a few more home user type features like commercial skipping, but I found it a bit harder to configure in different ways. ATI's software also lets you use things like MultiView.

    • Re:ATi (Score:2, Informative)

      by Asterisk ( 16357 )
      ATI's software is only compatible with ATI hardware -- You can't use the Media Center and Eazylook without an All-in-Wonder or a TV wonder card.

      And the AIW doesn't have hardware MPEG encoding. I presume you could use SnapStream with an All-in-Wonder card, but the hardware requirements for the PC would be much higher since it'd be using software encoding.

      If if I were going to set up an HTPC with SnapStream, I'd probably get a Hauppauge PVR card for video capture and get a cheap 8MB AGP card for VGA.

  • .net? fuck that (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by way2trivial ( 601132 )
    Sorry, went to download the demo- and it started putting .net on my computer.. I'll pass for now.

    • Re:.net? fuck that (Score:5, Informative)

      by normal_guy ( 676813 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:53AM (#8489598)
      Do you know what .net is? Why are you afraid of it? It's part of WindowsUpdate, perhaps you'd feel more comfortable getting the framework from that site. Think of it as the newer VB runtimes.

      • Re:.net? fuck that (Score:3, Informative)

        by pla ( 258480 )
        Think of it as the newer VB runtimes.

        Mod parent up. Seriously.

        People seem to have all these spooked-out misconceptions about .Net, most of which have no basis in reality.

        As the parent (basically) said, you can consider it just a new API for windows, comparable to the VB runtimes or, more accurately, an extention to the idea of "Win32", which includes (as the name would suggest, thought not entirely based on) quite a lot more inbuilt support for network-oriented tasks.
        • Makes me wonder if people realize you can get Microsoft's command line C# compiler and all the associated headers and libraries for free(beer, not speech). All you have to do is download the .NET Framework SDK and Platform SDK from http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/. Comes with lots of documentation too.
        • I had the same gut reaction to .net. Didn't need it for anything else, so why should I be forced to install it now. I'm sure they could do it some other way, but whatever their reasoning... it is what they used.

          I'm old at heart and I just got used to VB ;)

          The feeling wears off after a few days. Don't worry, it will pass.

          Pretty soon, you will crave .net... you needs it... you wants the precious.

      • Re:.net? fuck that (Score:5, Funny)

        by Joe Tie. ( 567096 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:15AM (#8489652)
        Think of it as the newer VB runtimes

        I thought you were trying to make him less scared :)
      • something about a 22MB download vs a meg or so for VB6 runtimes worries me....
        • I honestly don't see what the hell people are complaining about.

          From the end-user's perspective there really isn't all that much of a different between the .Net Framework and the Java Runtime Environment. (Note that I said from the user's perspective so don't go flaming me with tech-centric comments, I know what the differences are!!).

          The .Net Framework is 22Mb.
          Sun's JRE clocks in at 15Mb.

          The JRE is bundled with most PCs in some form or another, or it's required for alot things normal users do (ie Applet
          • it's more like :
            "This 200kb program requires .NET to run"
            OK, no problem, I'll go get .NET
            ".NET framework download is 22MB and will take approximately Umpteen Bumtillion minutes on a 28.8k modem to download"
            Hmmm... 1 hour.... just to run program X to try out on a whim... 1 hour... nah.

            I know, it's one off, but still the one-off stops a lot of non-broadband people in their tracks. And there's more poor modem saps out there than you think.

            Even I go, "Hmmm. 5 minutes at 50K/s, to run program X .... nah."

    • Re:.net? fuck that (Score:5, Funny)

      by PacoTaco ( 577292 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:02AM (#8489624)
      I found this cool program the other day, but it needed the C standard library... I'll pass for now.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "Sorry, went to download the demo- and it started putting .net on my computer.. I'll pass for now. "

      Yeah! Billy's getting his tentacles everywhere! Well not HERE!!

      There, that should recover some of my karma lost for that untimely Mac joke I made earlier.

  • Beyond TV (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acherrington ( 465776 ) <acherrington@nOspAm.gmail.com> on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:51AM (#8489592)
    First off, I think that this is a bad post, seems like another slashdot ad.

    Second, I have beyond tv 3 and have really enjoy it. I am never home and it records all my tv shows. That way, when I do have time to watch tv, I can skip the commercials (it dog ears the commercials so you can skip forward) and watch only what matters to you.

    Even when I am unable to get to my computer, I can break out my treo 600 and program to record any tv show.

    The only problem with it is the security model is a bit lax. You can always find people who have their setups wide open (port 8129) on google thanks to the web interface. People really need to starrt locking that down.

    • Re:Beyond TV (Score:4, Funny)

      by Cylix ( 55374 ) * on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:12AM (#8489645) Homepage Journal
      Shhhhhh...

      I want to watch what everyone else is watching...

    • First off, I think that this is a bad post, seems like another slashdot ad.

      I know this is slightly oftopic, but folks really need to come to terms with what slashdot REALLY is. I know the tagline is "news for nerds. stuff that matters". But it's just a discussion site. It's a forum for people to discuss news, topics, and PRODUCTS which are of interest to nerds. And obviously, with the number of PVR stories on Slashdot and the number of meaningful posts they all get, people are interested. I read sl

  • Better yet, it saves shows in a standard format (Score:5, Informative)

    by deranged unix nut ( 20524 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:53AM (#8489597) Homepage
    I really enjoy my Beyond TV version 3 setup:
    WinPVR card, 200 GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and Beyond TV.

    It saves the shows in a standard file format, and I can use other software to convert to a more compressed format and archive to DVD. :)

    At one point, I had problems with it frequently crashing, but downloading the newest update solved that problem.

    I still use my TiVo, but I am slowly switching my TV viewing to the Beyond TV system.

    • Heh. (Score:2)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 )
      Pretty similar to my setup.

      WinTV-PVR 350, 200GB HD, DVD burner, but for software I'm running MythTV instead.

      I'm surprised Slashdot would mention Beyond TV without mentioning Myth, which is just as good (if not better) and runs under Linux.
      • I wouldn't say MythTV is better overall. There are some things MythTV excels at, and some things Beyond TV excels at.

        For example, MythTV is completely hamstrung by its dependance on XMLTV. There is simply no way to know if a show is a re-run or a first-run using XMLTV, which is a serious pain in the butt. BeyondTV wins here, as it licenses the Tribune TV data (the same data that TiVO uses, the same data that is used to create zap2it.com, but zap2it only displays about 1/3 of the available data.)

        BeyondTV h

  • Too bad it sucks (Score:3, Informative)

    by ninti ( 610358 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:53AM (#8489599)
    By some amazing coincedence, I tried it today before this story came up in an attempt to find a better alternative than the software that comes with ATI All-in-wonder cards. I deleted it soon after, it is slow and buggy and just doesn't work right. It is even worse than the piece of junk that comes with my ATI card, which I didn't think was possible. Reading the forums on their site makes it clear that unless you have a clean system you have no chance of really getting it working, and even then your odds are low and you are looking at a lot of work.

    It is a damn shame, but this is not the Tivo you are looking for.

    • Re:Too bad it sucks (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:05AM (#8489630)
      By some amazing coincedence I downloaded it earlier in the week. I got everything working alright, but I considered the quality of the video to be quite low.

      Then I started playing with the settings...

      Bottom line: Mikey likes it. I haven't played with everything yet, but on a very high setting grabbing a recent movie on HBO from my digital cable box the video quality is nearly as good as a DVD. Certainly much better than sending the S-Video directly into my monitor (I have a high-end Mitsubishi).

      It's definately worth fiddling with if you want a high-quality feed. It was not and is not pain free, but if you're willing to endure then I believe it will pay off for you.

      TW

    • Re:Too bad it sucks (Score:5, Informative)

      by pineapples10 ( 685792 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:11AM (#8489642)
      lots of people say that it "runs slow" or "sucks", but in my experience, its usually that people dont have adequate hardware. A lot of people use ATI's All In Wonder cards with this program. While they are great cards, they offer no kind of hardware encoding. thus, anytime you are recording a show, cpu usage skyrockets. Combine this with the fact that people are often VIEWING the show while it is being encoded, you can understand why the cpu gets bogged down and the recording "sucks". A hardware encoding card fixes most peoples problems. The Hauppauge PVR 250 is a common choice, and retails for about $125. It brings cpu usage (while recording) down to about 5% on my 1.2ghz machine.

  • Great idea, wish *I'd* thought of it... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:56AM (#8489608) Journal
    I have to give these guys credit, they have come up with a wonderful idea...

    I realize that stable PC-based PVR software has existed for a few years now. But nothing designed for your typical non-geek Windows user. Snapstream has managed to take the idea of "I already have a PC, why should I but a TiVo that basically contains a PC, rather than using what I have" to the mainstream masses.

    For anyone who says "just use Myth", you've totally missed the point. I agree, and personally would recommend any geeks use it. But for those who have only heard of Linux from IBM's ads, and who need their nephew to come over every time they accidently change their homepage... This product has a LOT of potential.

    And kudos to them for sticking to the idea of end-user rights (at least those comparable to a standard VCR)... Not wavering on the "skip a commercial" feature by calling it something like "30 second advance" or making you activate it by a special hack, they put it right out there as a selling point. And sending the encoded media to any PC on your LAN, rather than requiring you to physically swap out your HDD to get the content off a semi-proprietary box. I sincerely wish them well in their impending string of lawsuits from the MPAA.
    • I think the barrier for the average joe is going to be getting their TV-input cards setup correctly. By the amount of comments here of people who "just couldn't get it working", I'd say I'm right.

      I see that SnapStream sells TV-input stuff bundled with their software, but a $160 usb TV-tuner is steep, most people are gonna be using cheapola cards. Requiring a hardware based video compressor would also make sense, not being able to play Doom III because your wife's soap is getting recorded sucks.

      Elgato o

      • Even worse, is the average user trying to get the computer to output to the TV set. Very few people really want to have the family gathered around the computer to watch "The Simpsons". Normally, the computer is in another room, or in a position where running a wire from the TV to the computer would be less that aesthetically pleasing. I know my wife wouldn't have it.
        • Even worse, is the average user trying to get the computer to output to the TV set.

          My livingroom PC goes out to the TV - Really simple setup. I literally just plugged the TV-out into the SVideo port on the TV, and enabled TwinView in the video setup. Nothing more, and it just worked.

          Now, I really only use that for dumping Flash content to the TV. But it works just as well for playing DVDs. Though, unless you have a pure DVI card-to-TV connection (currently still fairly rare), only an idiot would us
  • I was reading in Maximum PC about Personal Video Station 3, another alternative to Tivo et al. One of the interesting properties of PVS3 was the ability to stream pre-recorded shows over the internet if you wanted to watch your shows on the road, also you could change your programming choices over the internet from the office or otherwise.

    It did not mention any automatic advert skipping, although I wonder how efficiently such a feature could be implemented (how would it detect the difference between adve
    • BTV is PVS actually, v3.4 brought the name change to BeyondTV. After the recording finishes it scans the audio and video looking for coinciding silence and black screens. It works pretty well for me, depends on your signal quality I would imagine. Some report it doesn't work very well for them at all. I've no complaints.
  • Why the hell are people not supporting digital TV? It's a veritable goldmine!
    The first company to produce decent software that works with all current digital TV cards, even if it's only the dvb-t standard used in Australia, will make a fucking mint.
    At the moment people are waiting with baited breath for some decent windows software to come out, and are willing to pay money for it. So why the fuck isn't anybody writing the software?
    I'd happily buy this if it supported digital TV, but like most of the oth
    • The problem with supporting digital TV is that there is no particular standard for it (at least not in the United States anyway). Secondly, the signal is usually encrypted, and only the digital cable box is meant to descramble it.

      MythTV has a half-decent solution, which is to allow you to send a command to your digital cable box, either by serial port (if your digital cable box supports such a thing), or by using an IRBlaster (the solution that TiVo uses, if I understand correctly). Then again, I use two
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • If you're looking for an ATI MMC replacement... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:18AM (#8489661) Homepage Journal
    then please be sure to read this existing thread [rage3d.com] for a discussion. For me, I haven't found the best one yet. Even Beyond TV didn't fit my needs. It's getting there, but no payment from me. You can read the posts by me, antdude.

    I am currently using ATI's buggy MMC v8.9 for now for my Radeon 9800 All-In-Wonder card. Please post a reply if you know any other PVR software that you know will work with these requirements:

    1. Can I install this program with ATI MultiMedia Center (MMC) v8.9 installed? Or do I have to uninstall MMC due to conflicts?

    2. Can I watch scheduled TV shows in Timeshifting mode? Basically, I have the recorder program record an hour TV show from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM. I come home, and I already missed the first 15 minutes. I want to be able to jump into the TV show from the beginning (recorded already) and catch up to the live TV feed (include skipping commercials). This is like TiVo. I don't have to wait until the program finishes recording. MMC is annoying without this method.

    3. Can I record with captions? ATI's MMC VCR video format can, but not DivX, MPEG-2, etc.

    4. Can I watch my recorded shows and Timeshift recordings (in progress) on my TV (TV out fullscreen overlay) and still use my computer on primary screen (monitor)? If so, then can it show captions if available?

    5. Is the low volume a problem since I have a SB Live! card? MMC's recording result very low audio volume.

    I hope this helps for other ATI Radeon AIW users who are looking for a MMC replacement.

  • Great product but some limitations (Score:3, Informative)

    by seismic ( 91160 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:26AM (#8489680)
    I've been using the Beyond TV 3 trial version for a week now, it works well and I really like the web interface.

    However although it advertises that it can also 'stream live tv' this functionality doesn't work with some very popular PVR cards (the WinTV 250/350 series) that do mpeg2 encoding in hardware.

    This functionality is promised for a future version, but its something to consider if you own one of these cards.

  • MythTV IS better, but try installing it.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pineapples10 ( 685792 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:26AM (#8489681)
    Many people argue that MythTV is better, but I say to them "How many hours did you spend installing and configuring it?" MythTV could effectively ruin companies like SageTV and Snapstream if they A.) Made it very easy to instal...and I mean easier than KnoppMyth (still a pain in the ass) or B.) GASP ported it to windows!
    • the machine I use as my PVR box is still used actively by the significant other, as well as visitors, and consequently will always be a windows box. So that's one strike against MythTV for me. With BTV and a PVR250, and the subsequent 1% CPU usage while recording, the machine still gets used for everything from email to counterstrike while still recording any shows we've set to record. I never gave MythTV a chance for various reasons, but the fact that it would no longer be a functioning windows box for its
    • As Issac, the Mythtv maitainer, has stated many times, he has little interest in ruining companies, or indeed increasing mythTV use. He's interested in developing it for his own use, and if other people have useful stuff to add then all the better.

      Mythtv is better, but it is also very hard to use, and there is a very good reason for that, it is still in development. Isaac and the rest of the mythtv guys are interested in people using it and providing useful feedback and bug reports, but they have very lit

  • Snapstream? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:30AM (#8489689) Journal
    I'll pass, having installed their previous efforts.

    And besides, my (here we go again) MythTV box does the same... and also lets me:

    - Play my giant MP3/Ogg collection
    - Have a slideshow of all the digital photos I've ever taken.
    - watch DVD's and rip them if they're any good.
    - play about 40G of movies on command,and share them on my local network.
    - Have a nice auto-updating weather display, with forecasts and satellite photos.
    - Read a bunch of RSS newsfeeds

    All of which is accessible from my remote.... and free, if your time is worth nothing ;-)

    Seriously, first person who makes a 'standard' mythTV box for under a grand (AUD) will make a killing.
    • How about an SMS interface so you can program your box remotely? How about live on-demand encoding over GPRS to your phone handset? The next step is all about using your phone to program it, and watch it if you're away.

  • You may not be too happy (Score:3, Informative)

    by _Shorty-dammit ( 555739 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:37AM (#8489709)
    If you are using anything but a hardware mpeg encoder you may not be too happy with its performance. The software mpeg encoder they used isn't that great. The output looks much worse than captures done with, say, virtualdub. Doesn't look like it even comes from the same card. But if you don't mind spending a few bucks (I hear they've been on sale a lot lately for $99US) on a Hauppauge PVR-250 hardware mpeg encoder card I think you'll be very happy with BTV. The encoder it has is definitely its weak point.
    • I'll second that emotion. When I finally got a PVR 250, CPU usage during recordings went from 100% to about 5%. (P4-1.7/256MB RAM)

      Also, Happauge's MPEG2 streams drop straight onto DVD, whereas ATI's had some compatibility issues.
      • During recording with my PVR-350, I cannot notice ANY visible CPU usage other than an occasional small "blip", with my 1.1 GHz Athlon TBird.

        Avermedia M179s go for about $80, and OEM PVR-250s (somewhat different than the retail ones, it's the "Media Center" version) can be found for $88 on eBay pretty often.

        My PVR-350 is some of the best money I've ever spent on my machine.
    • Actually, I have an Athlon XP 2000+ w/ an AIW 7500 running in my living room 24/7. I'm quite happy with it (not too much worse then my PVR250 setup on my main computer). I record in close to good quality (it's nice how you can modify the bitrates and resolutions to maximize the capture quality to CPU utilization ratio). I use it ALL the time, having probably hundreds of things saved at any given time (even with deleting as I watch).

      I had tried to get linux set up as a living room PC, but it was just tak

  • Cutting ads out... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by innerweb ( 721995 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @02:48AM (#8489729)
    My only thought is about cutting the advertisements out. Having worked with marketing so much, and having a small amount of experience working with a cable franchise and how marketing revenues lowers people's monthly costs... What will the users of these products do when the content providers start raising the prices of the content to cover the cost no longer covered by marketing companies that see these as lost advertising dollars.

    Seriously, the numbers are not high enough now to have that effect, but can you imagine having to pay for every channel the same way you do for HBO and Showtime? Or, maybe the marketing people will become more savvy and include marketing in a way we can not skip over. Like web pages with embedded marketing (product placement)...

    This is more interesting to me than the ability to save the movies in the first place. The question in the end for the business, is where does the money come from. These machines change that dynamic. What are /.s willing to put up with in terms of advertising that would not be deletable to continue to have TV that is "end-viewer" discounted. Since the reality is that the ad dollars are paid for when you purchase the products, could the masses have the vision to see moving those dollars from product purchases to content and delivery fees?

    InnerWeb

    • Re:Cutting ads out... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07, 2004 @03:00AM (#8489755)
      If you have to pay more for cable because there are fewer commercials, you will also pay less for everything you buy. Marketing isn't cheap. It takes big bucks to pull off an ad campaign and it is you who ends up paying for the creation of ads. The money has to come from somewhere-- it's subsidized by additional costs added to goods you buy. Fewer ads means fewer hidden costs, which means lower price, and that is a good thing.
  • From the article:

    It's fairly simple to enable security so strangers don't have access to your television signal or recordings.

    Oh dear, we mustn't let others have access to free media.

  • I was using Cyberlink PowerVCR II for a while, as it came with my capture card... I had tried demos of Snapstream PVS in the past, and decided to have a look at BeyondTV...

    It worked so-so with my capture card, but I wasn't too impressed with how it did MPEG formats. I decided to uninstall. From then onward, PowerVCR never worked again... it would begin a recording and freeze the entire machine within a minute. I've yet to bother re-imaging the machine, and just switched to WinDVR instead.

    BeyondTV is th

  • Tvtime + VCR (Score:4, Informative)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @03:15AM (#8489792)
    For those of us who use our desktops as a PVR instead of dedicating a machine to it, I highly recommend a TvTime [sourceforge.net] and vcr [stack.nl] combination under Linux. MythTV is a overkill for my needs. TvTime is hands down the best tv viewing program, IMO, and there are web frontends for vcr to make scheduling recordings as snap. There are some features lacking in this setup that a normal PVR system would have, such as live rewind and such, but I think there's alot of people going through way more trouble than they need to because they don't know there's any other way..

  • Beyond Media in beta (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AIX-Hood ( 682681 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @04:02AM (#8489855)
    I've been using Beyond TV for quite some time now and have been in their beta program for more than 2 years. It's truly amazing how far their product has come and it's inspiring to see how close a relationship they keep with their customers. It's true, software encoding mpeg will always be a dog because of it's nature. All of you without hardware encoding like the ATI boards, you're pretty much out of luck, be it with Beyond TV or Myth or whatever. These products only shine with 2-3% cpu usage when you start using PVR-250's etc. To even things up with Myth TV btw, Snapstream is now in beta mode for Beyond Media. This is a super slicked interface for all your music, photos, slideshows, 80 gazillion gigs of mp3's and movies.. you name it, it can do it with very nice graphics. So, to sum up, they're listening and making good at lightning speed on the wishes of their customers. I've paid a total of 90 bucks and have gotten more than 2 years worth of updates and new versions without any additional costs. In the last year, they got very serious about their product (probably got big investment capital) and people who didn't like old versions owe it to themselves to give it another try. It's a totally different product at this point.

  • Recommended Settings (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Beyond TV requires a lot of fiddling in order for it to work properly. The settings which produce the clearest picture are not those you would guess. In order to stream you need to stay with WMV, which is software-based. So to reduce the CPU problem (video is like no load factor you have ever seen), the first thing to do is to reduce the number of dots and frames you are sending. This will actually result in a better encoding. An analog NTSC broadcast is rarely more than 320x200, usually it is much less tha

  • here's a more compelling article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <lynxpro@@@gmail...com> on Sunday March 07, 2004 @07:24AM (#8490223)
    http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=17 38&ncid=1738&e=9&u=/zd/20040305/tc_zd/1209 74

    Like the author of this pondering, I would prefer to see Apple make a media-centric Mac with the same footprint as most component consumer electronics items like DVD players and tuners. It would be awesome. Stack it and place it in your components cabinet (hopefully an open aired one for good ventilation). The machine would hook up to your plasma or HDTV. That's the problem with Windows Media Center PC's. They do not complement an audio/videophile's components. By using the plasma and/or the HDTV screen, the Media Mac would take charge of all the other devices yet it would still retain the media-ness of the whole system. To have iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD along with timeshifting in your living room with the help of a wireless mouse, keyboard, and friendly remote control would simply rock.

  • I've wanted to get SnapStream's software for quite a while now, but unfortunately it seems that Leadtek [leadtek.com] the manufacturer of my tuner card (a Winfast 2000 XP) refuses to work with SnapStream to resolve compatability issues. The WinFast software is horribly buggy and generally poorly designed, so I'm frustrated, to say the least.

    Once I have the money I'm going to buy one of the SnapStream bundles and get rid of this card for good. My recommendation is don't buy Leadtek.
  • I have recentlly gotten back into the "Record TV to PC" world lately. The most ironic thing is that I worked so long getting all the CAT5 cable to go away by creating a completlly wireless LAN...Just in time to have a big fat TV Cable sticking out of the back of all my machines.

  • This software is crap (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CG4279 ( 759928 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @10:26AM (#8490710)
    Snapstream, BTV, or whatever they want to call it this week is crap. After paying $60 for it, no less than FOUR times in the past two months, it has reverted to the 'trial' version (expired, of course), which in turn caused it to delete my recording schedule, and fail to record what I had set up.

    Why did this happen? Because Snapstream's servers went offline. That's right, if the software can't 'phone home' (even when it's THEIR FAULT), you are automatically considered a pirate, and your BOUGHT AND PAID FOR software stops working.

    Supposedly, they're 'fixing' it, but they've been doing that since the first time it happened back in December. It's not going to stop 'checking in', only that if it can't connect it won't revert to a useless expired trial.

    And forget about 'official' support. They do have forums with some very knowledgeable people (users), but if you want to get a response from anyone officially connected with Snapstream, you'll be waiting forever (if you're lucky enough to get EVER get a response).

    Putting all that behind for a minute, the software is buggy (sometime just forgets to record, blue-screens for no reason, jittery recording and playback). Of course, the first thing they'll blame is your hardware, or other software you have installed. The same, exact system (which exceeds their recommended hardware specs considerably) has no trouble running other apps like SageTV or myHTPC with the TV plugin.

    Bottom line, there is VERY little positive to offset all of the bugs, and I have a serious problem paying for software that is rendered useless whenever their servers crash.

  • SageTV -- an alternative to TIVO and BeyondTV (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dragon_imp ( 685750 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @10:55AM (#8490851) Homepage
    I investigated the alternatives a few months ago, and picked Frey Technologies' SageTV ( http://www.sage.tv ) over Snapstream's BeyondTV.

    Features I liked in SageTV:
    1) uses TV cards with hardware encoding cards only. Cards using software encoding need not apply.
    2) low CPU requirements, since the the encoding is done by the video card.
    3) handles multiple TV tuner cards automatically -- I use two Hauppauge PVR-250 cards. BeyondTV supports only one card. (The wildest SageTV setup I've read about included two PVR-250s, one PVR-350, four of a USB variety and one ATI E-Home Wonder.)
    4) free TV schedule/guide. They use Zap2It for those, and I was already using www.zap2it.com for my TV watching plans.
    5) ability to use directories across the network for recording or serving shows
    6) ability to stream mpeg2 video to a SageClient on another PC. (BeyondTV can't stream mpeg2 -- either record in a Windows Media format or spend your time decoding/re-encoding to make a copy you can stream!)
    7) ability to watch live TV, effectively as if it was already a complete recording (start late, jump around, etc). BeyondTV does this if you record in mpeg2, but it can't stream that file to another machine!
    8) ability to automatically control SageRecorder (optional related program) on another networked PC that has its own TV card.
    9) full-featured, time-limited trial versions of SageTV, SageRecorder and SageClient.
    10) does not require or use .Net
    11) does not require DirectX9
    12) open beta program -- beta installs over any registered copy.

    The most commonly used card is the Hauppauge PVR-250. SageTV has out-of-the-box support for Hauppauge and another remote, and support for third-party IR receivers.

    While I write this, I'm watching mpeg2 video streamed to a window to this 650MHz notebook. SageClient is the remote client version, which receives and displays the streamed mpeg2 shows and also lets you control the recording schedule remotely.
  • Sounds like a decent product, but I think anyone who says it is better than tivo is just flat out wrong. First of all, its not a device. I don't want to sit in front of my PC to watch tv, and I don't want to have to run a wire from my PC to my TV. Also, because its not a device, it requires your PC to be running the stuff all the time. Thats fine if you buy a PC just for using as a PVR, but that takes away your argument that its cheaper. A tivio is MUCH cheaper than buying another PC. With my tivo, I

  • As a customer and user...mixed feelings... (Score:3, Informative)

    by wolf- ( 54587 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:20AM (#8490958) Homepage
    As a PAID customer of the 3.x series, I am impatiently waiting for fixes that will resolve the application crashing on some systems.

    If you are thinking about buying, take the time to read the user forums on snapstream.com.

    The end user helping end user support has been considerably better than the official answers in some cases.

    I wanted the new features of 3.4.
    I ended up reverting to 3.3 to have the system work. 3.3 runs with no problems. Love the program.

    My concern is that currently a released version (3.4) filled with problems and the company's answer is "want to try the beta of 3.5?"

    No, I do NOT want to try a beta on my dedicated video server to resolve the problems in your RELEASED application.

    -------------

    That all being said:

    Athlon 1.4
    1 GB RAM
    Windows XP SP1
    Nvidia FX 5200
    ATI TV Wonder
    200 gb of storage
    Snapstream 3.3

    The ATI does the capturing with the NVidia handling the TV/Out. The output is run into a modulator that allows me to feed the media server into any tv connected to the antenna wire on channel 4. I have ripped all of our DVDs to xvids, so the kids no longer get an opportunity to scratch them up. Drop them into one of the directories that Snapstream knows about, and they are available for the kids to watch on demand.

    I really like the ability to set up recordings from the road. Using the web interface and coming back into the system from a remote location lets me check recordings, setup new recordings, and even download/watch recordings.

    During the Womans World Cup last fall, my daughter and I were in DC for 6 games. We took a side trip to Philly for 2 games. At the time I was playing with the 3.1 or 3.2 trial version. We would hit a wifi hotspot in the evenings, eat some dinner while we downloaded games that we had recording from other venues.

    System will also allow you to watch a live stream through the web interface. My father who is overseas, occasionally wants to watch sporting events or other shows. He comes in, sets up an event, and watches.

    I'm not regretting buying the application. The version I thought I was buying didnt work as promised. The previous version DOES run as promised, so it is functioning quite well for me.

  • That's what I want to know... if you can't view the on screen display on the TV using arguably "the best" PVR card (consumer level) out there, that's pretty crappy and not useful for me.

    From what I understand you can get this to work with MythTv but you have to find a X Driver for IVTV module [lycos.fr] and everything isn't a 100% stable yet (again from what I understand)

    I guess I can only hope that the support of the OSS community continues and improves and makes a product that surpasses the propietary one...

    e.
  • I've always wanted to set up my own PVR solution, but I have satellite. Will it work ? The site mentions something about some required IR blaster hardware (ugh) or a "serial cable" (sounds better, but huh ?). So, does anyone use BeyondTV with a satellite dish ? If so, what else would I have to buy and install ?
    • The rub is that you need to somehow control when channels are changed on your satellite's set top box so that the PVR software can record shows/change channels without your intervention.

      As you noted there are two main ways to do that. Hook up a serial cable between your PC and your satellite set top box and use a software widget to let the PVR software change channels that way. DirectTivo bundles with a serial cable to control DirectTV boxes this way.

      OR

      Use an IR blaster... an Ir blaster is nothing more
      • I think I'd prefer the serial cable... Is this a standard RS232 pinout ? Also, where can I get the custom software that controls the set top box through the cable ?

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