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Latest SnapStream PVR App Reviewed
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.)"
use mythtv for free and install the windows frontend.
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.
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.
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.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
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.
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.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
It is a damn shame, but this is not the Tivo you are looking for.
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.
At first it probably will. Until studios start complaining about it and how it takes away from the sales of the Anna Nicole Show on dvd. It may be just me, but i feel that recording shows onto your computer is no different than recording them on vhs. We pay for cable and the channels, should we not be allowed to make a backup for our enjoyment?
But something like this has probably been debated just like downloading music. It's really a no win situation in both subjects, and for everyone invovled.
Think of it as the newer VB runtimes.
.Net, most of which have
no basis in reality.
Mod parent up. Seriously.
People seem to have all these spooked-out misconceptions about
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.
I found this cool program the other day, but it needed the C standard library... I'll pass for now.
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.
/cron/ recorded files to be automatically compressed over night. There are many options for quality of encode as well.
The divx compression is nice, as you can
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, yes due to a lock in currently, I've been happy with snapstream.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
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.
;)
.net... you needs it... you wants the precious.
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
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
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 adverts and shows?)
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
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 other crap on the market, it only works in the US, and only for analogue TV. Somebody please, if you're out there, write some decent software for Australian digital TV tuners!
EGG, the Electronic Gamers Guild
Think of it as the newer VB runtimes
:)
I thought you were trying to make him less scared
Everything will be taken away from you.
then please be sure to read this existing thread 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.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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.
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!
there's at least one person on the BTV forums that is using a p2-400 or p2-450 in conjunction with a Hauppauge PVR-250 hardware mpeg2 encoder card for recording with. Naturally a faster PC will chew through some of the optional work a lot quicker, but a fairly old machine can still do fine if you have a hardware encoder card. I bought this software because it was the only one with Canadian TV listings, but came to find out it has a wealth of cool features. I love it. I personally have an XP 1700+ in mine, and it takes about 40 minutes to scan a one hour episode for commercial breaks, or SmartChapters as it calls them. And IIRC it takes about 45 minutes to convert the 8Mbps mpeg2 data to 1GB/hour divx. The next version will sport multiple tuner support, so you can record two things at once or watch a live broadcast while recording something else. That'll be nice, I'll be buying a second, if not a third, PVR-250 just to make it a little nicer to use. When v3.5 comes I doubt the thing will ever not be in BTV mode.
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.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
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.
"Derp de derp."
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.
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
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
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.
For those of us who use our desktops as a PVR instead of dedicating a machine to it, I highly recommend a TvTime and vcr 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..
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
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.
I can understand why rites management may be not welcomed in certain circles :-)
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 than that. You'd be surprised how clear 320x200 or even 180x120 look full-screen. Also bear in mind that with cable or DSL you are unlikely to have more than 150Kbps of uplink capacity, so if you want to stream TV shows from home to your office at lunch hour, you have to settle for the maximum upload speed of your home connection.
- n. wmv
Try this:
Windows Media V7 codec
180x120
15fps
50% quality
video 130Kbps
audio 20Kbps
Another suggestion is that in order to view streams on demand, all you need to do is construct a URL of the form:
mms://ipaddress/videofolder/showname-yyyy-mm-dd
I installed an FTP server on the Windows box then wrote a web page that made an FTP connection to the box to create a list of filename-based URLs for on-demand streaming. You get this for free from Windows Media after Beyond TV has created the WMV files in the video folder you specify during setup.
I encourage patience, video is a cruel mistress but the rewards of persistence are great.
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.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Considering that what it does is record the shows to an MPEG or WMV file, the answer here would be yes. Even better, it can use third-party capture/encoding cards (WinTV-PVR), so it doesn't even touch the program stream (although it can use software encoding too).
If you record in MPEG2, you can use something like TMPEG to drop it onto a DVD without re-encoding.
What's funny is that the review didn't mention the coolest feature, which is the remote scheduling through snapstream.net. It's just a regular TV listings page, and a free account comes with the software. You can click to record a show, and the PVR checks in every ten minutes or so for additions, and adds them to the schedule. It's just an outbound HTTP connection, so it works through a firewall without exposing anything.
The net result is that if I'm away from home and hear about a show I want to record, I can set it up it in seconds from any web browser on the 'net. Try that with your Tivo.
This was a fairly shaky product in early versions, but it's really developed into something useful. I'd never go back to a VCR.
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.
I investigated the alternatives a few months ago, and picked Frey Technologies' SageTV ( http://www.sage.tv ) over Snapstream's BeyondTV.
.Net
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
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 went to the store, picked it up, came home, plugged in a few cables, and it just works. No fuss at all. I didn't have to bother with any hardware, and I didn't have to install any software. Its just ready to go. Thats a beautiful thing. Now, this "Skip ads" feature that is supposed to be so wonderful... I may be wrong, but after reading up on it, it sounds like it takes a long time for it to figure out what is a comercial and what isn't. Honestly, its pretty damn simple to hit fast forward on the tivo, and then to hit play again. I never watch commercials, but yes, I do have to push 2 buttons. There is one more reason that nothing will replace my DirecTiVo. Dual built in DirecTV receivers. With my tivo I can record 2 things at once, and I get FULL quality. NOTHING else does digital recording, and as far as I know the only other software that allows recording of multiple streams is MythTV. To do what I am doing with MythTV would require me to have two capture cards with hardware encoding, two directv receivers that can be controled via serial cable, and it would still not be digitial.
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.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
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.