SnapStream Beyond TV 4 Launching November 10th

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/1611/snapstream_beyond_tv' target='_blank'>http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/1611/snapstream_beyond_tv</a><br /><br /></div><i>"SnapStream Blog is spreading the news that Beyond TV 4 will launch this week on November 10th. Notable new features include: over-the-air HDTV support, DivX and ShowSqueeze video encoding, "browse by category" TV listings, FM radio support, and a fresh new user-interface. SnapStream states, "The [new enhancements] represents the top items our customers asked for over the past year. You asked, so we delivered. Change is great, and new things are fun, but keeping our development in sync with our customers as much as possible is a philosophy we keep the same year after year." Beyond TV 4 will retail for $69.99 – a limited time upgrade offer will be available for $29.99."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/snapstream_beyond_tv_4_box_screenshot.jpg" /><br /><br />Cool, cool, very cool. Well, time to make your calendars. With Beyond TV, you can gain great control over your entertainment experience. You can build your own living room PC with Beyond TV and from what I have heard, it really is quite easy to setup. And the new features look very nice.

[Outlaw94]

How does this compare to Media Center?

[Kursplat]

That is the EXACT question I was going to ask.

SnapStream has always interested me (especially with the PocketPC feature), but I have never bit the bullet. Reviews that I have read about previous versions indicated video quality concerns. I don't know if it was the particular card being used for the review or if the software itself was the problem.

I would really like to hear from people who use the software how it compares to MC for features and how it compares to DVRs for video quality.

[Jason Dunn]

SnapStream has always interested me (especially with the PocketPC feature), but I have never bit the bullet. Reviews that I have read about previous versions indicated video quality concerns.

I used BeyondTV for a while and really liked it - from a pure PVR point of view, it was great. Really powerful software, much better than MCE - it was easy to record a show then automatically have a second version transcoded to specific sizes and bitrates, which was great for getting it onto a Pocket PC or whatnot.

The reason I stopped using BeyondTV? They have no good hardware to link the video to my TV set. It's GREAT software, but it's too PC-focused for me.

[Kursplat]

They have no good hardware to link the video to my TV set. It's GREAT software, but it's too PC-focused for me.

By "they," you don't mean SnapStream, right? They have the software piece, not the hardware. Can't you just use the same video-out capabilities of your PC that MCE uses? What am I missing here?

[Jason Dunn]

By "they," you don't mean SnapStream, right? They have the software piece, not the hardware. Can't you just use the same video-out capabilities of your PC that MCE uses? What am I missing here?

It's simple: the computer that I record TV shows on is not upstairs attached to my main TV, so I use extenders to get the TV shows up there. There are some hardware options out there that worked with BeyondTV back then, but they all sucked - horrible made-in-Taiwan UI. :?