SnapStream's Beyond TV 3 - The Must-Have Home Multimedia Software
by Andrew Ku on May 12, 2004 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Final Words
Overall, we have nothing but good things to say about Beyond TV 3. SnapStream has put a lot of thought into the multimedia experience, though there still is some fine-tuning that needs to be done (i.e. double listing TV shows).The live TV information panels have more of a love-it or hate-it scheme. We have mixed opinions. The berth of information is helpful, but not all of it is necessary, such as the incredibly large live TV and recording icon in the upper left hand corner. Our own recommendation would be to follow Microsoft's example with Windows XP Media Center 2004. The information panel there is a separate page, with a small information panel for immediate viewing. What SnapStream is implementing now is a bit obtrusive in our opinion, though helpful.
Beyond TV 3 separates itself from the rest of the bunch with its web server capabilities and web admin interface. The fact that you can control recordings while away from home is extremely helpful, and so is the ability to stream TV over the network locally, as well as over the internet.
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Perhaps most interesting is that Beyond TV 3 is Pocket PC friendly. Though, we won't be using this capability much, it is probably worth investigating it for those TV buffs who own Pocket PC phones. In theory, you can watch streaming TV from your home on your PDA anywhere. We were comfortably watching TV and videos on our Dell X5 (using our awesome D-Link 802.11b/802.11g network) without any configuration woes.
Click to enlarge.
SnapStream isn't making this a cheap software title: $69.99 for CD-ROM and $59.99 for download, so this isn't a chump-change purchase. But if you are looking for a more solid TV/media server, this is the title to buy. SnapStream is hyping up their entrance into the consumer market: Best Buy, CompUSA, etc., which seems to be adding credence to their software title. With a few more improvements, SnapStream will easily have the trump multimedia title on their hands. It is arguably the best on the market, at the moment.
Beyond TV 3 already beats InterVideo's Home Theater hands down, which is why Asus probably should have taken a look at SnapStream instead. MSI is working on some sort of a media version of their MegaPC. We hope that they are considering their choice for software as much as they are for their hardware design. And if you own a Personal Cinema card and aren't willing to switch to ATI's All-in-Wonder line for their software benefit, Beyond TV 3 may be something right up your alley, since it looks like Forceware Multimedia is still going to take a while. For those with WinTV cards, this might be something worth considering too.
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DFranch - Friday, May 14, 2004 - link
One feature which Snapstream still does not have that Sage Tv has had for some time is multiple tuners. I have 2 tuners in my machine and in 5 months I have only had 2 conflicts on my machine.Please do a review of Sage Tv 2.0. It does not seem to get nearly as much press as Snapstream, but it is a really execellent product.
glennpratt - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
JackHawksmoor: x86 machines actually can turn themselves on, one of the machines I had even let you set timers in the BIOS. x86 has nothing to do with it by they way, its a function of power managent. More importantly newer PC's support S3 standby which uses almost no power and restores in seconds. My MCE machine with an AXP 2000+ actually goes to standby and restores faster then a TiVo (which also just goes to standby, doesn't actually turn off).The MCE remote has a power button on it, push it, it goes to standby. It will power back up if it needs to record a show or when you push the button again.
glennpratt - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
BTW, MCE 2004 now has an HDTV Tuner.http://www.vboxcomm.com/news_specific.asp?id=49
segagenesis - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
First decent review of Beyond TV ive read. Im not sure if SageTV is any better (a review of this in the future could help?). I lack the time to setup MythTV and this would be a good alternative, and I dont really care much about wanting multiple tuner support since I already have a PVR from my cable company. It would really complement things by allowing me to record shows I can put to disc later, something I cant do otherwise unless I had ReplayTV or Tivo with hacks.JackHawksmoor - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
Sorry! I keep thinking of other features I want, and the review isn't clear on. Can this software initiate a dial-up connection to grab program guides? That's another needed feature (unless you've got broadband).JackHawksmoor - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
Whoops, one piece of information I'd like to know is what other formats "ShowSqueeze" can convert to. It would rock if you could set this to automatically convert some shows to like a Divx or MPEG-1 format for a Palm OS unit (the review only mentions Windows Media, and dosen't actually specify that it allows settings for smaller screens, etc.).I'd also like a feature to automatically set a show to get copied to a DVD-RW after it's been recorded (so I could watch it on a TV in a different room, etc.)
JackHawksmoor - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
Great review! Really informative!I'd LOVE to make a PVR out of spare parts, but unfortunatly there's no way for an x86 system to turn itself on for a recording, and I don't want to leave a system running all the time. I'd probably do it otherwise.
(Technically I think someone could take advantage of features in most BIOS like "wake on network access", etc. Include some piece of hardware that does nothing but wake up the computer-software on the computer tells that piece of hardware when the next time the computer needs to be turned on is, and then the device triggers a wake on LAN (or whatever) to wake the computer up at that time). COULD probably be done.
I think current Macintosh's can wake themselves up at prescribed times, and I've got an older PowerMac in the closet, so maybe I should look into that...
glennpratt - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
Web control is available for Windows Media Center 2004.http://www.showtell.com/mce_webguide/2/
Also, a proof of concept has shown that HDTV is possible in MCE 2004 if the manufacturers would write BDA drivers for HDTV cards. With the SDK its also pretty easy to write programs for MCE which have access to alot of the things MCE does.
I imagine, the future of HDTV on the computer will involve HDTV analog inputs (Component or RGBHV) from your cable or satelite box to avoid broadcast flags. It would be nice to stream the digital HD stream directly to the hard drive, then simply play it back, but I imagine the industry will never allow pay TV computer decoder cards.
orogogus - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
crazy_vag-in all likelihood, probably never. You'd need a HDTV capture card, that was HDCP enabled (never going to happen) or a tuner that could tune in pay-channel HDTV (satellite or cable- QAM). They don't exist (well, the FusionIII has QAM but it really doesn't work 100% and it will only tune unencrypted channels)- probably run into HDCP problems here anyway cause the network will likely turn it on for pay channels (not to mention encryption). However, if they ever broadcast Sopranos on over the air channels, you could do it now or in the future, since HDCP shouldn't ever be applied to OTA content. Cheers
buleyb - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
agreed #6, MythTV, once setup properly, is the best option for making a HTPC