Filed under: Fun, Video, Features, Windows, Commercial
SnapStream Beyond TV 4.0 Review
by Jason Clarke May 15th 2006 at 7:00AM
Product DescriptionSnapStream's Beyond TV product is a Windows-based Personal Video Recorder (PVR) similar to TiVo or Microsoft's Media Center PC television functionality. It allows you to take any Windows PC (that meets the hardware requirements) and use it to pause and rewind live television, as well as schedule shows to be recorded based on a number of different schedules.
The Beyond TV moniker was applied to SnapStream's offering back when they transitioned from version 2 to version 3 of what was then simply known as SnapStream Personal Video Recorder. The Beyond TV branding allowed SnapStream to branch out into other areas, such as Beyond Media (photos, music and home video management), Beyond TV Link (watching shows from remote computers), and even into hardware with their Firefly brand of remote controls. For the purposes of this review, we'll be sticking to Beyond TV 4.0, which was released late in 2005.
Installation / Configuration
Installing Beyond TV is fairly straightforward, provided your computer meets its hardware requirements. Although Beyond TV works with TV tuner cards that do not provide hardware MPEG-2 compression, it will greatly improve your experience if you choose a card that does. In fact, Beyond TV will run adequately on a relatively modest machine (mine is an old AMD Duron 700 clocked at 900 MHz) as long as the capture card provides on-board MPEG-2 encoding. Otherwise, your minimum CPU requirements jump to 1.5 GHz.
You will also want a substantial amount of hard drive space available for recording shows, at least 40 GB. Beyond TV features "transcoding" to help reign in its disk usage. We will discuss transcoding a little later.
Actually installing and configuring the software is very straightforward – the installation wizard guides you through every step very clearly. You will notice that Beyond TV is not an insubstantial piece of software; the setup process takes some time, but with version 4 they appear to have nailed it. I had zero problems when installing 4. Ensure you have the latest drivers for both your regular video card and your video capture card to minimize any potential headaches.
Usage: General TV Watching
While Beyond TV can be used on any PC with a compatible video capture card, where it really shines is in the living room hooked up to your TV or home theatre. The interface works well when driven by a mouse, and it can be run in a window if you'd prefer to get some work done on your PC as you watch, however full-screen mode driven by a remote control is where you want to be to get the most out of your PVR experience.
As mentioned above, as you watch live TV you have the option to pause, rewind and replay the video. This is made possible because everything you are seeing through Beyond TV is actually being captured by your video capture card, encoded into an MPEG-2 stream (either by the card or your CPU), then finally displayed on the screen. On my very modest system, the delay is between 1 to 3 seconds as compared to real-time TV – no big deal.
Almost everything in Beyond TV is configurable, but happily, the default settings are terrific out of the box. If you have the hard drive space to spare, I would recommend cranking up the size of your real-time video buffer to allow for 1 hour of video at the display quality you have chosen. This means that a live TV show can be paused for up to an hour before it will be forced to continue.
Usage: Scheduling recordings, recurring recordings
Like TiVo and most digital cable and satellite systems, Beyond TV offers an onscreen guide of what's on. Unlike TiVo, Beyond TV offers this service free of charge. Watching or recording a show is as simple as choosing it from the program guide and choosing Watch or Record.
If you choose to record a show, you are then given the option of recording that one instance of the show, recording all instances of the show on that channel, or recording all new instances of the show on that channel. This last option is the most interesting, as it effectively emulates TiVo's "season pass" functionality and allows you never to miss a new episode of your favorite show.
Additional features: transcoding, commercial skipping, recording show in progress
Some of the features that make Beyond TV unique include its transcoding functionality, its ability to analyze video and determine where the commercials are, and its ability to record a show in progress.
Transcoding
Transcoding is the act of taking video in one format and coding it into a different format. Beyond TV supports both Microsoft's Windows Media Video format, as well as the very popular DivX format for transcoded video. The beauty of this functionality is that Beyond TV can be set to automatically transcoded shows that are recorded in the default bulky MPEG-2 format into a much more space-conscious WMV or DivX AVI file. From a functional perspective, the user doesn't even need to know whether they're watching a file that has or hasn't yet been transcoded. The file size savings are enormous – for example, a typical 1 hour program takes upwards of 3 GB of drive space. After transcoding to Windows Media format at very high quality (so as not to degrade the video), the resulting file is less than 700 MB. This is convenient because it can then be easily burned onto a CD for archival purposes, but is also a better than 4:1 file size ratio. In other words, the resulting file is less than one quarter the size of the original. This can save on your drive space requirements considerably. 
Commercial Skipping
Although Beyond TV won't automatically skip commercials for you, it can analyze a show after it has been recorded and determine with a high degree of accuracy where the commercial breaks are. Once an analysis is complete, it will color these commercial breaks in the progress bar that shows when you are fast-forwarding video. This makes it a snap to skip right through commercial breaks. Of course this analysis takes some time, so if your computer is underpowered it is best to leave this feature off so that all unused CPU cycles can go towards transcoding your shows.
Fortunately, Beyond TV allows you to scan forward and backwards through your show as well as skipping ahead and back by a set number of seconds. The default for skipping ahead is 30 seconds, which is of course exactly what we want when skipping through commercial segments. Click, click, click – back to our show.
Recording a Show in Progress
One of the newest features in Beyond TV 4.0 is the ability to start recording a show that is currently in progress. What this means is that if you're watching a show and you get part way through it and think "darn, I wish my spouse could see this", you can start recording the show and it will pick up everything you have in the cache for that show. Typically this means that it will be able to record the show from when it started, as long as you have not changed the channel. You'd be surprised how handy this feature is.
Software review conclusion
Building a PVR solution for Windows can't be easy, and yet SnapStream has a solid product on their hands. For anyone that wishes to have PVR functionality but can't afford to buy a Microsoft Media Edition PC, Beyond TV is the logical choice. They even offer a free trial version of the software so that you can test it out to see if it does the trick for you. 
Probably my favorite aspect of Beyond TV is that it allows me to take an old computer and repurpose it in a very useful manner. My PVR setup (that my family has been using very successfully for the past two and a half years) consists of the older AMD Duron PC mentioned above with 384 MB of RAM, an 8 GB and 30 GB drive, a $30 Matrox video card with S-Video out (to go to the TV), and a $150 Hauppauge TV Tuner card with MPEG-2 encoding. That's it. The thing shouldn't still work, and yet it does.
We had a minor hardware failure on it some time ago (the system drive died and had to be replaced), and for the few days we were without a PVR, my family discovered just how much our TV viewing habits have changed. My wife and I don't actually know what time shows are on anymore, and with young kids in the family we'd be unable to watch most shows that are on before they go to bed anyway. My two-year-old son has become used to the idea that he always has a new episode of The Wiggles, Thomas the Tank Engine or Blues Clues recorded that he can watch to ease his way into naptime – just imagine the bundle that saves us on kids' videos!
Contrary to popular belief, a PVR doesn't make you watch more TV, it helps you watch more good TV, and less TV overall. Rather than plunking down in front of the boob tube and watching a bunch of terrible shows waiting for something good to come on, we sit down, watch a show or two, and shut it off. It's a much more satisfying experience. We were even able to cut our cable subscription down to the basic package, since all the shows we wanted to record are available on it at weird times – but who cares what time the show is aired?
If you've been wanting to put together your own PVR, Beyond TV is a very good way to go.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John said 9:54AM on 5-15-2006
Great article. One question I have is how do you control the onscreen menu using a remote control? I suppose the PC needs to be in the living room next to your TV and you need to have remote control capabilities for the PC?
Reply
Chris said 9:59AM on 5-15-2006
I've tried both and stuck with SageTV instead. (http://www.sagetv.com/)
Reply
Brad said 10:20AM on 5-15-2006
You can pick up a snapstream firefly remote in a bundle with the beyondtv software for an extra $50 or so, and it works like a charm. Since the firefly is an RF remote, you don't need a direct line of sight to the computer. I actually use my main computer as my PVR, and have a video transmitter (I know, the video quality is degraded) send the audio and video from the office to the TVs in the bedroom and living room. I can use the remote from anywhere in the house to change channels and program recordings.
Reply
OMAC said 11:42AM on 5-15-2006
Snapstream offers a remote control for this very reason. It's called the Firefly remote and can be found at snapstream.com.
Yes the PC has to be in the living room, but I have mine set up in another room for recording purposes. I have an USB IR Blaster connected to my PC which controls my satellite box.
Beyond TV 4 and Video editor of your choice to weed out the commercials FTW!
Reply
Jason Clarke said 12:19PM on 5-15-2006
Hi John, yes, the computer needs to be near enough to the TV to allow the video cable (S-video typically) to be connected. As OMAC mentions, SnapStream sells what is reportedly a very good remote, however I've never tried it. My Hauppauge tuner card came with a remote, and Beyond TV supports a number of TV tuner card remotes, so that was good enough for me.
Reply
John said 12:48PM on 5-15-2006
Brad, I would be interested to know by how much is the video degraded by using a video transmitter?
Reply
Weasel said 5:39PM on 5-15-2006
The Firefly is reportedly an excellent remote. My friend has one and loves it, I just use my Hauppauge one.
One thing I do want to mention however, is the free and open source alternatives. These have been mentioned on Download Squad before, but I think it's important for anyone sitting there thinking "Wow!" but who also likes free stuff and open source stuff to know.
There's the popular linux one called MythTV, and the simplest way of installing it is KnoppMyth (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html). I don't have any experience with it, but you can check out a review and a how to by Kevin Rose on Systm (I am limited to 3 links, but if you search "mythtv systm" on Google you'll find it).
I own a Windows based PVR, and I personally use GBPVR (http://www.gbpvr.com). It has great hardware support, great community wiki and forums, and I think it competes very well with the commercial offerings if you don't mind getting your hands a bit dirty. It has a web interface, skinning, and extensions so for those who like to customize, I think it can provide much more than the commercial products. It also has low system requirements, so you can run it on that P3 600mhz you have lying around in your basement.
Finally, there is MediaPortal (http://www.team-mediaportal.com/), another piece of software for Windows. I have no experience with it, but it looks very nice and I would check it out if I had more time and didn't love GBPVR as I do. Their site has alot of information and screenshots.
That's probably the longest comment I've ever written, but I hope it can be helpful to anyone aspiring to build a PVR.
Reply
Brad said 9:25PM on 5-15-2006
Well, the video purists will tell you the video quality is nowhere near as good if you use a video sender. (I'm using a set of x10 video senders that I picked up on ebay for around $50).
But for most practical purposes, if you don't have a hi-def tv, I think the picture quality is good enough to justify the convenience factor. Our tv also doesn't have an s-video in, so no matter what, we're only getting composite video, which isn't as good as it could be.
Anyway... so I'd say with the video sender, the picture quality is better than broadcast, but worse than digital cable.
The one thing to watch out for though... our video sender works on the 2.4ghz spectrum. That means if you're trying to use wifi or bluetooth in the house, you might get interference. And for some reason, the thing that makes the picture look like martians are landing is the microwave. So I'd concur -- the best thing to do is to put a computer next to your TV. But if you don't want to spend a couple hundred bucks on a computer so that you can save a few bucks off your tivo bill, you CAN get away with using your primary computer and sending the signal wirelessly.
Reply