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Beyond TV 4.9 officially released, packs in placeshifting, h.264, ClearQAM for $99

by Richard Lawler posted Dec 4th 2008 at 11:45AM


Dumping the beta tag, Snapstream's officially rolled out the placeshifting, Clear QAM-compatible singing and dancing Beyond TV 4.9, rolling previously optional $29.99 h.264 and DVD burning plugins into the standard package, upping the pricetag for new users from $69 to $99 (upgraders who never bought the plugins and don't want them can still hop in for the old price). If watching place shifted TV via web browser isn't interesting enough by itself, Snapstream threw in beta support for the Hauppage HD-PVR, new Web admin features and more. Enough to convince you to upgrade, or dive into the build it yourself DVR market for the first time?

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

BeyondTV 4.9 Beta adds placeshifting to the DIY DVR formula

by Richard Lawler posted Sep 10th 2008 at 9:32AM


Windows Media Center alternative BeyondTV is actually taking advantage of Microsoft's Silverlight technology for its latest feature, placeshifting recorded TV, Slingbox-style. Download Squad mentions the 4.9 beta release allows users to log in remotely via a webpage, view a list of stored programs, and select them for real-time transcoding and streaming. That's not all BeyondTV's added since we last checked in on version 4.3 -- real-time ShowSqueeze, the aforementioned Web Admin access and more make this worth a look. BeyondTV is $70, but there's a free trial if you've just got to start slinging HDTV around the neighborhood, or the world, right now.

[Via Download Squad]

GB-PVR called "first" on the Hauppauge HD PVR over a month ago

by Steven Kim posted Apr 10th 2008 at 4:59PM

GB-PVR supports Hauppauge HD PVR
Lots of HTPC fans have been salivating over the promise of the Hauppauge HD PVR. That pesky "analog hole" looks like it might be the best solution for our imperfect tech world. Without integrated Windows MCE support yet, the race is on to deliver some PVR software that's step above the bundled apps. SageTV has already tantalized us with advance info on the hardware, so you know support in its product is coming soon. Now we see that SnapStream has a prototype unit in its mitts, so you can assume it's cooking in everything needed for Beyond TV. But neither of them is going to be first to deliver -- that honor goes to GB-PVR, which did a wayback machine number on us and built support in to its 1.2.9 release back on March 9th. Nice 0-day hardware support! Turns out the poor developer is just "too busy with other stuff" and doesn't have HD content to really show this off right now, though (they're located in New Zealand).

UPDATE: The developer himself wants to clarify the motivation behind his quote: because he's in New Zealand, which uses DVB-T for free OTA HD, he personally doesn't have a need for the HD PVR. He thinks the HD PVR will be huge in N. America, though. Thanks for the clarification and the hard work, Graeme!

Read - Hauppauge HD PVR on the SnapStream bench
Read - GB-PVR announced support for HD PVR in March

Ever want to stream HD to your neighbour's house?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Apr 30th 2007 at 5:15PM

Stream HD Antenna
The only thing we like better than watching HD is watching HD while streaming it wirelessly. In this quest we have streamed it to our Xbox360 and via 802.11G from our HDHomeRun, but the guys over at the SnapStream Blog has one up'ed us and are streaming HD 6 houses away! They are using off the shelf antennas and a router that can be picked up anywhere. They were able to achieve 28Mbps maximum throughput which is more than enough to stream HD between their Snapstream BeyondTV DVRs.

SnapStream's Beyond TV 4.3 now with ShowSqueeze

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Jun 8th 2006 at 10:00AM

Beyond TV HDTVIt never fails when Microsoft releases a product it is seldom the best, but since it is so readily available *Read Free* it's easy to forget about the competition. Whether you are Citrix, PC-Anywhere or Snapstream, you have differentiate yourself by including some great features the Microsoft fans will have to wait for the next big release to get. The DIY DVR market isn't any different and Beyond TV has just raised the ante with 4.3. This is a great release for HD fans, it not only doesn't requires an NTSC tuner, but now it includs some additional HDTV specific features that you won't find in MCE.

The biggest new feature for HD fans is ShowSqueeze, you might be thinking that squeezing your shows is a bad thing, but hard drive space can be expensive. An accompanying feature called StreamSnip will strip away unwanted sub channels, you know that weather map and ShowSqueeze will automatically compress the shows with the latest CODECs to help you save space without sacrificing PQ. 

Beyond TV 4.3 now supports DivX 6.1 as well as the latest ATI Theater 650 chipset, which is the first to include a hardware encoded NTSC tuner and ATSC tuner on one chip.

Look forward to a full review, since SnapStream was nice enough to send us a copy for the HD Beat labs.

WatchHDTV: freeware for recording high-def

by Kevin C. Tofel posted Jan 17th 2006 at 9:42AM

WatchHDTV
There are plenty of alternatives to Windows Media Center for recording high-def signals on a PC, but there's always room for one more, right? WatchHDTV just popped up on our radar as a three program suite that supports the ATI HDTV Wonder, DIVCO FusionHDTV, and AverMedia A180 high-def cards. From the limited information on the WatchHDTV site, this is more of a "hands on" type of application as opposed to commercial software such as SnapStream's BeyondTV 4.

C'mon, who hasn't gotten their hands dirty under the the hood? We've got some other review units and software in the queue, so we won't get to this for a bit; give us a shout if you've used this or decide to take the plunge. (via The F-Stop Blues)

BeyondTV 4 review @ eHomeUpgrade

by Richard Lawler posted Dec 23rd 2005 at 6:40PM


eHomeUpgrade took a look at the latest version of the software, this time featuring HDTV suppport, and seem to be very impressed. The ability to recognize multiple tuners, DVR functions, and OTA HDTV support weigh heavily in BeyondTV's favor, it can even compress shows using DivX, unlike Windows Media Center's built in software.

Anyone thinking about building a HTPC should definitely take a look at this review, it's a powerful bit of software that should work well for anyone wanting to watch HDTV on their PC.




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