SnapStream's Beyond TV 3 - The Must-Have Home Multimedia Software
by Andrew Ku on May 12, 2004 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
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The TV in Beyond TV - Recording & Program Guide (continued)
The most comprehensive tool about recordings is the "setup recording" sub-menu off the main menu.
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Switching to the program guide and setting up recordings provides different options. The only difference is that "timed recording" is not present and "watch this episode" is instead. This is mainly because the program guide records on the basis of actual TV shows and is, therefore, limited to their timeframe. And since you are already watching the TV show that you want to record in the live TV window, you get the "watch this episode option" within the program guide.
Click to enlarge.
Once the program is selected, Beyond TV 3 prompts with several options. The only thing that caught our eye was "record all new episodes" option, which we have not seen either in MCE or other programs. This is a nice feature in case you only want to record the new episodes of a given TV show. This way, you can avoid having re-runs hog otherwise precious hard drive space.
Selecting record directly will bring you back to the live TV window, but the live TV icon will be replaced by a recording icon. Rewind and fast forward are still available as options while recording similar to Windows XP MCE 2004.
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SnapStream has thought this out quite a bit and it shows, since there is a nice red button icon in the lower right hand corner, indicating that a recording is taking place.
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Meanwhile, the system tray has a different icon so that it also keeps you aware of a recording status.
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The TV in Beyond TV – Recording & Program Guide
The TV in Beyond TV – Recording & Program Guide (continued)
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batorok - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
as a Sagetv user I'm pretty miffed they didn't compare the two. Sagetv 2.0 has a really nice new interface, handles multimedia (pics, mp3z, movies, dvds including vob files) pretty well, has multituner support, and better image quality of viewed tv (I demoed both before buying sage). Since tv is what it's all about, the picture quality is what's important to me.reboos - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link
MythTv is very nice.mcveigh - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link
good question crazy_vagI don't think snapstream supports HD capture cards
crazy_vag - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link
When will I be able to record Soprano's in HDTV on HTPC???mcveigh - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link
I think you should consider comparing it to tivo/replay as I think this is more what it is aimed at replacing.also I would like to see more info about multile tuners.
how about a shoot out of personal video software in the future?
SnapStream vs. sage TV vs. windows MCE vs. ????
Jeff7181 - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link
Wonderful review. Looks like a very robust piece of software. If I was in the market to build a HTPC I'd probably buy it. From what I see, I like the information windows... they have a little bit too much info, but at least they're transparent so you can still see the show... unlike Comcast the last time I paid for digital cable.llamas - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link
Are you considering a review of SageTV 2.0 (just released)? It would interesting to hear how it compares with BTV3. SageTV supports multiple tuners, and has client software with the same interface as the server.