Beyond TV 4 Announced!
July 26th, 2005 at 6:35 pm by Soham
SnapStream Media will release Beyond TV 4 in the next few months. Beta users have already started seeing some of the upcoming features under the codename “Retro.� But until now, it’s all been very hush, hush. In general, at SnapStream, we like to stay quiet about new releases until beta users have had a chance to give us significant feedback. Well, the verdict is in, and things are looking very good. Three big ticket items slated for Beyond TV 4 are FM Radio support, DivX support, and HDTV!
Yes, HDTV. We’ve already got this up and running in our office lounge and the difference is simply unbelievable especially on our plasma TV. It’s six times the picture quality, two and a half times the audio channels with Dolby surround sound, and countless new camera angles, all in one easy-to-use product. If you’re wondering about the camera angles, you should have seen the digital broadcasts of the summer Olympics last year.
A select group of beta users have already started putting HD support through the paces at home and have really helped us create an HD PVR product that everyone can use. So a shout out to them and a big thanks for all of their early feedback. In my opinion, the coolest thing is that with Beyond TV’s built-in multiple tuner and multiple lineup support, I can simply add a digital tuner to my existing setup. I will still get all my analog content and be able to surf through all of my digital and analog stations in one seamlessly integrated program guide.
Out of the gates, Beyond TV 4 will support several over-the-air ATSC tuner cards. Some of the cards that we’re already testing with our software include:
AVerTVHD A180
(http://www.aver.com/products/tvtuner_avertvhd_mce_a180.shtml#2)
HDTV Wonder
(http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html)
VBox DTA 151 and USB-A 3560
(http://www.vboxcomm.com/product3.htm)
Fusion HDTV 3
(http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Products/).
We’ve also been running the software on ATSC reference designs by Conexant and Phillips, so there are probably many other cards that Beyond TV 4 will automatically support.
A quick note about DivX support. Beyond TV 4 will not only support ShowSqueeze to DivX, but will also enable watching live TV and recording direct to DivX from software encode cards. It will also support Plextor’s DivX based hardware encode cards. Through our partnership with DivX, Beyond TV 4 will bundle the necessary encoders and decoders so you can get up and running with DivX just as easily as you can with MPEG2 or WMV today.
Anyone who purchases Beyond TV 3 starting today through the Beyond TV 4 launch will get a free upgrade to Beyond TV 4 when it releases. We haven’t finalized the upgrade pricing for existing users just yet, but we will have more information closer to the launch.
Obviously, another item on many users’ minds is complete integration of Beyond Media and Beyond TV into one application. We are well aware of this and are working on it for a release after Beyond TV 4. Users who own both Beyond TV 4 and Beyond Media will be able to upgrade to the fully integrated product for free when it is released.
As you can see there are a lot of cool things in the pipeline from SnapStream and Beyond TV. So definitely stay tuned (hehe) for continued updates and information on Beyond TV 4!
July 26th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
I’m a current user of Beyond TV 3 and love the softtware! So all I have to do to get Beyond TV 4 and Beyond Media as an integrated product (without having to pay the upgrade fee for Beyong TV 4) is to purchase Beyond Media now! Sweeeeeet!
July 27th, 2005 at 3:41 am
I own a copy of btv 3 and really enjoyed using it until the australian tv market moved to digital, all new hdtv content is digital terrestrial. I am really looking forward to BDA support or similar so I can uninstall windows media centre and go back to beyond tv.
July 27th, 2005 at 3:54 am
You gotta be kidding me, anyone who buys btv 3 now will get upgraded for free, while those of us who paid the same amount a few days to months ago will be charged an upgrade fee? Sure, new customers get free upgrade while loyal customers that helped build this into a succesful platform, well, I suppose you still have to work out that upgrade fee…
Who wants to bet this will be a topic of flaming on the message boards? Might I strongly suggest you seriously consider your plan and take some lessons from your past PR mistakes.
July 27th, 2005 at 7:07 am
I think the upgrade scenario is reasonable.
Before this announcement a customer would be purchasing the product for its current features. Now they also may be purchasing it for its features which will be coming in the future.
Many companies charge for every upgrade, regardless of the amount of features (think Microsoft, Norton, Every Sports Video Game (namely EA), etc.).
July 27th, 2005 at 7:09 am
Sorry, scrach Norton and make that Symantec
July 27th, 2005 at 7:52 am
I think paying for an upgrade is fair in this case. It’s a significant step forward in terms of features, instead of being “just another round of bug fixes.”
At the end of the day, Snapstream has to make money or they’ll stop putting efforts into developing the product. Personally, I’m happy to see continuing development effort into the PVR software I’ve chosen.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this!
July 27th, 2005 at 8:08 am
I think the policy is fair but… it will certainly temper my joy when I get home tonight and open the Media Center Suite package that UPS is delivering later today. But such is life.
July 27th, 2005 at 8:31 am
Uh, where’s the beef? OTA HDTV? Yawn. Already been done. Give me cable or satellite premium HDTV and this might be interesting.
July 27th, 2005 at 8:32 am
This is great news. Can you comment on BTV4 supporting
firewire HDTV recording from set top boxes? The ATSC cards
inside PCs won’t get us the functionality of cable boxes or
cable cards but firewire/1394 will.
Thanks (and I’ll pay to upgrade for 1394 gladly).
July 27th, 2005 at 8:50 am
Does HDTV support include support for DVB cards in the rest of the world. If it does, fantastic, don’t mind paying to upgrade. If not can we pay for the upgrade when it does and just give us the DivX support you took off us a few versions ago as a free!
July 27th, 2005 at 10:10 am
This is what I’ve been waiting for. Never got on the beyond media bandwagon. But if its an intergrated product, +HDTV, I will upgrade the product.
Hopefully, they won’t charge the price of beyond media for the upgrade.
July 27th, 2005 at 10:27 am
If you upgraded in the past couple of days, we’ll make sure you get the upgrade for free. Our customer service is pretty accomodating on things like this. Just e-mail us at orders at snapstream.com when Beyond TV 4 begins to ship.
July 27th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Seems I was wrong about my initial statement. Seems I have to have Beyond TV 4 and Beyond Media to get the integrated product for free. Well I think the upgrade fee for Beyond TV 4 is well worth it. I mean I’ve had the product since the version 1.2 days. I think SnapStream is overdue for an upgrade fee in my opinion.
July 27th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Great work, guys! Can you tell us whether QAM will be supported for the in-the-clear cable broadcasts?
July 27th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
OTA HD? Who cares? Once again someone isn’t doing market research. I and most people use cable. I want to be able to record any and all unencrypted cable channels so I won’t have to rent a cable box. If only OTA is supported, I’ll rent a dual channel DVR from Comcast for $10 and not bother with 4.0 – which would be a real shame because I really like BeyondTV.
July 27th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
I agree with the other posters on the OTA HD issue. We don’t need this as much as we need a way to plug in a cable card and record digital + HD without renting a box from the cable company. The cable card rental is only $1.50 in my area.
I too will have to just go with a dual HD tuner DVR from my cable company. It’s too bad
July 27th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Comon guys, the whole firewire recording and CableCard PVR stuff just isn’t ready yet. No PVR available has 100% working firewire support yet, and NO PC CARDS support CableCards at all! Its obviously not that easy.
I’d be happy just to hear that they are working on it…
July 27th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Rakesh – THis is a question I asked on the SS forum but perhaps I should have asked it here. I will appreciate your response. Thanks…
BTV4 Upgrade Pricing & Commitment for BTV3.x.x bug fixes?
——————————————————————————–
Now that BTV 4 is announced with a clear feature set perhaps it is time to ask the question on the upgrade path & SnapStream’s commitment to keep 3.x alive for those of us who will not be upgrading for a while.
Where I live there is no HD broadcast. The other BTV4.x features announced (ie FM radio etc) are not at all interesting for me. In all reality I can see myself not wanting to move to BTV 4.x at all especially if I need to pay for it (which I am guessing will be the case).
Can somefrom from SS kindly issue a statement on upgrade pricing / policy for BTV 4 and the commitment to keep bug fixes coming for the 3.x line until there is a feature-frozen but otherwise stable version?
Thank you very much.
July 27th, 2005 at 7:08 pm
This is fantastic news.
Even though I recently bought BTV3 and Media somewhat recently, I look forward to purchasing an upgrade when it becomes available.
July 27th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
[...] — site admin @ 9:23 pm
SnapStream has announced version 4 of their DVR software, Beyond TV. New to this version of Beyon [...]
July 27th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
Ok, lots of posts, here are my concerns
1. upgrade – they never charged upgrades for users from 1.x and 2.x, yet us 3.x get charged after only 1 version, so now everybody (whether they started 2 versions ago or two months ago) have to pay the same upgrades.?
2. cost – when the BM and link pricing came out, it was outrageous. I got BM because of the reasonable beta discount, however I don’t have HDTV yet so I couldn’t be in the beta for that. If the upgrade price is reasonable I got no problem, but if it’s overboard again…
3. Support – I echo the support question. I haven’t upgraded to 3.7 since they broke the CC access, now they are moving to hdtv before we see fixes to 3.7, can you assure those who don’t upgrade they won’t get hung out to dry?
4. BTV and BM – how can you force someone who bought BOTH products to upgrade just to get integration, specifically if they don’t care about HDTV?
5. Satelite box/cable box – HDTV is useless unless we can record via these inputs, end of discussion. Over the air tv is a fraction of what we want to see in high quality.
July 28th, 2005 at 6:57 am
You guys are not speaking for everyone. HDTV is not “useless” for those of us who get it reliably with an antenna and don’t want to pay the cable company for a bunch of channels we don’t watch. I can’t wait for this to come out…
July 28th, 2005 at 6:57 am
On the OTA HDTV, I have to agree there. Here in Canada we have some OTA HDTV but all of the cable and sattelite providers are offering a more robust lineup.
On the upgrade topic, Surely SS can tell who started with v1.xx and v2.xx. Perhaps an upgrade price plan based upon whether the consumer has upgraded from 1.xx or 2.xx versus 3.xx. People who bought this less than a year ago should not have to pay the same as someone who bought this 3 years ago. It comes down to cusomer expectations and how long the software has been in use. It would be like Microsoft providing the same upgrade rebate for DOS owners as they offer for Windows XP owners. (Just a theoretical example)
Owners of 3.XX versions have been told that HDTV support is coming in the support knowledgebase and forums whereas 2.xx and 1.xx owners made their buying decisions long before these expectations were communicated.
I have to admit that without some way to record HDTV content from my sattelite receiver, I am not going to rush out to pay for an upgrade to get the equivalent added functionality possible from a $10 FM radio. Will FM radio timeshifting/recording be possible? Probably not.
-Wayreth
July 28th, 2005 at 8:55 am
I welcome OTA HDTV support. I sold my satellite HD box because they did not carry enough programming to make it worthwhile. I felt like the better shows last season were all OTA.
Can’t wait!
July 28th, 2005 at 9:11 am
k_kirk, you’re question has been answered on the forums.
everyone: thanks for the feedback… keep it coming!
July 28th, 2005 at 10:06 am
I bought both BTV and BM just over a month ago. I can’t believe that SS is going to provide free upgrades to those who ordered the think just a couple of days ago. This just doesn’t seem fair to me. Low upgrade fees or not I am very dissapointed in this announcement especially since the 3.x.x version is very buggy and unstable, at least on my system, (i.e. blue screens instead of picture until I reboot the system, hight CPU usage, lockups, jittery playback). I think SS should change their policies.
July 28th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
Support the MyHD MDP-120 and I’ll buy it.
July 28th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
After reading the above post, there are a few things that come to mind…
1. OTA HDTV… good thing
2. 1394 integration… better
3. FM tuner support… time shifting and which tuners will be supported
but heres my big one
4. Integration…. Woohoo… Ive been using snapstream and beyondTV from version 2 and the one thing that has kept me from buying Beyond Media has been the lack of integration. Once that happens this will be a software for everyone. MCE made it easy to get my family on board cuase of the complete integration.
Last thought…
How hard would it be to set up something to work with the pocketTV functions in the PSP firmware… 4 kids… everyone can watch there own show with head phones…
whos with me?
July 28th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
I have cable, but no HDTV via cable, only OTA. If I can use BTV4 to record OTA HDTV and cable SDTV, then that suits my needs just fine. Would be SUPER if the software could know that if something was NOT being broadcast in HDTV to use the cable to get it as SDTV. Not everything OTA is HDTV.
Any word on system specs? A low power machine that used hardware MPEG encoding with BTV3.7 won’t be able to DivX an HDTV stream and send to a Link machine live with BTV4. I wouldn’t mind buying a dual cpu system for this, I’d just like to know so I can save up. The cost of BTV4 will be very little compared to the cost of a new machine with new capture cards.
July 28th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
I cant stress enough that you should always have BTV as standalone product. I dont want all that other useless bloat (photo/music/dvd/etc) and if forced to use an integrated BTV / BM product I will probably look elsewhere.
July 28th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
The biggest problem I see with the firewire/1394 solution is that,
at least for now, it may only work for XP users. The people on AVSforum and elsewhere who have gotten firewire recording to work from cable boxes have only had success with XP due to 1394 protocol
stack issues………my win2k system could not even recognize the
MOT 6200 cable box, even though I had the drivers. That was the
straw that got me to upgrade to XP…..
Is there a business case for Snapstream here if only XP users can take advantage of it? As much as I’d love (and need) this feature, we probably can’t
expect Snapstream to develop features that don’t translate to multiple OS platforms and would be unusable for a large segment
of their users…..oh well.
If an internal or external digital tuner was available which took a cable card so that all HDTV programming was available from my cable provider, I would be quite happy to replace my cable box with that tuner + cable card. If the OS limitation for firewire/1394 is onerous, we may have to wait for these digital tuners to become available (only OTA cards are listed as being supported by BTV4 ‘out of the box’).
On the other hand, once BTV4 is capable of recording HDTV signals,
maybe the user/devloper community will come up with a plug-in that does
the firewire solution for XP users…….a few of us have been following the AVSforum discussion (and their offshoots) so maybe we could get this effort going during the beta so a plugin could be ready ASAP.
July 28th, 2005 at 2:42 pm
I think an upgrade fee is well justified. They can’t just continue developing a product and adding a ton of features for free. Maybe their upgrade pricing will be time-based and not just a flat fee for all upgrades–sort of a hassle to set up, but it’d probably help them avoid PR issues.
July 28th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
I read the post but I was wondering if I could also get the upgrade to 4 since I purchased beyond tv 3 weeks ago?
July 28th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
For those of you griping about no support for cable/satellite based HDTV support…. you are barking up the wrong tree. There are issues and hold ups outside of SS’s control at this time that prevent them from doing this.
MS just recently signed a deal with Cablelabs to be able to be the first (via Windows Media Center update coming this Fall…) to be able to integrate cablecard functionality into a PC-based DVR to record cable set-top based HDTV (and other protected cable channels including SD content) without the need for an external cable box.
There are major DRM issues here for content owners etc. at play and SS isn’t just not supporting what we are asking for because they are being ignorant. The technologies won’t allow them to go there yet… give em a break already!
Note: I’m currently a BTV user as well but that may change this Fall…
July 29th, 2005 at 5:43 am
[...] yond TV 4 will be available in the next couple months from SnapStream. Link: SnapStream – Beyond TV 4 Announced! This entry was posted [...]
July 29th, 2005 at 5:44 am
Someone made some very valid points here about upgrade policy and buggy software. All Snapstream users are basically acting as beta testers because every release, not jsut the betas, comes out with significant bugs. That is understandable, this is a complex process and covers a variety of tuners and hardware, etc. However, at the same time, the longer we have used BTV, the more we have helped Snapstream develop their product and fix their software. Personally I don’t thinks BTV and definitely not BM are at the point that they have fixed all the non-HDTV bugs. The HDTV version is almost a new product and should be priced as such, then you can justify an upgrade (cahrge 10 bucks more for btv 4 than btv 3, so even new buyers can pay for it now or upgrade for 10 bucks later). However, this requires that they keep BTV 3 supported as its own product, and then that should get integrated to BM parallel with BTV 4.
However, if BTV is getting away from version 3 and going to 4, then I don’t see how its fair to charge upgrades to all their loyal customers who helped them develop their product, I think they are better off focusing all their energies on capturing the new market and continue using their customer base as a support forum.
Anyway, it appears that BTV 4 (well, if you bought btv 3 today) is $70 on the web page, so I assume the upgrade fee will be the difference of the list price between which version you bought and the current price, that is fair. Other than that, then you are making the most loyal customers pay more than new customers in addition to all the help and support these customers gave you to get BTV developed this far. Link and BM I understand, those were new products, this one is far trickier.
July 31st, 2005 at 7:37 am
I, like some others, will not mind paying a small discounted amount (despite putting up with a buggy version 3 for almost a year) to upgrade to BTV4 but I really hope that I am not going to have to pay to upgrade my whole suite i.e.- BTV, BM and Link because if that turns out to be the case, it may be enough to make me look for an alternate product. I hope Snapstream is actually following the posts on this BLOG.
July 31st, 2005 at 7:44 am
What about SPDIF support?
I’m still waiting for SPDIF-Input. Come on. What a simple feature to add, yet we’re stuck with analog audio input? Am I supposed to really believe you’ve got your act together when you can’t code SPDIF-in?
August 1st, 2005 at 7:19 am
Now that they appear to have re-established a business relationship with DIVX, how about providing (whether for free or for an upgrade fee) a DIVX add-on to 3.7?
August 1st, 2005 at 10:52 am
[...] can continue to submit your digital living room. Can’t wait to see the new setups when Beyond TV 4 hits the stores, well, the SnapStream Online Store.
[...]
August 2nd, 2005 at 1:33 pm
3.4 had divx in showsqueeze- then we lost it – now we will have to pay for an upgrade to get it back? That doesn’t make sense to me…
August 2nd, 2005 at 9:53 pm
The divx support will be freakin’ sweet. But the real killer news is the integrated BeyondTV/Media product.
Of course, it really does suck that we have to pay to get divx BACK. I love you Snapstreamers, but take it easy on us upgraders eh? Sending you money every year is starting to feel like a subscription.
August 3rd, 2005 at 7:05 pm
Divx AND other codec support would be nice (xvid in particular), and I’ll echo the request for more digital audio support.
I do hope the pricing is reasonable. I bought 3 link, 1 btv, and 1 bm licences along with the firefly remote. I would hope they make return customers happy.
August 4th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
Rakesh, are there any plans on supporting VFD in this release?
August 5th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
I have not moved from 3.5.2 to 3.7 yet (reverted to 3.5.2 from 3.5.3 due to crashs) due to the various problems people were reporting.
My system is very stable at the moment, but I plan to try 3.7.4 this weekend after Friday night recordings are over.
I would love to have HDTV (cable), but have no use for OTA HDTV or FM radio.
I still may upgrade depending on the cost.
Loki
August 5th, 2005 at 6:09 pm
Is it safe to assume that the Fusion HDTV 5 card will be supported since the “3″ is? I’m itching to buy one, but I want to have some confidence that it will work with BTV4 first.
August 5th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
i just purchased an ATI HDTV wonder today because i found out as of july 1, 2005, ATI is required to incorporate DRM technology. anyways, i system restored (thanks bill!) back to 3.5.1 (build 1894) last week due to instability issues. i was planning to switch back to MCE, but i’ll stick around to see if they offer a trial version to check out. hopefully it’ll work as expected (simple2use). i’ll be more than happy to pay a minumal amount for an upgrade.
lets not forget how we come about….
August 6th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
I would like a nicely discounted “site upgrade” that upgrades someone’s BTV and BTV Link licenses to 4.0. I have a BTV Subscriber edition, a BTV with the DivX License, and a BTV Link license. It will be a mess if I only upgrade one or two — or buy a second Link license — anyway — you get the picture.
For somewhere around 2X the cost of a BTV Upgrade, I’d like to just upgrade everything.
August 9th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
I cant understand why there are no apparent plans to support DVB-T?? Especially since Fusion Supports this. Does this mean that Snapstream will be for the US only – very closed minded thinking I say, but typical of most US programmers.
Looks like im going to make the jump to MCE2005 … hehehe
August 9th, 2005 at 10:22 pm
I definitely would like to XviD added as ann easy-to-use ShowSqueeze option.
While DivX support is at least an improvement (I watch videos on my Palm PDA, and there is no Palm software that plays WMV’s), I prefer support a free, open-source coded like XviD.
There are no license fees, unlike XviD, so I don’t see the issue (unless DivX is pushing for exclusivity as part of its deal with SnapStream).
August 10th, 2005 at 9:18 am
ping2low,
That requirement to include DRM was put on hold by the courts. You can still buy HDTV Wonders without the DRM and will be able to do so for at least a little while until the issue is revisited by Congress and the FCC.
On a BTV note,
I have digital cable and would definitely need QAM support. If the Fusion3 card is supported as an OTA tuner, why can’t it be supported as a QAM tuner? The card is capable of it.
August 10th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
conexant bt878khf
August 11th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
I hope there is some serious “polish” on BTV4 to warrant any upgrade cost. The current 3.7.x version still feels like a beta and makes me want to try another product almost daily. I recognize that producers of software have to make money on their products, but don’t force the upgrade on users of 3.7.x…they need love too!
August 11th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
I have some major requests that i hope people will find this if they Google it. In BeyondTB 4 i want the following.
1. Were you have the multiple Folders on different different hard drives, i want Beyond TV to be able if the Default recording folder gets full it will automaticaly fail over to the next aviable recording folder.(Because their competitor SageTV already has this very valuable feature)
2. The total time remaining for recordings are recalculated for all space on all recording folders. Not just the default recording folder.
3. Automatic scin selection that we can change in the settings.
If i have any more thing thta I and many other want ill post it later.
August 11th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
Can’t wait for the DivX support. Just bought an Archos AV700 PVP and expected to be able to use BTV / showsqueeze to play recorded WMV files (as I did previously with a pocket pc). Found out too late that BTV WMV doesn’t support the WMV simple profile, so its useless. Only option that works really clumsily is to take MPG2 files, convert them with DivX Converter, and then convert them again with WMP to the DivX format supported by the PVP. This is extremely painful and really miss being able to use showsqueeze. Hopefully BTV4 will support Archos natively.
August 11th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
Too little, too late! I’ve made the switch to XP MCE and have been recording in glorious HD for months. Now you’re saying that the upgrade is coming in the “next few months” and it will require an upgrade fee? No thanks! Snapstream should have been working on HDTV support a long time ago. People have been begging for it in the forums for more than a year!
August 11th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
I agree with D.
I love my MyHD card (although I have the 130), but am not really in love with its recording interface. SnapStream has traditionally supported hardware encoder cards and I hope they get the MyHD cards working.
I had DivX support before from BTV (or was it PVS?) and found it took too long to encode to really be worthwhile. I really don’t have much of a need for FM radio support. However, if the MyHD card is supported, I’ll certainly be upgrading.
August 11th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
HDTV and DivX support are great!
With respect to Anonymous Fella, MS signing an agreement with Cablelabs is barking up the wrong tree. The cable STB manufacturers do not design for the end users, but for the cable companies. Snapstream will be much better served working with the CE manufacturers in supporting the DTV Link interface via Firewire from Digital Cable Ready TVs rather than dealing with the cable STB manufacturers. Remember, MS has billions invested in the cable companies going back to the mid 1990s.
I, and I am sure many other Snapstream users, would prefer to custom build their own systems. With MS Media Center, only prefab options are available. BTV4 is a terrific step, and a great alternative to MS WinXP MCE.
August 12th, 2005 at 11:36 am
Well one question in mind was answered. FM radio. So many things I want to listen to, but a work schedule that is anything but…
And DivX is a very usful tool.
One request, a utility that when moving the recording location to a new hard drive or other location, that it, selectively, moves the files also.
August 12th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
The upgrade fee for LONG loyal customers that have stuck with you through many upgrade headaches is not good PR! I think anyone that had a version of BTV BEFORE BTV 3.5 should also get a free upgrade as we SUFFERED while you learned by our pain. Especially previous Beta testers.
I would be more interested in hearing about USB or Serial support for digital Cable boxes. Almost everyone has a digital Cable box now and the band aid solution of an IR repeater on BTV really sucks.
August 13th, 2005 at 10:39 am
If I remember correctly, there was a message on the website that I would be entitled to free upgrades when I purchased the product. I don’t remember if it said free 3.x upgrades.
If it did not explicitly say 3.x (or similar), then I should get free upgrades to 4.x or it is clearly false advertising.
August 13th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
forget about the over the air crap. focus on closed captions. very important, yet no one is mentioning it at all.
please get CC working. thanks.
also, the web site did say free upgrades as i remember, but i wouldn’t mind $10-15 to upgrade.
August 13th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
I remember when i first bought BeyondTV that it was lifetime free upgrades, If i digg around in my e-mail i belive i can find it somewere.
But i want way better HDD folder management in case the default folder gets full and falls over to the other folders.
Greg
August 13th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
I am still burning that you may charge long time customers an upgrade fee. I requested my purchase be refunded and I never did get my refund although I see in old emails a refund was guarenteed. With 3.5.7 BTV finally seems to be working more or less, but I have not tried all features. Below is the letter I sent to you previously. I think you should SERIOUSLY abandone plans to charge long term users and beta testers and upgrade fee.
“You have yet to offer a solution to my BTV not working. In fact it has not worked in months wait for a response from you! It NEVER ever did fully work and I started as a BETA tester back in 2003 or 2002. I have put an exceeding large amount of effort into getting you program to work. Twice it has corrupted my operating system. Recently I did a full low level format and did a clean install of Windows XP Pro and every single, graphics, audio, Windows upgrade I could find. I have had an expect check my Linksys router, the most common on the market for open ports as per you suggestions. All with no success. Below you will see I paid $59.95 USD for your software. If you are unable to get this working, I want a full refund ASAP. I have over 106 email to and from you trying to get this program to work! Those are the ones I can find. I think I have gone way beyond what a normal consumer is expected to do to get a program to operate. I will add that this is the ONLY program on my computer that does not work!”
August 13th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
I bought Snapstream BTV through MyTV Store They claim upgrades are included. Below is a clip from their web page. They also sya they are an authorised agent of Snapstream.
“Beyond TV is software that together with a hardware video capture card (not included) will turn your PC into a Personal Video Recorder. You get all the features of set top PVR’s like a Tivo or ReplayTV plus the additional power and flexibility of a PC based video server.
Unlike with Tivo or ReplayTV, Beyond TV (BTV) records video in standard video formats that allow you the freedom to edit the programs you’ve recorded, save them to DVD or VCD discs, and use the video files however you like.
NOTE: We are a fully authorized reseller of software from SnapStream Media. This version of Beyond TV will ship to you in a retail packaged DVD case. The software license entitles the user to free upgrades of future versions of Beyond TV 3. “
August 15th, 2005 at 12:13 am
I like the new features. I am looking forward to HDTV. The only issue is that there are no OTA HD signals in my area, I can only get HD via satellite, and the receiver has component video out and DVI out. I would need some way of recording that with Beyond TV to make the new feature usable.
August 15th, 2005 at 10:00 am
Quoting B-Gates’s post above:
*****
“I bought Snapstream BTV through MyTV Store They claim upgrades are included. Below is a clip from their web page. They also sya they are an authorised agent of Snapstream.”
and
“NOTE: We are a fully authorized reseller of software from SnapStream Media. This version of Beyond TV will ship to you in a retail packaged DVD case. The software license entitles the user to free upgrades of future versions of Beyond TV 3. â€?”
******
Clearly you contridicted yourself in your own post! You are correct, “free upgrades of future versions of VERSION #3″ … the majority of posters here are complaining about the VERSION #4 software that was just announced. Thus, the confusion by people like yourself who don’t realize that according to Snapstream, “Beyond TV 3.7″ is going to be a totally different product (thus the upgrade cost) from “Beyond TV 4.0″ .
Understand?
August 15th, 2005 at 5:34 pm
I would be happy to pay a small upgrade for a guarenteed BUG free version of BTV but so far is your read this BLOG and the user forms Snapstream has failed to provide. I might also add Snastream has failed to honour their Money Back Guarentee!
I bet SnapStream is not willing to say this release will be BUG free!
August 15th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
SnapStream Media Announces Beyond TV 4
According to a post on SnapStream’s blog SnapStream Media plans to release Beyond TV 4 within the next few months. Which I take to mean before the end of the year. According to SnapStream beta testers are already using some of the new features fr…
August 17th, 2005 at 10:29 am
I agree with edgarmoon’s first post. I bought BTV3.5 a little while ago, and haven’t even used it for more than an hour or two, and I don’t get the upgrade, but people who buy it NOW do??? SageTV, Meedio, & MythTV, here I come.
August 17th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
Um, Derek… If you’re within the 30-day money back guarantee you could always return it and repurchase it. voila free 4.0 upgrade…
and if you’re outside of the 30-day moneyback guarantee then they already have your money… so threatening *gasp* that you’re going to go to their competitors then goes from ineffective to sad
August 17th, 2005 at 8:09 pm
B Gates, you are living in La-La Land. No company can promise “bug free” software because it doesn’t exist. And if they don’t charge money for an upgrade how do you think they will continue on with more improvements (further updates) without making any money?
I just hope this comes out before the fall (HD) season starts…
August 19th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Will Snapstream continue to support BTV3 features (web interface, program guide, etc.) for those of us not wanting to go the upgrade path but still want to use the BTV3 software?
August 20th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
OK, here is my short summary for Snapsream. I have bught both BM and BTV. I have the firefly remote as well. Here are a few issues that should be addressed in the combined product:
1) Get BM to recognize additional decoders for DVDs and add the SPDIF functionality.
2) With the firefly software, we get BM basic which loads by default. This means that both BM and BM basic appear to be running and BTV as well. This becomes a problem when trying to adjust the firefly because it will open BM basic. Please find a way to get rid of BM basic if the user has BM.
3) Add CC support
4) If a user has purchased BM and BTV, should they have to pay an upgrade fee? probably not.
5) add back the DIVX for free since it was a legit part of version3 for a while.
6) find a way to use the firefly remote with BTV to get the channel guide. Currently I have to back out of live tv (this purges the buffer), go to channel guide, then to back to live tv. You can do it with a mouse, but not with the firefly remote. You can use the channel up/down button to get the mini guide at the bottom of the page, but this isn’t as good as the full guide.
7) make the upgrade fee low and reasonable. This company will survive by making a better product and getting more users. Don’t milk the users that have given you the revenue stream to keep your company going. I realize that the sales mantra is to screw the long term customers (because they expect they won’t leave or care that they are not getting any good deals) and to give new subscribers great deals so that they can begin milking them as long term customers, but savvy customers understand and hate this. $10-20 for the upgrade should be reasonable.
thanks.
p.
August 20th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
My Beyond TV software works Perfectly! I love it. No strange bugs that I’ve noticed, no crashes… It records what I like and I watch what I want when I want, or share with a friend on a DVD+R. I have never had a complaint about it’s functionality. Oooh… DVD recorder support might be nice….
I’ve been using BTV around 8 months with Beyond Media and the Firefly Remote. I have some issues with BM, and would certainly find it nicer to use as a full software suite. Love the Firefly, although an app to customize some of the buttons/feaures would certainly be nice.
Some of you people need to get a clue. Snapstream isn’t here for our benefit. They’re a business that needs to generate revenue to survive. I benefit from them. I’ve given enough money to Microsoft already! I’ll GLADLY support the fine people at Snapstream for their latest great product and my continued enjoyment.
Thanks Guys!
P4-2.8Ghz 640Gig Snapstream Digital Entertainment Center
August 21st, 2005 at 5:01 pm
Paul,
Try the ‘A’ Button on the Firefly. Brings up the guide on my system.
In General
Bring on BTV 4. As long as the upgrade price isn’t too high I’ll be happy. Don’t forget these guys are in business to make money. You don’t see Intel handing out new processors just because the one you have has been superceeded. Is everyone expecting a free upgrade to the latest MS beast. What extra features will that bring? Probably not many to the average user but I guarantee we will all purchase a copy in the coming months. Some of you guys obviously want the world for not a lot in return.
August 22nd, 2005 at 12:12 am
I wish they release this, this month, but i guess they arn’t ready yet. I need to record my OTA HDTV for the fall season. i’m stuck using my crappy ATI MMC for recording.
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:37 pm
Hey John H. – the A button works for the full screen guide. thanks a lot. If this info is not in the manual (is there a manual for the firefly?), please add it so that we don’t have to do trial/error or blogging.
Closed Captions are still an issue. My wife and I like to watch the CCs when one of us is sleeping and are trying to be quiet. Isn’t there a way to get this done? and make sure it can happen in realtime, NOT just recorded shows.
Thanks.
p
August 24th, 2005 at 8:41 am
I am a current owner of of BTV 3. I’m running version 3.7. I would like to purchase some link licenses. What happens when version 4 comes out? Am I left needing to buy new software and link license or is there some kind of protection for purchasing link licenses?
Neal
August 29th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Neal,
Excellent question. When a customer upgrades to Beyond TV 4, he or she will also receive free upgrades for Beyond TV Link. You will not have to pay to upgrade Beyond TV 3 Link to Beyond TV 4 Link. I hope that makes the decision to use Beyond TV Link now a little easier.
Soham
September 7th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Who cares about HDTV. I want mp4 support to play my programs straight on the PSP. Other than that, I am perfectly happy with BTV3.5
September 11th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
I have never had an issue with BTV, it has worked exactly as I have desired (actually a lot better than desired). The only issues I’ve ever had were due to using an AIW and having no hardware MPEG – not an issue introduced by Snapstream, but by me, lol.
My BTV has never (never, ever) crashed, nor has it ever failed to show me TV signal when I asked to to, or failed to make a recording. From my usage it is a perfect product that performs as good or better than any other software I use.
Granted, my system also never crashes under any other circumstances, so we see here the advantage of a stable platform.
I look forward to the new features of FM Radio, HDTV and all the other tweaks and improvements that warrant this a full version increase.
Keep up the great work Snapstream, I have no issue with paying for the upgrade. As fun as making cool software is (I know from experience) its no fun at all if you don’t get paid.
September 18th, 2005 at 9:40 pm
Can you give a rough timeline of when BTV4 is going to be released? I need to redo the system sometime soon, but I would put this off if BTV4 is scheduled to ship in the next month.
September 23rd, 2005 at 1:41 pm
MY ATI HDTV WONDER CARD ONLY HAS COAX INPUT- I CAN ONLY FIND OLDER DIRECTV HD BOXES(RCA- DTC100/ DTC210 HUGHES HIRE8/ HTLHD) WITH COAX OUT AND THIS OUTPUT IS MADE FOR OLDER STANDARD DEF TVS – I DONT THINK THAT THE COAX OUTPUT WILL BE HIGH DEF? ARE THERE ANY HD TUNER INPUT CARDS THAT HAVE DVI INPUT? WHAT DOES SNAPSTREAM RECOMEND
September 26th, 2005 at 2:17 pm
personally i consider beyond tv more a Hobby or a Video Game, not “REAL” software like photoshop or quark.
it NEVER has or will work one hundred percent, close but far from perfect.
at least twice a week something fails or does not record.
right now i am battling evil sound fluctuations and black screens.
i hope to get past this level and maybe free the “princess”, she is wonderfull and can record and play tv flawlessly.
I am on these forums all the time looking for solutions but more often find that the problems still exist and people post things like “help, i am having the same issue, any solution yet?”
the solution is to UPGRADE to the latest release (PATCH)
I will pay for an upgrade if it works be lets be serious and honest.
Does anyone really think this is going to fix existing issues?
I want a promise from Snapstream before i pay anything more, or better yet, why not FIX version 3, you owe us that!
October 8th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
If I purchase the BTV3 from your website @$69.95, will this qualify for an upgrade to BTV4?
Thanks,
Mike Winans
October 10th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Hello Mike,
Yes, it will.
Soham
October 11th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
If i purchase beyond tv from a 3rd party site like amazon.com or buy.com, will that purchase qualify me for a free upgrade to BTV4 when it’s released? Thanks!
-Jason
October 11th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
PS – do we have any better idea as to WHEN beyond tv 4 will be ‘officially’ released?
October 11th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
Jason,
Yes, purchases from those sites will also qualify. I would suggest that you keep your receipts just in case.
Sorry, but we do not want to curtail the beta process prematurely, so we do not have an official release date yet.
Soham
October 11th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Will the “Free Upgrade” apply to those of us who purchased BeyondTV bundled with a capture card within the date range mentioned?
October 12th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
Hello Bo,
The version of Beyond TV that gets bundled with capture cards is not the same as the full product. Specifically, most capture cards bundle Beyond TV 3 SE. The free upgrade is a special offer that we are only offering customers who purchased the full product after the announcement date. You will still have an opportunity to upgrade without buying the whole application new, but it will not be the special “free” offer.
Regards,
Soham
October 13th, 2005 at 9:47 am
Will you be required to have an additional tuner card, other that the HD Fusion 3 (or 5), in order for Version 4 to function?? This appears to be a requirement of MS MCE. The Fusion software that comes with the card does not require and additional tuner card.
October 13th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Howard,
You will be able to use Beyond TV 4 with just an ATSC card if you want. So you don’t have to add the extra card.
Soham
October 18th, 2005 at 4:44 am
I have been using Beyond TV since it was called snapstream, after scrapping Tivo. Have never come across a company that has given me ALL the releases FREE so far (call it bug fixes if you will) for free. Was actually getting worried that they would not survive or limit product development.
In any case…great product and unlike other products that I pay more for, I use it EVERYDAY…so am vey happy paying for the upgrade if new features are delivered.
October 18th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
One solution for the upgrade cost contiversy is to let the current users get a discounted rate to upgrade before the release date. People who buy version 3 are gambling, with risks. I had version 3 with an ATI card, and the software didn’t get used for almost 9 months. Now I’ve bought new cards and love the software. Why not let us pre-purchase the upgrade before the release at a discounted rate.
October 20th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Why is the release date such a mystery?
Not only is it aggravating to clients (us) but I am sure the BTV engineers would like to set a finish line and shoot for it. If one is set inhouse, why not tell us? We all understand release dates can be pushed if necessary.
Can someone please explain this?
October 25th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
VERY INTERESTED. I HAVE A HDTV WONDER I AM USING NOW WITH A DELL P4 INTO A RCA SCENIUM HDTV 61 WITH A HI DEF TUNER CARD.
October 26th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
I bought 3.x and fought with it for almost a year before i got it half working properly. That’s not counting the upgrades I installed only to have to downgrade to get things working again.
I’ll spend the money on 4.0, but I want some friggin’ guarentees this time around. Stabilty or refund, or guarenteed free upgrades to 5.9.
Honestly if the cost is pohibitive or the software buggy, I’m moving to MCE.
November 1st, 2005 at 10:42 am
“I bought 3.x and fought with it for almost a year before i got it half working properly. That’s not counting the upgrades I installed only to have to downgrade to get things working again.”
Dude calm down. That’s why there is a demo.
I struggled for 3 months to get my myth TV box working.
Last night I gave up and in 10 minutes beyond TV was capturing to a shared folder that is accessible across my entire network. Today I’m scheduling recordings from work. Combine it with the free services from orb.com and the price for value is amazing.
Sure it doesn’t do everything thing I want (DIVX DIVX DIVX) but I here the new version will so I think I’m going to buy it.
November 4th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
My question is that after BTV4 is released and then the combined version of Beyond TV and Beyond Media is released, will BM be an updated version? I ask because while I purchased both programs, only BTV runs on my Windows 2003 SP1 box – right now, Beyond Media is collecting dust. I did submit a trouble ticket with tech support, but after reading more posts on the forums, it seems to be a problem with SP1 and *everybody* is experiencing it, not just me.
I’m hoping that when the new Beyond Media is released that it will work properly under Win2K3 SP1 just like my current version of BTV (which is absolutely flawless). If not, then I’m beginning to regret purchasing the SnapStream Media Center Suite over just BTV…
Thanks for letting me vent…
-Troy
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:47 pm
“Obviously, another item on many users’ minds is complete integration of Beyond Media and Beyond TV into one application. We are well aware of this and are working on it for a release after Beyond TV 4. Users who own both Beyond TV 4 and Beyond Media will be able to upgrade to the fully integrated product for free when it is released. ”
Any news It’s been about 13 months since this was mentioned and it’s one major reason I was comfortable paying for the box version of Beyond Media (dispointing how disjointed it is from BTV).
Looking forward to hearing from someone about the progress on this.
Thanks
Bill Groves
October 29th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Excellent time. And nice site. Keep up a good work!
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