New HDTV PVR products bundled with Beyond TV
October 25th, 2005 at 1:25 pm by Rakesh
With big and expandable hard drives and powerful processors, the PC is a great device for watching and recording high-definition TV. Plus, your PC already has a display that supports high-definition, unlike most of our TVs, so it’s ideal for displaying shows in HDTV. So with the broadcast flag having been struck down this past summer, TV tuner card manufacturers have a renewed interest in making it easy for us to transform our PCs into HDTV PVRs.
Enter Beyond TV. Today, we announced that several leading companies have chosen to license and bundle a Beyond TV (with HDTV PVR technology, of course), with their HDTV tuner card products. These companies and their products include:
- ADS Technology’s Instant HDTV PCI
- KWorld’s ATSC-110, and
- VBOX’s Cat’s Eye USB and PCI products.
All of these new ATSC / HDTV products include special versions of Beyond TV 3 that include our HDTV PVR technology. This is the same great technology for HDTV PVR that will be in Beyond TV 4 when it begins shipping in the next couple of weeks. These new products are a big step forward for HDTV PVR — they are affordable (with prices ranging from $100 to $150), easy to setup and easy to use.
ADS Technology’s Instant HDTV PCI
KWorld’s ATSC-110
October 25th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
Pretty good deal on these cards. I know that VBox has had ATSC PCI HDTV tuner cards out there for about a year or so. If you purchase one of these with the special edition of BTV3 will you get a free upgrade to BTV4?
October 25th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
always like to see HDTV
October 25th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
Nope, there are no free upgrades from the OEM versions of Beyond TV to Beyond TV 4.
October 26th, 2005 at 7:31 am
Are the OEM versions pretty much full-fledged versions of BTV3 with the added supposed of OTA ATSC HDTV? Including guide updates and all?
October 26th, 2005 at 8:32 am
Ray, there are actually two different versions of Beyond TV to be found in these different bundles. Vbox and Kworld are shipping Beyond TV SE and ADS Tech is shipping Beyond TV Express.
Beyond TV SE is just like the version we ship with Visiontek and Diamond — it’s the full-fledged version of Beyond TV 3 except there’s a subscription fee for the program guide. You can read more about Beyond TV SE its web page.
Beyond TV Express is a new OEM SKU and it’s different — it’s de-featured (no record always, ShowSqueeze, SmartSkip, only a 3-day program guide) but there is no subscription involved.
October 26th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
Will the upgrade from BT3 to BT4 be free or will there be an upgrade cost?
October 27th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Is the MPEG decoding on these cards software based or hardware based?
October 27th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Chris: Yes, there is an upgrade cost from Beyond TV 3 to Beyond TV 4.
Randy: All of the decoding on these cards is done in software, not hardware-based. Beyond TV 4 includes audio and video decoders optimized for decoding digital and HDTV content. But decoding in software does require some horsepower on the CPU.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:41 am
Good timing. Just smoked my 3 year old PVR250(Damn Prescott chips heat) so ATSC USB PVR here I come.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Admin,
Did you mean hardware / software encoding instead of decoding?
October 27th, 2005 at 11:49 am
(FYI, the “Administrator post was me, Rakesh, I posted using the Administrator account by mistake :))
Mike: nope, I meant decoding — there is no encoding that happens with a digital signal because it comes into the PC through the aerial antenna already encoded. All that’s left to be done at that point is decoding (ie playback).
October 27th, 2005 at 11:49 am
Do any of the HDTV cards do MPEG hardware encoding?
October 27th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Ah. I wasn’t even thinking. I will now make my purchase.
October 27th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Dear Rakesh:
These developments look inviting. I bought a Diamond PVR 550 with BTV3 SE but when the 60 day EPG was up I got a good deal on a boxed version of BTV3 with life-time EPG which I am using now. I want to keep using my Diamond card but would like to add a USB HDTV tuner.
Will either of these versions work with the VBox USB HDTV tuner or would I need to get another version of BTV3 SE (copperbox.com offers the VBox bare or in bundle with BTV3 SE). Can I use my current EPG subscription with them? Do I need two versions of BTV running or what?
I use and enjoy BTV a lot and look forward to BTV4. I don’t want to spend money on older tech but I would like to try out HDTV. Any advice?
October 28th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Rakesh,
Thanks for the info on encoding and decoding. If I understand this correctly,during the recording of the digital signal, the load on the CPU will be minimal since the signal does not have to be encoded?
October 28th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
Randy, That’s correct, load on CPU while recording HD is minimal because the stream being captured is already encoded. Playback is where your CPU will get taxed.
October 30th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
Here is another question. I’m really interested in the KWorld’s ATSC-110, I already have BTV 3.5.3 registered with 4 Tuners. If I purchase this card will I have to pay another $49.99 to license the BTV 3.8 SE that comes with this card or will it take the license key that I already have??
October 31st, 2005 at 2:58 pm
I bought Beyound TV last June or July of this year.
Is it still a free upgrade??
Any release date ??
October 31st, 2005 at 10:58 pm
I just purchased a VBOX Cat’s Eye - the USB 2 version a week ago and have been using it with a a Media Center PC. At the time it was obviously not bundled with a copy of Beyond TV. If I purchase Beyond TV 4 will it support the Vbox?
October 31st, 2005 at 11:20 pm
Hannes, Yes, Beyond TV 4 will support the Vbox as well as all of these other OEM cards.
November 1st, 2005 at 1:57 am
How will btv 4 work with multiple tuners and how will btv 4 work with multiple HDTV tuners should I want to get multiple HDTV tuners in an BTV 4 setup? I would like to get 4 HDTV cards to work together in one system with BTV 4……………….Thanks
November 1st, 2005 at 9:04 am
george, Your question is answered in detail here: http://blogs.snapstream.com/2005/09/12/snapstream-qa-2/. The short answer to your question is that you’ll be able to combine any number of HDTV tuner cards with any number of analog tuners (subject to the limitations of your PC’s hardware). We’ll be publishing a list of HDTV tuner cards that work in multi-tuner configurations.
November 5th, 2005 at 4:24 pm
Is there any update on when HDTV tuners will include CableCard support? Will BTV4 include support for this?
November 5th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
Mike: No word on the ‘when’ part of your question and, nope, Beyond TV 4 won’t support CableCards (at least not when it’s launched!)
November 6th, 2005 at 6:12 am
Dear gentlemen,
I was wondering I have ver 3.7 of BTV and I also have DSCALER installed but when it comes up on the screen to chose it as a option for codec it is grayed out and it won’t let me select it. I don’t know if this happens to anybody else. Any thoughts on this ? Also did you guys at Snapstream ever think about creating a screen to preview 4 or 6 channels at a time like several capture cards do in your software and then giving us theoption to select one of those channels to either watch or record. I guess this could apply to recorded shows too. I don’t know how the FM radio station section of the new BTV is setup but can we record multiple stream from multiple FM capture cards if we have multiple capture cards setup in our system. Thanks for putting out the new ver BTV 4.0…….George
November 6th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
I don’t understand the restriction of “over the air” HDTV. My cable company is now providing HDTV on several channels. What is preventing card manufacturers from accepting and consequently Snapstream from recording cable HDTV? I am probably representative of most cable users in not receiving “over the air” signals.
Thanks
November 10th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
I just installed KWORLD ATSC-110 with Beyond TV SE. It is connected to my Comcast Line. However, My channel only goes from 2-99. or is this suppose to get all channel that comes in thru the cable line?. Like 200,300,400,500 etc.
Thanks
November 11th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Biyi, analog comcast channels only go from 2-99. If you have channels like 200, 300, etc. that is digital cable which I believes requires a digital tuner box from comcast. There are instructions in the BTV Help files to help you connect to digital cable.
November 23rd, 2005 at 10:45 am
I ordered the kworld card and I should receive it today.
It is disapointing that on the kworld tv page at tigerdirect (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?Sku=O38-1072) says “No subscription fees ever” and I look at this blog and I find out that I have a software named : “SE=subscription edition”.
I guess I need to discuss with tigerdirect for false advertising and not taking up here on the software producer, but I have a question:
I have Windows MCE and I wonder if I will install Beyond TV and pay 49$ more for the upgrade (or 29$ for the 3.5 edition) or I better stay with MCE. Are they any major differences between them. I think that MCE have the chanell guide for free.
Thanx,
Sergiu
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:24 pm
Can BTV4 capture from both inputs on the Kworld HD capture card (same question goes for the ADS HD capture card).
I believe one input is for analog and the other for digital broadcasts. Can both inputs be used at the same time to capture both analog and digital broadcasts.
Thanks,
Jimmy
November 25th, 2005 at 9:27 am
Got my Kworld yesterday and also upgraded to BTV4. Works great most of the times. The PQ it’s great. I did record both CSI and survivor and I had great experiance with it except that the computer did ran out of memory and I got the :”blue screen of death” - did not see that since w98. And restarted. I got “only” 1 gig of ddr400 mem, but I’lll get some more today.
Overall hapy withh the purchase, but still not as relible as Tivo that I’lll keep as back-up on SD.
To answer Jimmy: I did not try yet the SD input , but it should work with both.
Sergiu
Athlon 64 2800+, msi Mobo with 800mhz fsb, 1gig ddr 400, ati 128mb 9200 se.
November 25th, 2005 at 9:29 am
By the way the btv 4 seems to be faster in changing chanells and more reliable compared with 3.8se that come with my card.
Sergiu
November 29th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
With analog signal coming in, does the card encode via software or hardware? Im new to this and heard that if its done through software, it could be very taxing on the cpu. I would be plugging in regular cable.
thanks,
Mike K.
November 30th, 2005 at 1:23 am
Sergiu, you can’t blame TigerDirect, they just copy the specs from the video card mfg.
http://www.kworld.com.tw/en/product/da/004/atsc_110.htm, but after reading that I would have to pay for a program listing, I’m thinking of sticking with MCE since it does have a free program listing, so does Nividia for that matter.
What are the advantages of Beyond 4 over MCE 2005?
December 1st, 2005 at 11:58 am
Will the pvr work with cable based hdtv?
December 2nd, 2005 at 1:36 pm
All I want to do is record movies using my Comcast digital cable box. I am currently using BTV3 with the IR Blaster. I can get good video, but the audio only comes out mono.
Will any of the new BTV4 bundles allow me to record digital cable movies (HBO, etc) with at least stereo audio (either with or without HD)?
December 2nd, 2005 at 6:43 pm
Brian: Nope, these bundles all only support over-the-air digital / HDTV, not cable based digital / HDTV.
Dennis: This depends on what kind of TV card you have — you must have a card that doesn’t support stereo sound. If you want some further help on this, you can e-mail info@snapstream.com.
December 2nd, 2005 at 6:44 pm
(P.S. that was me above. :-))
December 4th, 2005 at 12:41 am
Dennis,
I also want to record HDTV using my Comcast digital cable box. Did you connect the component outputs from the cable box to the component inputs on the HD capture card you have? If so, what is the exact model of your capture card and does it capture at least at 1080 x 1440 (or preferrably 1080 x 1920)?
December 7th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
I purchase BTV3 and upgraded to BTV4. Now I am looking for an HDTV card and trying to decide between the DVICO FusionHD card and the ADS Tech Instant HDTV PCI card.
Any comments/concerns/recommendations on either?
December 8th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Will BTV4 work OK with an ATI HDTV Wonder card? The ATI software leaves so much to be desired that it is unusable. Anyone tried this card with BeyondTV 4?
December 8th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
Shaun, We did a bunch of testing with this card before we shipped Beyond TV 4 so it should work just fine. It’s also on our list of officially supported cards which you’ll find in the HDTV setup center (http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/hdtv-setup-center.asp).
December 13th, 2005 at 1:24 am
hey I was wondering the other day I was trying to record a segment from one show and a segment from another show actually the topten list from one show and the interview from another late show. I have 3 capture cards and they are setup and everything. I was trying to do a manual recording of both shows but it only let me setup one manual recording. Why is this? I’d like to record a little bit from 2 shows by setting up the manual recording method. Any thoughts on how to do this or if you can with the software the way it is. I only wanted to record 10 minutes from both shows at the same time without having to manually start and stop the recording….Thanks……George
December 16th, 2005 at 4:24 am
I also bought a Kworld ATSC-110 card. A part of my decision to buy this card was the fact that the Kworld website, as well as the back of the retail box clearly states “No subscription fees ever.” So, what’s one of the first things I see when installing the copy of BTV that came in the box? You have 30 days of guide service then must buy a subscription or upgrade to BTV 4.0.
Sounds like false advertising to me. Who do I need to talk to in order to get what was advertised on the box?
For those who are going to say why should beyondtv have to provide the product for free, they did it for people who bought Beyond TV 3 from Fry’s or Outpost for free after rebate, AND upgraded them to BTV 4 at the same time.
December 17th, 2005 at 9:27 pm
have you tried this link? It supposedly will upgrade your 3.0 key to 4.0. I am not sure if this will get you the additional subscription service. I am wondering how this works out. I am looking at getting the KWorld card, but the dealmaker for me has to be the BYTV software. Please let me know what you find! https://www.snapstream.net/ssyahoostore/verification.aspx
December 21st, 2005 at 2:46 am
Yeah, I’ve tried that link. It wants $49.99 to upgrade to BTV 4. No thanks, not interested. I want what was promised to me on Kworlds website and on the retail box.
I’ll try to contact Kworld themselves to get what I was promised. If no luck there; will have to consider returning the card, or maybe a few complaints to state AG offices.
December 23rd, 2005 at 10:22 am
I bought one of these a couple weeks ago. The HDTV works great, but not at the same time as the analog and now for some reason my analog picture is all grey. There is a picture there because you can see movement which coincides with the program information I see on the regular set, it’s just so gray as to be unwatchable. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling and it’s still “dead.” Guess this one is going back to TigerDirect.
On another note, I too am very disappointed at the false advertising on the box which clearly states “no subscription fees ever” !!! I’m writing the company and Tiger and see how far we get (not far I suspect as they will just point back to beyond TV who will point back to Kworld… ).
Oh, and the audio is flaky. Sometimes I have to tune away from a station and back to get the audio to come through. QA on these is shabby IMHO.
I suspect I’ll dump WinXP solutions like this one for pcHDTV and MythTV - stable combination which does digital cable as well as the others.
March 16th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
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keep going my friend!
March 19th, 2006 at 6:09 am
I liked the story type tour of your railroad. It would be nice if you added pictures into the story. Overall it is very nice.
March 19th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Your disine is good, but content is poor
March 20th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
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:D 
March 21st, 2006 at 8:53 am
HEY!! i just seen this page and i’m really impresed, its really well done!! its really friendly and usefull
keep going my friend!
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I think that it is good! I read it evry day $)
March 24th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
I liked the story type tour of your railroad. It would be nice if you added pictures into the story. Overall it is very nice.
March 25th, 2006 at 12:38 am
What search engine do you use?
March 29th, 2006 at 3:09 am
I must say that in the swedish song contest, why are not marina on teh picure om bwo - temel of love? she is a part of bwo to, right?
March 29th, 2006 at 4:59 am
What search engine do you use?
April 1st, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Glad to see other hams into model railroading. I operate on all the ham bands 160 - 10 meters. As for the model railroading, it’s all N-scale. See ya a bit later maybe on the radio.
April 1st, 2006 at 11:42 pm
Your disine is good, but content is poor
April 2nd, 2006 at 12:05 am
I think that it is good! I read it evry day $)
April 5th, 2006 at 11:35 am
I like the way you set up that your info is the homepage, nicely done.
April 7th, 2006 at 10:29 am
[...] been going on, check out our previous posts: Beyond TV 4, coming to a website near you New HDTV PVR products bundled with Beyond TV Everything abo [...]
April 7th, 2006 at 10:29 am
[...] the difference for your own eyes. If you haven’t noticed yet, virtually every major manufacturer of HDTV cards has partnered with us to deliver [...]
April 7th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I liked the story type tour of your railroad. It would be nice if you added pictures into the story. Overall it is very nice.
April 7th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
What search engine do you use?
April 7th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
What search engine do you use?
April 7th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Thanks for giving such a useful information.
April 7th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Good design!
April 7th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
I think that it is good! I read it evry day $)
July 11th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
I recently bought the Kworld ATSC-110. I got the Beyond tv software which works seemlessly. But i dont want to watch it through my pc. I have an xbox streaming to this pc two floor away (wired). When i found a website for codecs to get the Kworld tv card to work the signal comes in choppy like it hasnt finished buffering (boooo).
Does anyone know how to get seemless play through Media Center software? I would liek to utilize their gui. Please help if you can.
When i watc hthe cable through the pc or tv downstairs it is choppy (not fully buffered). When i watch through the beyond tv software it is seemless.
Andrew