Beyond TV 4.1: Get ready to SmartSkip through the Super Bowl in HD!
January 20th, 2006 at 5:38 pm by Soham
Percy’s 11-tuner Godzilla PVR has been generating a lot of buzz lately. His blog post got Slashdot’ed and Dugg and also showed up on Engadget and the PVRblog. Sure, it may be a little overkill for the average user, but by building PVRs like this, we continue to fully exercise the software and stress-test its reliability and performance. If Beyond TV can handle Percy’s 11 tuners, I know that it’s going to run rock solid on my 2 tuner system at home.
Hey, how did Percy get SmartSkip for an HD recording?
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Of course to keep up with Percy, we have to keep improving the software. Beyond TV 4 has been our most popular release so far, and today we’re releasing Beyond TV 4.1 with a handful of bug fixes, support for a couple of new cards, and a few new features. As some perceptive users noted, Percy’s HD recordings have SmartSkip chapters, Beyond TV 4.1 now supports SmartSkip for HD content. So just because commercials look better in HD doesn’t mean that you have to watch them if you don’t want to. Of course with the Super Bowl just weeks away, maybe you’ll be skipping to the commercials.
Click here for the full Beyond TV 4.1 Release Notes.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Hey! That was me asking the question about SmartSkip in HD in the blog by Percy.
Thank you for the answer… BTV 4.1. Downloading now…
January 26th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Hi!
It’s great that you’re releasing 4.1 – congratulations. I just have one question – from earlier posts and FAQs:
August 5th, 2005 “Our developers are hard at work on DVB-T/S support, because we know you want it, but it’s not quite ready to ship just yet. The great part is that if you buy Beyond TV or Beyond TV Link now, we’ll be sure to give you a free upgrade when we do add DVB-T/S support”
I assumed that DVB support would be coming up shortly. Does version 4.1 support DVB? I couldn’t see any mention of it in the release notes.
Thanks,
Gene
January 26th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
I bought my upgrade to 4.0 a little while ago and haven’t yet installed it.
(I know, I’m REAL slow.)
But from what I am reading, I’m glad I to be supporting it anyway.
Yet, I have a question.
If this upgrade supports ATSC HDTV, and I already have the Hauppage 350 PCI card – can I install the Fusion card to coexist with what I already have? And I guess to watch hdtv, I would be selecting the Fusion card (might that be automatic)??
Just checking.
January 27th, 2006 at 12:32 am
I can not get 4.0 to work .
Why would I get 4.1 ?
David
January 27th, 2006 at 3:22 am
My upgrade to Beyond TV 4.0 didn’t worked for me either (play, then hang), so I’m using WinTV2K with my Hauppauge WinTV USB 2.0 PVR. Perhaps I’ll try again but it was definitely disappointing and time consuming trying to get it to work when the previous version had worked fine. And yes, I followed all the info I could find re drivers, uninstall, reinstall… blech!
January 27th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I hope the 4.1 fixes the jerky picture. I love the clear onscreen I get but the Jerking is driving me nuts. I have changed video cards and asked for help with this thing and gone through all of the Knowledge Base steps and I think now I should just build myself a new system. Come on guys fix this thing. Why have a good thing with no fixes for it. It is very disapointing after having the 3.x.x working so well to have to start all over again to get it smooth. I agree…blech and double blech!
January 27th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Hello Daniel,
Yes, you can use the Fusion card or any other supported ATSC card alongside with your existing PVR350 card. And the software will automatically figure out which card to use based on the channel once you have set everything up.
David, Zilla, and Jack, if you have not already, please contact tech support so that we can try to help you get up and running. Beyond TV 4.1 does have several fixes in it, but it’s impossible to say if it will specifically address the problems that you are seeing without more information.
Soham
January 27th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
I would not blame the software… For me 4.0 worked much better than earllier verions. The install is only as good as the processor & hardware that support it. If you cut cost there then, well talk is cheap!
January 28th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
I’m sure Tech/Support can help you folks. Sometimes it takes awhile to set up personal machines. I was frustrated at 1st as I had a multitude of playback issues and my friends HTPC’s worked seamlessly.
I was persistant and now love the bragging rights… no montly fees, etc. when I show my personalized HTPC. The menus with a Firefly remote look great on a 42″ Plasma.
January 30th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Hello Gene,
We hope to add DVB-T/S support to the product sometime this year, but currently are focused on the U.S. and Canadian markets. We are going to be re-evaluating our priorities towards the middle of this year and at that time, hope to put more resources on this.
Soham
January 31st, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Hi,
I am just hoping that you will be adding better support for UK TV listings that are accesible from within the BeyondTV GUI, and great to hear about the upcoming DVB-T/S support !
Russ
March 29th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Snapstream was great for the Winter Olympics and now I’m using it for my ‘24′ HD recordings.
May 21st, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Just remember that there are plenty of users in the US and Canada that want DVB support as well. I believe that Snapstream will gain many more users (and revenue) then their market research is telling them. I’ll wager that DVB support will double their user base almost instantly.
September 20th, 2006 at 5:24 am
It’s a serious failing to not have DVB support for Europe. I’ve been using and loving Snapstream for years and have been promoting it to many colleagues here at Dolby, but the fact that I can’t use a DVB card and that there is no date for when it may become available has made me start looking at MCE specs.
So far I’ve been using an analog card with freeview tuner (and girder) but the picture is not too good and getting more than 10 channels tuned is a nightmare. I just want to be able to buy the £70 dual Hauppauge DVB card and get it to work – but I guess I can’t without dropping Snapstream
September 24th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Robin, Thanks for the feedback, unfortunately, we’re just not focused on the European market right now. We might be at some point in the future, but right now we’re strictly focused on the U.S. and Canadian markets.
February 4th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Wow, Beyond TV looks so much better than the other software.
Sohan above said in Jan 2006 that you were “hoping to have DVB-T support later this year”. It’s one year later now, how is this progressing?