Beyond TV 4.7 is the first DVR with automatic iPhone and iPod sync
September 27th, 2007 at 6:53 pm by Melissa
It’s here! We’ve been working hard improving the features and eliminating the bugs in our latest version of our Beyond TV software. The key features in Beyond TV 4.7 include the following:
Automatically Sync Recordings to iPod and iPhone (Optional Plug-In) - This is an innovative feature that uses the H.264 format to re-compress your Beyond TV recordings and sync them to your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Using an iTunes podcast rss feed you can now automatically sync your television recordings to your iPod or iPhone. With the recent split between NBC and iTunes (see previous post) this feature will serve as a new outlet to get your recordings on to your iPhone or iPod without a hitch.
Drive Pooling – If you are worried about running out of space for your recordings this feature will calm your fears. Beyond TV 4.7 lets you treat a group of hard drives as one recording folder. It will automatically manage and distribute the content you have recorded. So go out and grab a 1TB external hard drive ($335 @ newegg.com), plug into your home theater PC and instantly expand how many TV shows you can record!
Firefly Mobile – Now you can use your Smartphone, iPhone, or other web device as a remote control for your Beyond TV.
Firefly Mobile: Control Beyond TV using your Smartphone
Community Recordings – When enabled, this feature will automatically record the top shows each day as reported by Beyond TV Buzz. ( An extra on our TV listing website, couchville.com, is Beyond TV Buzz; it posts the top recorded episodes of our BTV users.)
Beyond TV Link DVD Burning (Optional Plug-In) - Just like you can burn DVDs on your Beyond TV Server you can now do the same using Beyond TV Link.
We’ve also improved some of the existing features in Beyond TV 4.7:
- H.264 playback is included in all copies of Beyond TV 4.7
- Extend the recording time while a job is currently being recorded by simply hitting the record button and adding the amount of time needed (up to 3 hours). So, if the football game goes into overtime, you can just lengthen the recording time and you won’t miss a thing.
- We’ve improved the Record This Timeslot Recording option by adding Record Only on This Day as an option
- Recover recordings that might have been interrupted due to a power outage, machine reboot, etc.
- An Internet Explorer user? Now you can download files greater than 2GB in size without breaks.
- We now have support for multiple USB-UIRT devices.
- Beyond TV Link can now stream live TV for multiple days on end without stopping.
So, here’s to crossing the finish line! Beyond TV 4.7 is new and better than ever. If you have already purchased the DVD Burning plug-in you get the new plug-in, with H.264 support for free! Just upgrade to Beyond TV 4.7 to get the new version of the plug-in. For a complete detailed list of features, improvements, and bugs we worked through take a look at the release notes.
New Users Try the new Beyond TV 4.7
Existing Users Get your free upgrade to Beyond TV 4.7 (and it includes a trial of the new DVD burning and H.264 plug-in)
Also, check-out more screenshots of Beyond TV 4.7 (hosted at flickr.com)
September 27th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
[...] Will Rhodes wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBeyond TV 4.7 is new and better than ever. If you have already purchased the DVD Burning plug-in you get the new plug-in, with H.264 support for free! Just upgrade to Beyond TV 4.7 to get the new version of the plug-in. … [...]
September 28th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
When will you port Beyond Media into Beyond TV? This is my number one reason that I have not yet purchased your products. Integrate the two and you have a customer for life here.
I want one consistent interface that allows me to watch TV, listen to my music and play the DVDs I have in my library (Stored on a HD). Please, please, please give this to us.
Hoping for the best…
September 29th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Drive pooling makes this definitely worth the upgrade. I’m too lazy to keep shuffling through the files I converted! Ok, so now what’s up with Beyond Media? Revamp coming soon?
September 29th, 2007 at 8:51 am
[...] From Snapstream’s announcement: This is an innovative feature that uses the H.264 format to re-compress your Beyond TV recordings and sync them to your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Using an iTunes podcast rss feed you can now automatically sync your television recordings to your iPod or iPhone. With the recent split between NBC and iTunes this feature will serve as a new outlet to get your recordings on to your iPhone or iPod without a hitch. [...]
September 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Where is QAM support for Dvico cards?
September 29th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Will this versiou work peroperly on Windows Vista 64-bit?
September 29th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I agree with Joel, integrate Beyond Media with Beyond TV. Give us one interface for TV, music, and stored DVD library.
September 29th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I agree with Joel Strellner.
September 29th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Is there support for Vista 64? I’ve had problems with the BTV Scheduler restarting frequently (like every couple seconds).
Currrently using BTV with WinXP and think it’s great. Thanks.
September 30th, 2007 at 12:26 am
I agree with Joel. The media playing interface is probably the biggest drawback of Beyond TV. I know that beyond media integrates somewhat but it’s often very sketchy at best. I want something nicely integrated. I do own BeyondTV 4 and I love it.
September 30th, 2007 at 3:52 am
I am with Joel, i already own beyond tv and beyond media and i think that would be one of the best moves they could make
September 30th, 2007 at 8:07 am
For watching and recording TV programs BeyondTV 4 is great. But I would like to see the ability to program the FM radio to turn on/off at scheduled times. (Tuner has FM radio tuner)
September 30th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I think the feature I like so far is the little one. You’ve finally put a minimize screen in the live play mode! This has been driving me nuts for a long time.
So far no problems with the update as far as performance goes which is a good thing.
Future things I’d like to see:
Restate what others have said. Integrate Beyond Media like front end. I have a lot of h246 content that I’d love to play within beyond tv.
Please put in a preview screen during the snapstream guide. This is feature that I miss from MCE a lot b/c it was actually helpful for when I just want to watch the news or whatever while I’m browsing the guide.
Great release though and thanks for working on new cool features! Makes me feel confident I purchased the correct television media player.
September 30th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
I upgraded to the latest version yesterday. version 4.7. Ever since my system is completely unstable, the beyond media manager service keeps starting and stopping and it takes a full 30 seconds for the system to respond when I change folders in the recorded programs area. Version 4.6 worked flawlessly. Please help!
October 1st, 2007 at 10:41 am
Are you listening Snapstream? BTV + BM = MANY HAPPY CUSTOMERS!
4.7 has some great improvements, but listen to what we’re asking for!
October 1st, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Hey Ryan,
We currently only support QAM with the HD Home Run.
October 1st, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Okay, Answers to the following questions:
Paul and MJ – Beyond TV is currently not supported in any 64 bit operating system, and we’re not currently planing on it. We only support Vista 32 bit.
Dan – Write tech support. They will help you resolve your issues.
October 8th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
any chance that BTV could record in H.264 by default, or allow the user to select which format to record in, rather than spending time converting after the fact? I would dearly love single format system, but having a windows MCE and an AppleTV makes it a challenge. If I could select a single format of choice I would then go looking for other components that suited, e.g. a media player for my smartphone that used the same H.264… etc. or am I dreaming…?
October 8th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Actually BTV is *NOT* the first DVR to have automatic syncing with iTunes. Sage users have had this feature available for quite some time.
Oh…..and Sage users get this for free!
October 9th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Hey Ewan,
At this moment, most TV tuners are mpeg2 hardware encoding, therefore they are required to record to mpeg2 video. Maybe in the future when h.264 hardware encoding TV tuners are available, then it would be a definite possibility, but at this moment it is not.
October 14th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
After upgrading from 4.6, my computer won’t boot even into safe mode. Good work. I’ve never seen a program which messes up your computer so badly it can’t even boot into safe mode. Bravo. Whatever you do, don’t install this.
October 16th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
When can we expect to see the ability to stream to outside our network to mobile wireless laptops or can we do this now?
October 16th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Tocksin if you are still having problems contact our tech support they are very good at what they do.
Infoseek, that’s a touch question to answer. We don’t have any immediate plans allow you to stream outside your network. Although the Beyond TV web admin can be used to access content over the internet, full placeshifting isn’t a possibility.
October 19th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
I have BTV running on my Vista 64bit system fine.
It’s too bad that BTV has limited QAM support. I bought BTV back 3.something with the Dvico Fusion 5 Kit for the sole purpose of future QAM support. OTA is ok, but being able to grab the many more channels over cable QAM is what I was waiting for. I really like the software and when it went to version 4, I even paid for that version… but I Was disappointed that QAM wasn’t there. Now there only support for the HDHomeRun. But I had the Fusion. Ugh.
The reason why I say it’s too bad… is that SageTV just released full QAM for many cards (though not the Dvico on Windows… Linux though). Hesitant, with my long history with the much beloved BTV software, I made the jump to SageTV and bought the AVerTV Combo PCI-E HD card.
I didn’t want to do it… but now I have one piece of software that works perfect. I can record Analog & HD no problem. Sorry Snapsteam, you are just not there yet.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I just got a Hauppauge 1800 ATSC/QAM Tuner card to use with my existing Hauppauge 500 card/SnapStream 4.6 set up. So far it seems to only work with NTSC. I don’t have an over the air ATSC feed available to test it but I do have a QAM feed. I can see HDTV QAM on Hauppauge’s Win2000 application but I have gotten no where with SnapStream. I was told SnapStream supports this card. What is the story?
December 4th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
[...] iTunes integration, an add-on feature in 4.7, allows Beyond TV users to automatically sync their recorded shows, including NBC favorites Heroes, [...]
January 9th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I have beyond tv 3.5, I am looking for something use up so much power from my system. I have a dual core 6 it is still bogging my system down.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
So I get it.. you don’t support 64 bit software, and I’m not asking you to. But has anyone TRIED it? and has anyone had any success with it? I don’t even want a guarantee that it will work 100%. I just want to know, if I install it on 64 bit vista, and put a key in, will it even begin to function?
I really want to upgrade my notebook which has a dual core 64 bit processor, and want to still watch using link without having to install a virtual machine in vista to do it. That would be a drag.