SnapStream Blog

A few weeks back, we here at SnapStream decided to test-drive the new RF based GO 2.4 Optical Air Mouse and Compact Keyboard Suite by Gyration. The whole idea of testing the Gyration Suite (referred to as the “gyra suite� henceforth) was to determine whether or not this product would improve the overall entertainment experience when combined with our own Beyond TV and Beyond Media software. Though SnapStream already provides a remote control, in the Firefly PC Remote, the missing pieces to the overall puzzle are a qwerty style keyboard and an easy-to-use mouse.

On to the review— with the gyra suite laying in our office, screaming for attention, I decided to take it home for “testing� :). Before I go into my using the gyra suite, I’d like to set the scene for you… In my home setup, I have a 50� Sony rear-projection HDTV which is hooked up to my HTPC (equipped with Beyond TV 4, Beyond Media, and Firefly Mini). The TV and HTPC are approximately 10 feet away from a 2-seat couch (directly in front of the TV). The couch is the area that I do most of my TV viewing either sitting directly in front of it, or lying down.

Because I do a lot of viewing late at night while lying down, and because the Firefly Mini PC Remote is IR based, there are often times that I have to awkwardly bend my arm to ensure that the IR receiver receives my button-presses, which as many people can attest to, is a very uncomfortable process. You may be asking yourself, “Why not just use the RF Firefly PC Remote?� I don’t do that because I am simply using the IR receiver portion of the Firefly Mini. I use a generic universal remote (provided by my cable company), which I have trained to blast Firefly Mini commands. With this universal remote I am able to control the PC, Television set, Cable box, and stereo receiver without ever having to switch remote controls.

Back to the testing… after bringing the gyra suite home with me, I got started immediately. The setup process was simple—I plugged the usb receiver into the front of my HTPC, inserted the included CD-ROM, went through the software setup process, and boom— I was using the wireless keyboard and mouse.

My first test was the “laying on the couch to see if the keyboard works� test. It was flawless. Searching for shows in Beyond TV became a much less stressful experience since there was no more arrowing letter-by-letter to perform my searches and because every keystroke I made with the keyboard and mouse was captured. I proceeded to navigate around Beyond TV and Beyond Media using the keyboard/mouse combinatin with great ease. After just 10 minutes, the gyra was beginning to grow on me.

My next test was the “window resizing test” using the wireless mouse. I shrunk the size of the Beyond TV window to fill the right half of my 50â€? screen, and opened 2 Firefox browsers placing them in the top-left and bottom-right quarters of the screen, respectively. Using the gyra keyboard and mouse, I turned on ESPN Sunday Night Football, muted the game sound (Not a big Joe “Theesmanâ€? fan), checked my email on the top browser, and followed the game statistics on the bottom browser.

In order to perform the above task without the gyra suite, it was necessary to physically plug a keyboard and mouse into my HTPC, and do all to opening and resizing of the windows while lying on the floor in front of the TV. This was a pain—and not to mention, was a very inefficient way to manipulate and navigate the windows once they had been opened.

Caption: Beyond TV, and two internet browsers opened at the same time. (Note: This image has been created for the sake of illustration and is not to scale.)

After determining that the gyra suite worked very well with Beyond TV/Beyond Media, and was an ideal way to control the screens on my PC from the couch, I started to look at some of the features that were specific to the gyra Air Mouse. After installing the included gyra software onto my PC, I was able to customize specific buttons on the mouse. I assigned one of the buttons to Beyond TV, and another to Beyond Media. In addition to customizing buttons, you are even able to set up what are called “Swipes�. A swipe is a predetermined physical motioning of the mouse that you are able to associate with an event. For example, I can set a swipe to navigate forwards within an internet browser when I motion the air mouse in the rightward direction.

Overall, the gyra suite performed in a way that I had hoped and beyond. The problems I was experiencing related to not having a wireless keyboard and mouse were solved with this little bundle. Also, by taking advantage of some of the perks, the gyra suite even solved problems that were unbeknownst to me at the time of testing. In terms of weaknesses, the only things I could consider weaknesses were 1) the learning curve of getting used to using a mouse in mid-air (which took all of but an hour to get used to), and 2) if you do not keep the mouse cradled in the supplied charging cradle when not in use, the tendency is for the rechargeable battery to expire (at least in my experience).

If you want a solid, durable, high-quality wireless mouse and keyboard bundle, the Gyration Suite is the one for you.

Ever had the desire to wirelessly share recorded TV content, videos, music, and pictures to televisions throughout the house? For those of you who said yes, Hauppauge now has answered your demands with their new Wireless MediaMVP. Did I mention it was wireless?

Hauppauge sent us an evaluation unit of the Wireless MediaMVP (referred to as WMVP henceforth) the other day, so I decided to take advantage of this freebie, and test the unit in my house by connecting my Beyond TV server to the WMVP (see figure 1 below).

Attention to the weak-stomached– my living quarters are very small, so setting up a real-world test scenario realistically came down to two options.

1) Place the WMVP unit right next to my family room TV (which already has a Beyond TV server hooked up to it), or

2) Set up a 13� television in my bathroom (approximately 25 feet from my Beyond TV server) and connect the WMVP to the small screen TV.

I opted for option 2—for the sake of being different AND to determine if I would actually realize value by using the device in this environment. After making my decision, it was time to go through the process of setting up the WMVP and configuring it to work with my Beyond TV server and home wireless LAN.

Figure 1. Network layout of my Beyond TV server, wireless router, and WMVP

Caption. The WMVP connects wirelessly (or via physical Ethernet) to my wireless router, which grabs the media stream originating from my Beyond TV PC.

Setup of the WMVP was very straightforward. I simply installed the included Hauppauge software on my Beyond TV server, told the software which folders on my PC to serve up (see figure 2), and plugged the WMVP into my 13� TV. After configuring the WMVP to communicate with my wireless network (see figure 3), I was ready to rock-and-roll.

Figure 2: Hauppauge software included on CD-ROM

Figure 3: LAN configuration screen

After setup of the WMVP on my LAN, I was able to stream previously recorded content captured with Beyond TV 4.4 (see figure 4) (MPEG-2 Good quality) over the network to my bathroom as well as MP3s (see figure 5), photos, and home videos.

Figure 4. Play back previously recorded videos

Figure 5. Play back MP3s

The biggest question I had before setting the device up was whether or not video playback could be done wirelessly in a quality acceptable to me. Note, in order to be acceptable to me, video must not be choppy, audio and video must be in sync, and the video quality must be pleasant to the eye at full screen. To my surprise, the quality did pass my standards– video playback was good (no choppiness), there was no video or audio interruption and the full-screen videos looked relatively clear and non-pixilated.

After the WMVP passed the “Video Playback Test�, it was obvious to me that it would have no trouble playing MP3s, and displaying photos. As expected, when the MP3 and Photos tests (playing back MP3s and flipping through a slide show respectively) were applied, I had no issues with the WMVP.

Now that the testing had concluded, the million dollar question was—would I actually use the WMVP in the bathroom? The answer to that question was yes and no.

Yes, I did use the WMVP quite frequently for streaming MP3s through the TV. It turned out to be especially handy when getting ready in the mornings, when longer periods of time were spent preparing for work. Listening to music while brushing my teeth and flossing set my day off on the right foot. As for photos, videos, and TV shows, I did not spend much time taking advantage of those capabilities.

I could see where this would be a very handy little product if I had another room to stream to—in an area where photos, video, and TV streaming made more sense, like a bedroom. Even so, the ability to sing along to music in the shower, and the side-benefit of being a great conversation piece makes the WMVP “Bathroom Edition� an essential piece of Water Closet hardware.

Introduction
Have you every wished you could add a remote control to your HTPC without actually having another remote to use (and lose)? With the Firefly Mini and a Universal Learning Remote control, you can do just that. There are a number of very inexpensive remote controls that have learning capacity that will allow you to integrate all of your Infrared Remote Controls into a single unit. For this article, I chose one that I already had, the Sony RM-VL700S, a $25 5-Device learning remote. I pulled up a PDF of the long since misplaced manual from sony.com.

The Training Process
The training process on the Sony Remote (and most others) is very straightforward. First, set the two remotes with their IR eyes facing each other about 1�-2� apart. By holding the “Set� button on the Sony to enter programming and then the component button (I chose CBL/SAT) it was ready to train. Making a quick mental game plan of how you want to match the buttons up and what order you will do them in as to not forget one. Then, start by pressing the button on the Learning Remote that you want to train first. When it flashes to indicate it’s ready, hold down the corresponding button on the Firefly Mini until the training light goes off. It’s key to train the full cycle, not just press and release the button quickly on the Mini. Rinse and repeat for all of the buttons on the learning remote and then finish the process by ending the training, in this case, pressing the “Set� button once more.

Problems and Pitfalls
In the process of doing this, I ran into a few pitfalls you will want to avoid.

- The Buttons on the new remote didn’t exactly match up with the buttons on the Mini. Other than having to give up FF and RR so I could have Skip Forward and Skip Back, all I had to do was be a little creative in naming.

Firefly Mini Button = Sony Button
Last = Recall
Firefly Button = TV/Video
Option = Display
Close = Sleep
Exit = Menu

- As mentioned above the Learning Remote must learn the full code from the Mini, not just a burst. This means you must hold the button on the Mini until the Learning Remote indicates it learned the code (5-10 seconds in some cases).
- Your mileage may very, but the distance between the remotes that worked for me was about 2�. You may need to experiment with the distance to get proper learning.
- On the Sony Remote I chose, once a button was learned, it couldn’t be retrained without first clearing it out. This process took me a minute to figure out. I wish I had avoided all of that nonsense by training right in the first place.
- When training, since the remote are facing each other, the left and right are reversed. Make sure to not train the right button to go left or vice versa.

Other Options
The Sony remote used in this article (picked up a few months ago at Fry’s) is only one of many options. Just looking quickly on the web I saw the Phillips PM625S for $20 and the Zenith ZN5DSS for $23. While I haven’t used them myself, they both advertise the “learning� capacity needed to be trained by a Firefly Mini.

Conclusion
Integrating the Firefly Mini into your “all in one� remote really helps clean up the clutter and make it easier to use all of your devices. The particular remote I chose actually had a slightly better range than the (already good distance) Firefly Mini and really makes my HTPC setup work well.

The King of all Monster PVRs
Powered by SnapStream Beyond TV 4

Introduction:

With the third installment of our Monster PVR series, we here at SnapStream asked ourselves, “How can we beat the Medusa PVR, our 6 tuner beast, and our Hydra PVR, our 10 tuner monster?”

Why, by making an 11 tuner system with HDTV support, of course! This is when the Godzilla PVR system, king of all monsters was born. How do we top the Hydra PVR? This system is an ultra high end HTPC showcasing Beyond TV 4 and capable of recording 11 shows, 4 high definition and 7 standard definition, at once. With Beyond TV 4’s HDTV support and with its unlimited tuners, you can create your own monster system.

(Interested in using SnapStream at your company or organization? Learn more about SnapStream’s turnkey enterprise TV solutions. http://www.snapstream.com/enterprise)

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Looking for a way to give a little something extra with that iPod Video under the tree? How about loading it with the recipient’s favorite TV shows?

With Beyond TV 4, iTunes and Videora iPod Converter, it’s easy and won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

First, you must set Beyond TV to MPEG-2 recording mode - the default if you haven’t changed it – and you’ll need to load Videora iPod Converter and iTunes onto your PC. Both programs are small and easy to install.

Videora iPod Converter is located at http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/
iTunes is located at http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Record Your Shows

Start by using Beyond TV to record the shows you’d like to convert. Take some time getting the right shows recorded - your effort will be appreciated. If you are having trouble thinking of some shows your giftee might like, try using the Browse By Category option to find movies or shows in a particular genre that he might find interesting. Or use the Search by Keyword feature to find a favorite actor.

Convert The Video

Now, relax, and brew a pot of coffee or settle in for a good nap. Depending on your computer speed, this part of the process can take a while. If you are loading a lot of videos onto your iPod, plan on letting Videora run overnight.

At this point, you may want to clean up the file names a little before sending to your iPod. Go to C:\Program Files\VideoraiPodConverter\Videos and take the date stamps out of the file names. This way they will look better on the iPod display.

Import to iTunes

Once it has imported the files, you can click on the “Videos” link in the left sidebar of iTunes to see your shows.

Sync To iPod

From here, you can either manually or automatically send the Videos to the iPod.

At this point, you should be able to view your shows on iPod from the “Videos”–>”Movies” option.

With all the capabilities Sony’s PlayStation® Portable (PSPâ„¢), it was only a matter of time until this unit became more than just a gaming system. It not only lets users take games, music, videos and photos on the road, but is also an excellent portable player for TV content recorded with our Beyond TV PVR software.

In this how-to article, I’m going to walk you through the steps to get TV shows recorded with Beyond TV onto your PlayStation Portable.
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