SnapStream Blog

For a long time now, we’ve been showcasing our user’s Beyond TV-powered living rooms in our digital living room showcase. Today, I have two more setups to share.

Brent’s living room is described in detail on his blog. His server has an impressive 6 tuners in it, a combination of internal and external devices as well as both standard definition and high-definition tuners. Brent’s also using the HDHomeRun with Fonceur’s BTV Exterminator Plug-in and with this combo, he’s able to record unencrypted QAM. Read more about Brent’s setup over on his blog.

And then there is Peter’s Beyond TV setup, meticulously documented in text and in pictures. Peter’s quest to find an alternative way of getting high-def TV (because he was “never happy with the level of content control or quality of service” that satellite or digital cable delivered) lead him to Beyond TV. Read more and enjoy some photographs of Peter’s setup below:

Guest blog posting by Seth Miller (draven in the forums)

After years of yearning to bring the true theater experience home, I have finally succeeded. My home now boasts a theater that will engulf you in the movie experience, tower over you with special not meant for mere television and bring a library of over 175 movies no more than the push of a button away, a jukebox of movies from TV and DVD. This theater was built on a limited budget, but boasts all the features that I’ve been dreaming of since I first heard someone say, “home theater�.

Home theater, we’ve heard the term thrown around for years by every electronics store chain and every television manufacturer in the business, and they’ve applied it to every piece of equipment that could show a picture. But what does it mean? Are we talking about a 13� TV stuck in the corner of a living room, or are we talking about actually bringing the theater experience home? For me, I wanted a full blown theater in my home, and I think I’ve finally succeeded.

Years ago, the only way we could watch our favorite movies was to go buy some over-priced popcorn at our local cinema and pay an arm and a leg for a ticket in. Then came the VCR. This technological marvel opened up possibilities like we had never seen before. We could rent movies from the local Quick Stop for half of a theater ticket, and enjoy the movies in the comfort of our own living room. Sure, we all had to crowd around the TV and watch a cropped version of the original, but it was at home, and that made a difference. Later, DVDs brought us crisper images and the original widescreen format on a medium that we didn’t have to rewind. And surround sound systems brought us one step closer to the theater experience, but was it ever really the same as being in the theater?

Today I can proudly boast that I have found, or rather created, the true home theater. That’s right, a theater at home, not a TV masquerading as the famed silver screen, but an honest to goodness theater. “How?� you ask. Well here is the low-down.
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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.

Recently, I was honored with the request to write about one of my favorite plug-ins for Beyond Media. Having influenced several of the major plug-ins, and coding nearly a half-dozen of them, picking a favorite among them is certainly not an easy task. So, after some consideration I decided I would highlight the Game Library Plug-in. Any avid game player will quickly realize that the Game Library is the ultimate tool for organizing any game collection.

The Game Library Plug-in for Beyond Media

The key component of the Game Library is the simplified setup. Installation is a simple download, and setting up the library is as easy as drag and drop. The games are automatically imported. The cover art is automatically downloaded. The searchable data fields (from genre to year released) are automatically populated. Actually, the ability to search for games is the true time saver. You can filter titles, first by system, and later by genres, years released, publishers, or even keyword descriptions. Want to find all PC Games installed on your system that were released by Activision? It is easy with the filters.

Details for Half-Life in the Game Library plug-in

While it is true that the Game Library comes preconfigured for a dozen or so emulator systems, my favorite hidden gem is the ability to organize PC games. To do this is easy. First, enable the “PC Games� system and drop a short-cut link with the name of the game (ie: Half-Life 2.lnk) in the selected “PC Games� folder. Let the system import and download the data, and your good to go!

I’ll close this never-ending blog entry with a brief bio about myself for the new folks. I first heard of SnapStream several years ago when it was a lonely web interface; with the release of PVS v3.0 (Beyond TV) I finally ditched my TiVO and fully adopted their software. I have held official roles as technical support, forum moderator, beta tester, product advisor, and SSDN Administrator. Currently, I have limited time to actively participate in forums (or even watch TV), but occasionally I check-in to see how my favorite company is doing. And yes, I do plan to continue to developing this and other plug-ins, just not today.

Now for the obligatory legal terms: Remember play safe, and responsible. Requesting or linking to ROMs is strictly prohibited, and frowned upon, on the SnapStream Forums.

– Brett Flury, Guest Blogger and SnapStream Enthusiast Extraordinaire (Brett on the forums)

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Other Beyond Media downloads that we’ve highlighted:

• Netflix on your TV
• NHL scores your TV

We continue highlighting cool Beyond Media downloads, enabled by Beyond Media and the Beyond Media SDK…

Sports are a big thing here at SnapStream. It doesn’t really matter what sport it is, we’ll find a way to talk about it, argue about it, make predictions, and determine who knows more. From cricket to curling to football to our personal sports concoction, “Beyond Wiffle”, that we play everyday in the park across the street, we take our sports seriously.

That’s why when I saw “NHL Scores” it really hit home. It is perfect for the times when you just have to know the score, right now. If I’m on the couch here’s my situation: it takes too long to bring up scores on my phone, SportsCenter won’t cycle around to the game I’m interested in for another 30 minutes, and I really need to know who won last night in the playoffs. Now I have another option, and with a few clicks of my remote I have my answer.

Daily scores

Summary by team

I know many people are probably thinking, “It’s just the NHL, who cares?” (sorry to those of you that are actually hockey fans ) Geoff Stewart, who wrote this plug-in, was nice enough to also give away the source code for NHL Scores. This means someone with a bit of time could create a plugin for NBA, MLB, or NFL scores with a minimal amount of work. I know nearly everyone around the office would love these possible expansions, and I’m sure that holds true for a significant chunk of all Beyond Media users.

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Other Beyond Media downloads that we’ve highlighted:

• Netflix on your TV

Two of the best parts of Beyond Media are its flexibility and its extensibility. The Beyond Media SDK has enabled the SnapStream developer community to add many new features including new ways to control Beyond Media, checking your email, and getting the latest theater listings. Head on over to the Beyond Media Downloads section to see everything the users have contributed that’s been built off the SDK. Over the next few weeks we are going to be highlighting some of the best user created plugins which utilize the flexibility and extensibility of Beyond Media to deliver new features to all Beyond Media users.

The first Beyond Media plugin I’d like to highlight is the Netflix plugin created by Craid Baldwin. I’m not currently a Netflix subscriber, but everyone I’ve spoken with has raved about how much easier this plugin makes their life. It gives you access to your Netflix queue right on your TV. As soon as you finish watching your latest batch of DVDs you can take your remote and start searching for what you would like Netflix to send you next. Everything from just seeing what’s in your Netflix queue to getting recommendations and making changes to what Netflix is going to send you can now be accessed via remote control.

The Netflix plugin start screen

The Netflix plugin queue screen

The user benefits aside, the Netflix plugin is special for another pair of reasons. It features a well organized 10 foot friendly interfance, and it is a solid example of a plugin that exposes features which other plugins can use. The “Send to Netflix� option in the “Movie Showtimes� plugin (link) is provided by the Netflix plugin. This is a nice example of even user created addons keeping with the Beyond Media extensibility spirit.

Learn More about the Netflix Plugin by cncb

Download the Netflix Plugin by cncb (requires Beyond Media)

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(if you are interested in creating Beyond Media plugins, check out http://code.snapstream.com for tutorials and other development information. When you’re finished, submit your plugin to http://www.snapstream.com/ssdn/submit.aspx and it will get published for the community to see and download.

Hello everyone! This is going to be the first installment of a SnapStream Q&A session that we’ll be running every so often. Our goal here was to establish a way for our customers to engage us directly with some questions and provide some straight up answers to all of our valued customers about anything that you might be curious about. I think it will be a very valuable experience and I hope our readers do too. With that said, let’s get started!

Will SnapStream be integrating Beyond TV and Beyond Media?

The answer to this question is a definite yes!

Here’s how the timeline looks today. Beyond TV 4 is the next product release from SnapStream. It’s a direct upgrade to previous versions of Beyond TV that adds support for high definition recording and playback, as well as FM Radio, DivX support, and a whole lot of spit and polish.

Following the release of Beyond TV 4, we will be porting the ViewScape interface of Beyond TV to the Beyond Media architecture. Beyond Media is built on our next generation and highly extensible media shell foundation, most of which we make available today to developers in the Beyond Media SDK. Porting Beyond TV’s user interface under that architecture will provide a great unified experience for our users.

Only the user interface of Beyond TV needs to be ported to Beyond Media. The server components of Beyond TV will remain the same and will not need to be ported to unify the two applications. In layman’s terms, the guts of Beyond TV that do all of the recording and post processing won’t be changing at all, just the look and the integration. Again, much of this is due to the architecture and excellent server and client side separation in Beyond TV, which developers can access using the Beyond TV SDK…a powerful development platform for customizing and controlling our PVR technology.

What does unifying the two products get you? In addition to a more elegant and seamless experience, you’ll get the ability to plug in new skins and cool additional features (like the DVD Library and Movie Showtimes browser) that have been created by dedicated community members to further enhance your media center experience. Because Beyond Media is based on an Avalon/XAML like model (the presentation technology that Windows Vista is building towards), developers can create all kinds of cool and uniquely home theater like effects in their HTPC applications.

Finally, as we’ve mentioned in our original announcement, if you own Beyond TV 4 and Beyond Media, getting the fully integrated product will be a free upgrade for you when integration is complete. It’s our way of saying thanks to our customers!

What are your plans for high definition support?

We have been testing high definition support for a few months now, and I feel confident in saying we will have excellent support for high definition cards in Beyond TV 4. I won’t mince words…setting up your home entertainment rig for high definition capture can be a small project. But with SIX times the resolution and pure digital clarity, we know many of you are waiting with bated breath for the chance to dive in and explore a whole new world of digital entertainment.

At the beginning of the year I played with many different solutions (probably better classified as hacks) for playing back high definition streams in preparation for bringing this feature to market. The main thing that struck me was how hard and difficult it was to do something simple like capture and play back high definition content. I literally dug through hundreds of posts with many different and lengthy guides that would hack together components and different applications just to accomplish some of what, in my mind, should have been very simple things.

I’m very glad to say that we’ve got the necessary expertise here at SnapStream to do this type of thing RIGHT. We’ve spent thousands of man-hours writing new components from the ground up to handle all of the special requirements for HD support. We’ve also been in the testing process with a group of very dedicated folks who are beating up the product in their own living rooms today and giving us their valuable feedback. That’s why we believe that you will find a much simpler and more elegant approach to high definition support in Beyond TV than you’ve been used to seeing.

One specific question that comes up often is our support for different types of HD. Over the air broadcast cards (antenna) and QAM capture cards (basically, cable HD) are the two types of HD support most people are interested in. Satellite HD is a closed system and one that currently cannot be supported without additional work in the ecosystem.

Our initial release of Beyond TV 4 will support over the air (OTA) capture cards. QAM support is something that we are watching closely and will implement as soon as is feasible.

QAM capture is in a state of flux right now when it comes to the marketplace. As some of our users already have pointed out, it’s an area when some standardization needs to be built into the OS before general support can be introduced. In general, we watch for some standardization because this market is moving very quickly and our efforts are best spent working on lasting solutions for our customers.

However, there is a balance between how easy the support is to implement and how proprietary it is. Our plan right now is to deliver solid OTA high definition first. Here’s why.

• 1. Having solid over-the-air high definition support is required before we can extend support to QAM. The software infrastructure required is similar, so refining over-the-air support in the product drives both features forward.
• 2. It would be silly for us to hold back over-the-air support from those customers that can use it today.

Once Beyond TV 4 is released, we’ll be taking a good hard look at QAM to see if we can create a solution that makes sense for our customers. Please continue to give us constructive feedback on this issue!

I’d like to thank all of our customers again for giving us the opportunity to answer some of the questions that have been on your minds. We got far more questions than we could actually answer in this first installment… but we will continue to do this Q&A on a regular basis and get to more questions! You can ask us new questions by posting to our new Q&A forum.

Richard Kuo
Chief Technology Officer