SnapStream Blog

You may have read recently that iTunes is not going to have NBC programming starting with the fall season. This would be a disaster for all of us iPod/iPhone users if it weren’t for the Beyond TV 4.7 Beta that has the capacity to automatically transfer shows into iTunes compatible formats.

4.7 has a plugin that allows recompression to the h.264 format and an rss feed (aka podcast) that makes getting shows into iTunes automatic (which then can automatically sync recordings to your iPod video, iPhone or Apple TV).

Available today, we have a public beta of the upcoming 4.7 release that includes many other sweet new features as well. To download this release, you can join the beta program by signing up at http://beta.snapstream.com

Among the other features:

1. Drive pooling - Allows treating a group of disks as one recording folder
2. DVD burning from Beyond TV Link
3. Community Based Automatic Recordings - record the top shows as reported on http://www.snapstream.net/buzz.aspx
4. Virtual Firefly Nano and Remote Library - control Beyond TV from you iPhone or other web enabled device

Here’s the same list above, with much more detail after the break:
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Build a DVR is a great starting point for anyone looking to build their own home theater PC. If you’re completely new, start with “From PC to DVR in 3 steps”:

Building your own DVR sounds like a job for a computer engineer, right? Try again. Even PC newcomers can put one of these together. In 3 steps, you can take a plain jane PC and revamp it into a working media center.

And once you have everything up and running and you want to get your TV shows to your iPhone or iPod, take a look at their 5-step guide to moving TV shows from your HTPC to your iPhone.

Several months ago, I used my awesome video producing skills (if you could hear me, you would be able to sense the sarcasm) to create a Beyond TV demonstration video overviewing the features and functionality of Beyond TV. One of the most common reactions to the video was, “That’s great and all, but how do I get Beyond TV to actually run on my PC??” This is a very legitimate concern– after all, if you can’t get Beyond TV running on your PC in the first place, what’s the point? Concern duly noted, and action taken! Introducing the Beyond TV Setup Video… the prequel to the Beyond TV Overview Video.
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Blog posting by Dr. Butler Crittenden, San Francisco PC Users Group:

At San Francisco PC Users Group’s May 2007 meeting one of our members and a long-time user of SnapStream’s products, Judy Gaer, made a great presentation about how to configure and use Beyond TV. She also showed us a little of “beyond tv link,” which facilitates watching recorded shows from any computer in the network. Judy’s family has a fast LAN and everyone in the family is into computers and TV, so keeping track and flexibility are essential to her teen sons and the rest of the family.

A shot of Judy at the computer and some of the attendees.

Judy started by making the basic point that Beyond TV works by a regular cable or analog antenna TV port on the computer, but cable makes the process a lot more sophisticated and capable. SnapStream urges that we use a TV tuner card that has a hardware encoder, as this is much faster and does not drain computer resources. But it will work with software encoding if necessary.

Judy’s method of presentation was very resourceful, as the club’s meeting room temporarily lost its broadband connection. She used streaming media shots of the set-up and use of Beyond TV. Thus we had actual talking videos of her using SnapStream — perhaps even better than an on-line, live performance, as she had time to select and hone what she thought was important and would fit into an hour-long presentation. Of course there were lots of questions, and the level of interest was high. Everyone loved the ability to time-shift and skip through commercials. We also marveled that she can make decisions and changes when on the road, and have new programs at home to watch when she returns.

Judy is also familiar with TIVO, and showed us a little of how the two are quite comparable. She likes Beyond TV as the costs are much lower, and there is no monthly hit like TIVO. In her view, and I think that of most of the rest of us, watching TV is so much better with Beyond TV or TIVO that use of one or the other is almost a necessity. There is simply so much to watch that this tool is just about a necessity for busy people who want to be sure to see what they really want to see and skip the rest. And of course of the several raffle items at the end of the meeting, SnapStream’s Beyond TV was the first to be snapped up.

What would you do with a free $671.88 each year?

You could get a new Quad Core cpu or a PS3 (not to mention a Wii AND Xbox 360) or go on a cruise or do like me and buy a new Canon Rebel XT DSLR. Sounds good, right? So where oh where did I find my free Benjamins?

Simple, I got rid of my cable tv.
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J.D. Biersdorfer mentions Beyond TV in tomorrow’s New York Times technology Q&A column:

Some cards include their own recording software, but programs like SnapStream’s Beyond TV (www.snapstream.com) give TiVo-like powers to your Windows PC. You can also buy the Beyond TV software bundled with a compatible TV tuner card if you haven’t made the hardware purchase yet.

Link

Last week, we released two new skus in the SnapStream Store that include Silicon Dust’s HDHomeRun network TV tuner card— the HDHomeRun stand-alone, and the HDHomeRun bundled with Beyond TV.

With the HDHomeRun network tuner and a cable TV connection (no set-top box required) you can record free unencrypted (clear) QAM HDTV in Beyond TV. The digital signal comes through a standard coax cable feed, originating from your cable company. Most cable providers today will at least push a standard and hi-def version of the major networks (e.g. ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) as clear QAM channels.

Note: in order to use the HDHomeRun you need to subscribe to regular cable (e.g. Time Warner or Comcast) and, because the HDHomeRun works over a network connection, you must have a wired (at least 100 Mbps recommended) home network.

Read more about setting up the HDHomeRun with Beyond TV in this how-to blog article.

Ever been away on business or on vacation and wanted to access your Beyond TV recordings? How about stream your recordings across the Internet? I know there have been times when I am out of town, and have wanted to see what Jack Bauer did on the previous night’s episode of 24. I know I can always wait until I get back home to Houston, but in today’s world of instant gratification, that is a preposterous thought.

Along Comes Orb

To all of you who can relate to my scenario above– I’d like to introduce you to Orb (http://www.orb.com), a free placeshifting application that allows you to make all of your Beyond TV recordings accessible over the Internet. And best of all, Orb will automatically transcode your Beyond TV recordings to a bitrate that is suitable for your Internet connection! For example, I recorded an episode of South Park at 7 Mbps (Beyond TV’s “Best” MPEG-2 quality) on my Beyond TV box at home the other day. When playing the file back through Orb’s web portal, the video was being transcoded at an average of 350 Kbps. The bitrate would dynamically adjust depending on the connection speed I had at a particular moment.

To make Orb work, you first must download Orb’s application (13.9 MB), and install it on a host PC. During the installation process (detailed below) you will create an Orb account, and then do some configuration telling Orb where your media is stored. Finally, to access your media, simply log into Orb’s website with the account information that you created during installation, and let the streaming begin!

I was telling our designer, Joel, about Orb the other day. Joel had a vacation coming up in Cozumel, Mexico, so he decided to get set up with Orb so he could attempt to stream his video internationally. In Joel’s words:

I went to a wedding recently in Cozumel, Mexico. When I arrived, I had some free time at the hotel I was staying at so I logged on the one of the hotel’s Internet stations.

Once on the web I was curious to find out if the Orb software I installed would continue to work even outside of the country. I simply typed in my password and navigated to where my recorded shows were located on my home computer. I chose “Ugly Betty� and it started to play. I only watched a few minutes of the show, but for a split second, it felt like I was home on my couch, enjoying one of my shows.

Want to try setting up Orb for your own scenario? If so, a detailed setup process can be found below.

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INTRODUCTION

Last month, we quietly released a version of Beyond TV (4.6.1) that supports Silicon Dust’s HDHomerun Digital QAM dual tuning device. What does this mean to you?? If you are up to a little setup, it means you no longer have to rely on an over-the-air ATSC signal—instead, you are able to directly tune non-encrypted (Clear) QAM channels from over your coax cable. No more unpredictable thunderstorms interfering with your recording of LOST or Heroes!

Shortly after we released version 4.6.1, I became intrigued with the idea of setting up the HDHomerun with my Beyond TV box at home. My motivation stemmed mostly from times when I came home to find that my HD recordings would cut off halfway through a show or were garbled at points during playback. As many existing over-the-air users may be able to attest to, dropping and unreliability of over-the-air signals can be a bit annoying. My other contributing motivation was to see if I could set it up myself—a non-technical person who works in sales/marketing for SnapStream.

Note: Over-the-air HD or Clear QAM tuning devices can be added on to Beyond TV at any time. Because of the complexity of setting up Clear QAM, I would recommend to users that you start out by setting up Beyond TV with analog or digital cable before trying to set it up with Clear QAM.

So I was ready to get rolling on the setup of the HDHomerun! My enthusiasm could hardly be contained—then I looked at a tutorial on how to set the HDHomerun up with Beyond TV. I was deflated at the thought of going through the several pages of required setup—could it really be this complicated to set up? I was determined to get an answer to my question, so I proceeded.

WHAT IS CLEAR QAM?

Before we get started– a little information on what QAM actually is. In layman’s terms, QAM is digital cable without a set-top-box. More specifically, Clear QAM is unencrypted digital cable without a set-top-box.

In more technical terms, Clear QAM can be described as an unencrypted video signal that is sent through standard coax cable from cable providers in a digital format. Most cable providers today will at least push a standard and hi-def version of the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) through their coax lines to customers. I say at least because oftentimes, additional Clear QAM channels are made available by the cable companies. Though Clear QAM is not quite cable card support, it is a step in the right direction.

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This review is the fifth in a series of product reviews written by the SnapStream community members. This review is of the Crossbar Media MediaCaster written by Dave, aurigus0 in the forums.

Here is the problem: you have a DVR/HTPC hooked up to your TV downstairs, but you have other televisions in your house you wish to use to access the HTPC. How do you distribute the Audio/Video signal to these other television sets?

One solution to this problem is using the Crossbar MediaCaster, which was kindly provided to me for review by SnapStream Media.

The basic idea of this hardware is that you are creating a “private access channel” AKA Avcast® entertainment network, which is provided content from any device that outputs an RCA signal.

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