SnapStream Blog

Since there’s been some excitement about the upcoming Hauppauge HD PVR product, I thought I’d share some photographs of Hauppauge’s new product “in the lab” here at SnapStream:

Here’s a photograph of the Hauppauge HD PVR prototype board itself — everyone had to be careful to ground themselves before handling it.

Here’s another pic of the HD PVR all wired up to a digital source via component video cables (those are the blue, green and red cables).

This one shows the HD PVR in action — the red light means Beyond TV is busy making a recording off this thing when the photograph was taken.

The final product — some good ‘ol baseball recorded on the Hauppauge HD PVR in Beyond TV

A close-up of the same frame (I took it without a flash, holding the camera in my hand, so there might be a slight blur)

From Jason’s update over on the developer wiki over at code.snapstream.com:

Beyond TV 4.6 API Available
March 2, 2007
The Beyond TV 4.6 API is now available online. Beyond TV 4.6 adds several new searching options to the web services a long with a batch method to reprioritize jobs.

Download the latest Beyond TV SDK here.

(for anyone that’s not familiar with the Beyond TV SDK, see “What you can do with our SDKs” and visit the Beyond TV Downloads forum)

David Mohorn has written a Beyond TV plug-in using the Beyond TV SDK for Microsoft’s blog posting tool (Windows Live Writer). So now, while you are writing a blog post, the Beyond TV plug-in shows up in the sidebar:

And when you click on it, it adds information about your Beyond TV recordings to your current blog posting:

BeyondTV Active Recordings: Project Runway
BeyondTV Upcoming Recordings: Project Runway, Survivor: Cook Islands, Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy

Download the plug-in and learn more about it.

Thanks for the cool plug-in David!

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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Guest blog posting by Jack Romano (romanoj)

The MediaMVP from Hauppauge is this great little device that lets you get photos, music and videos off of your PC and onto your television. And it’s cheap – only $100. As Tom wrote about here, without any extra work, you can use it to playback recordings made with Beyond TV. All you have to do is just point to the recorded shows directory. The MediaMVP will play your MPEG2 or Divx files. But it’s a less than ideal experience for lots of reasons:

• You can only see titles of the video files and you can’t view information like show description, original airdate, etc.
• You can’t watch live TV
• You can’t delete a show that you’ve already watched
• You can’t schedule new recordings or see which recordings are scheduled

So with these limitations in mind, a team of us decided that we could create a better interface. We created the open source MediaMVP BTV interface project. With our software, you get something closer to the complete Beyond TV experience (plus some extras like weather and Music playlists!), including access to live TV, and the program guide!

In short, just download the project file. Unzip and run the setup. Re-boot the MediaMVP and voila! You have a BTV extender at no additional cost.

Screenshot of the MediaMVP Beyond TV interface

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I wanted to let you know that we just released the latest update to Beyond TV, version 4.4, this afternoon. Read the release notes here. There isn’t a lot of glittery new stuff in this version, but a number of under-the-hood fixes. All part of our commitment to deliver the most reliable and easiest to user PVR product for the PC.

The one other thing worth mentioned about this release is that the Web Admin, for the first time, includes contributions from our community. We opened up the Web Admin source code under a shared source license with the last release of Beyond TV. Thanks to bradpvr and ccarlin (and, er, anyone else that I left out…) for their code updates and checkins!

As usual, current Beyond TV owners can download the upgrade for free. And if you buy or download Beyond TV starting now, you’ll be getting the latest release. Enjoy!

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.

Learn More
Download Now

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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.

We know that many of the readers of this blog are not just technology users, but also technology creators. So if you’re an experienced C#, .Net, or C++ developer and would be interested in working at SnapStream, please visit our Jobs page.

New hires would need to join us in Houston, Texas. SnapStream offers a great boundary-less work environment where every voice is heard.

Please spread the word to your friends and family as well. Digital media enthusiasts preferred!