SnapStream Blog

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.

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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This review is the fourth in a series of product reviews written by the SnapStream community members. This review is of the BTC 9019 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse written by Dave, aurigus0 in the forums.

If you have an HTPC which uses software such as BeyondTV you can use a remote a majority of the time, but there are times where you will want a good old-fashioned keyboard for surfing the web or for other PC tasks. Sure you could use a wired keyboard or mouse, but who really wants to be tied to the Television, which may be across the room. Typical wireless keyboards may only work several feet away from your PC, however the 9019URF works at least 3.5 meters (10.5 feet) away from your PC. In my experience it worked in another room on a different floor, through the walls. It uses Radio Frequencies (RF) which can go through walls and does not require line of sight.

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This review is the second in a series of product reviews written by the SnapStream community members. This review is of the Avermedia A180 ATSC PCI TV tuner card written by ZetaVu, a member of the SnapStream community since December 2005 with more than 1,000 posts in our forums. In addition to reviewing the Avermedia A180, ZetaVu, briefly compares the card to the Hauppauge HVR-1600.

The Avermedia A180 is one of the more affordable PCI HDTV capture cards available. Originally made for MCE systems, Avermedia has since released drivers and a TV program to work with XP installations. I have been using mine for about six months now and have been extremely pleased with the performance.

Card info

The card will capture at 480p, 720p and 1080i, with widescreen support. Minimum CPU is a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz. It requires 256 MB RAM or higher, at least a 64MB video card with Directx 9, and of course a PCI slot (which are really becoming a rare commodity on motherboards these days).

One issue I’ve run into occasionally is with the way motherboards assign IRQ’s to PCI slots. Ideally you want this card in a slot that isn’t shared with other heavy drain components. On my ECS K7S5A, slot 2 or 4 are safe, slot 1 (shared with my AGP port) definitely causes stability issues. I haven’t seen any difference on any of my three PCI slots on my ASROCK 939Dual-Vsta board. I have noticed that both my A180 and my Hauppauge PVR-250 cards seem to drop frames more often on my ASROCK motherboard, but not enough to cause major concerns. If you have issues with this or any capture card in a particular PCI slot, I suggest trying other slots first.

Here are the input signal specifications from the Avermedia website:

» Input frequency range: 54MHz to 864 MHz
» Channel bandwidth: 6MHz
» Channels assignment: US standard
» Input signal level: -80dBm to -20dBm (8-VSB)
» Input impudence: 75 ohms
» Warranty: 1 year limited parts & labor
» Compliance: FCC Class B, CE

Looking at the back of the card you see one coaxial input for the HD antenna, an S-Video input, and three RCA inputs, video and stereo audio. In addition to ATSC capture, the A180 offers SD capture using either an S-Video or composite. I tried this out initially, planning to use this as a second input for satellite television, but unfortunately the SD capture is software, not hardware encoded. This resulted in a general loss in quality on my Beyond TV playback. When I had both software and hardware capture cards setup, Beyond TV defaulted playback quality to the lower setting, leading to choppy playback from software and hardware encoded cards alike. However if someone was interested in using this card to capture SD as well, you would not be able to record HD and SD content simultaneously as the card is only a single not dual tuner. I recommend using the card strictly as a single HDTV over the air (OTA) tuner.

Unlike some cards, there are no issues with using multiple ATSC cards on a system. The A180 does not support QAM recording, and while BeyondTV currently doesn’t support QAM recording later versions probably will. This would be an issue for people who do not have good OTA reception and rely on cable for their OTA channels. Most cable companies only make local channels available without encryption, so if you’re like me and have good OTA reception, this should not be an issue.

Test System

I’ve run this card on two systems, and it worked remarkably well on both. Both systems used this card strictly for HDTV capture and a Hauppauge PVR-250 for SD capture. For my PVR-250, I use coaxial input for SD quality OTA local channels and an S-Video input for my satellite receiver. Common to both systems is my 400W Allied Model AL-400atx, which 3.3v has 28A, 5v has 40A and 12V has 17A. This is more than most 450W power supplies have and has not given me any trouble no matter what I throw at it. Most stability issues can be solved by improving your poser supply. I use a custom built serial control cable for my RCA DirecTV receiver, and an ATI Remote Wonder with Girder as a remote. I have an NEC 3500 DVD burner and three IDE hard drives totaling 720 GBs.

My initial build was an ECS K7S5A with an Athalon XP2000+ processor, 1024 MB DDR memory, with an ATI All in Wonder 7500 AGP video card (I disabled the capture on that card since it also used a software encoder). Now this video card is definitely below the minimum specifications for HDTV, however I am able to use it by virtue of the ATI mpeg decoder that comes with their MultiMedia Center. Any other decoder would be extremely choppy in playback while the ATI is clear. On this board, LiveHDTV was the most difficult task, raising my CPU usage to 70%. If I skipped foreword or backward, CPU usage peaked out at 100% and the A180 would drop frames, resulting in skips and freezes in the recording. I blame this on my undersized system and not the card itself.

My current build is an ASROCK 939DUAL-Vsta, socket 939, with an AMD dual core X2 3800+ and 1024MB paired Kingston KVR400512R memory. I got this board since it supported both AGP and PCIe cards, and if I really wanted I could upgrade to AM2 with an option card. My current setup still uses my ATI 7500 card. With the new dual core processor, navigation in HD recordings was no longer an issue. I could skip, pause, jump around and there was no impact on recording quality and no dropped frames. Total CPU usage in LiveHDTV is now under 20%. I also tried this system out with a new Sapphire 1600Pro PCIe card, but honestly I did not see any improvement in playback over the 7500, and was not happy with the way Beyond TV performed in clone mode with the S-Video going to my TV set. DVI out to my HannsG 19″ monitor was equivalent for both video cards.

Antenna Signal

I am lucky enough to get very strong OTA signals in my area, and can pick up eleven stations with 98% signal, and three with poor signal. The three poor stations do not pass the BeyondTV HD channel setup, but I can manually add them to have them in my lineup. One of the channels (UPN) has poor setup results but I get clear reception when I manually add it. The other two are very poor reception however they are non-English so I don’t bother. Part of the reason I get good OTA coverage is my house came with a roof mounted antenna. I simply ran some new RG6 cable to my card and signal is excellent. I also tried using an HDTV antenna mounted to my satellite dish, but signal quality was inferior to the good old fashioned roof mounted eyesore. I would guess that the bulk of issues people have with OTA HDTV cards is poor reception.

Installation

My card arrived in an OEM box, no disk or drivers, which is fine by me. I always download and install the latest drivers, as of this writing the latest and greatest is the 3.5.0.44 for XP, downloaded from http://www.aver.com/mpd/support/download/a180.html (they also have XP64, and Vista 32 and 64 drivers). The site also has recording and TV software for non-MCE systems. I used this as initial diagnostics to compare to BeyondTV, but have since uninstalled it. I only use BeyondTV for recording but have played back in multiple programs. I’ve run this card in every 4.x build of BeyondTV, and am currently running 4.6 RC3 which I have to say has been nothing short of excellent with my system.

The card is a full height PCI card. I have read comments that the coaxial input is in a difficult to reach spot and I agree. I also nearly removed the coaxial head entirely when disconnecting my cable, so be careful when connecting and disconnecting. I do not use the s-video or RCA inputs since the do not hardware encode. The A180 does not come with an antenna, and as I’ve stated I love my roof mount antenna but any HD antenna will work. Remember, signal quality if 90% of the battle.

Product Performance

As I stated before, I’ve tried this card on both an undersized system that barely qualifies for HDTV performance, and on a dual core system that barely notices when its running. On my old undersized system the only issues I can comment on is CPU usage. When running LiveHDTV and navigating, CPU spikes to 100% and I get pauses and hesitations. Also, if guideupdate is running, CPU maxes out fairly fast. Once I moved the card to my dual core system, CPU never gets close to 100% unless I’m showsqueezing. Even then, BeyondTV adjusts so that I don’t drop frames in LiveHDTV or recordings.

One note, my motherboard will occasionally drop frames in recordings from my PVR-250 and this card, but that is a motherboard communication issue, not a card issue. For the PVR-250, this can lead to incorrect video lengths in BeyondTV. For the A180, this leads to a dropped frame and nothing more. These issues can be detected and addressed using a program called VideoRedo.

Recording quality on 720p and 1080i shows is excellent. I send the signal to my 40″ Sony with S-video, and while I cannot display HD resolution on that TV, the captured signal is clear and without artifacts. If I have poor signal quality from the antenna (or a bad storm) I will see freezes and hesitations in the recording, otherwise it is digital perfect. On my 19″ DVI monitor, the recordings are even clearer. If I want to keep a recording, I can showsqueeze it to one of the High Def DIVX settings and it plays back with no artifacts.

Hardware wise, I have only one issue with this card and again that is related specifically to my motherboard. If I try to go into S3 (suspend to RAM) standby on my ASROCK 939Dual-Vsta after making an HD recording (or watching LiveHDTV) then my computer will freeze when I try to wake it. After contacting both Avermedia and ASROCK it turns out this is a driver conflict with the ASROCK board. Unfortunately, ASROCK has discontinued the 939Dual-Vsta, so they won’t be addressing it. I tried the card on another board and there was no S3 conflict.

Comparison to the Hauppauge HVR-1600

Unlike the A180, the HVR-1600 is a dual tuner card, having one HD and one SD input. The SD tuner has a coaxial and S-Video input, and is a hardware encoder. There is no composite input, and the audio comes in through a 1/8″ stereo plug like the PVR-250, so you will need an adaptor for your RCA audio cables. There is a connector on the side of the card which I haven’t explored yet. It also comes with an IR receiver and blaster. As a result, this card is a priced higher than the A180, but then again we are comparing prices of a dual tuner with an IR blaster and receiver to a single tuner card. For comparative purposes, I’m mainly going to focus on the similarities between these cards.

During system setup, BeyondTV recognizes both the HD tuner and the SD tuner, letting me setup three possible inputs, HD coaxial, SD coaxial, and S-video. I only setup HD Coaxial and S-video (I don’t need another OTA SD tuner). I did notice that HD channel setup had slightly lower results than the A180, ranging from 94-96 vs. 98% on the A180. Any channel at 94% did not automatically get selected and I had to select them myself. This could have been weather when I ran the setup. When testing in LiveHDTV, all channels came in perfectly without any skips or artifacts.

In order to use the dual tuner on the HVR-1600, you need BeyondTV 4.6 — 4.5 doesn’t support the dual tuner, you can only record one tuner at a time. I was able to record on both the ATSC and the S-Video on my HVR-1600 simultaneously in 4.6 RC3, and neither recording had any artifacts. System CPU was less than 15%. Playback was again perfect on both my TV and DVI monitor. Another thing I noticed was that my S3 standby issue I had with the A180 didn’t occur with the HVR-1600, so I will be pestering both Avermedia and ASROCK about this. In my few test recordings with the HVR-1600, I had no issues with dropped frames related to my motherboard. I plan to continue testing this over the next several weeks and will post my findings in the forums.

Now, some comments on the HVR-1600: My unit came OEM without remote, and so far I have not gotten my PVR-250 remote to work with the HVR-1600 IR receiver yet. Since I use a Remote Wonder this isn’t a big deal. The literature says the IR receiver won’t work with TV or VCR remotes, but I was able to get the PVR-250 receiver to work with a Toshiba VCR remote and hope to eventually do similar with this receiver. The installation CD that came with the card is designed for their WinTV2000 application, I suggest you go to this site for their IR receiver and blaster software, as well as IR blaster instructions. I’m not currently using the IR blaster, but I plan to experiment with it and girder once they have plug-ins for this blaster.

Another comment, the HVR-1600 IR receiver cable is almost a foot shorter than the PVR250 cable, which is unfortunate for those of us running cables through a wall (I keep my computer in a room next to my family room so it can get good ventilation and noise is not an issue). The IR blaster cable is several feet longer which is a big benefit. Also the IR plug fits in the HVR-1600 securely; my PVR-250 IR plug fit loosely and comes out all too easily.

Another point is also QAM support. The HVR-1600 currently is does not support QAM, although there are posts stating that older drivers for the card listed it as QAM capable, newer drivers seem to have dropped this. I cannot confirm any of this, but nothing in the literature discusses QAM support for this card, and again I don’t have any ways to test it.

Final Conclusions

If you are looking for an inexpensive but quality OTA HD tuner, the Avermedia A180 is a reasonably priced choice. In my opinion you can use this as a great HDTV tuner, and while it is capable of capturing SD through composite or s-video I don’t recommend it because it does not have hardware encoding. You cannot record SD from antenna with this card. The quality is just as good as what I’ve seen from the more expensive HVR-1600 card. You get ATSC capture with none of the frills, and of course no QAM. Biggest issue is whether you have a free PCI slot.

The HVR-1600 is a little more expensive than the A180, but you get a lot more in the package. This card is dual tuner, one HD and one SD. The SD will record from coaxial or S-video, but not composite, at least no without an adaptor. It also has an IR receiver and an IR blaster. So, if you are looking for a single card solution for multiple inputs, and need to control a satellite or cable box, this may be the better choice. Strictly based on HD capturing performance, both cards perform equally well and are limited only by your other hardware and the quality of your incoming antenna signal.

This review is the first in a series of product reviews written by the SnapStream community members. This review is of the BTC 9019URF wireless RF keyboard/mouse written by terminal, a member of the SnapStream community since April 2002 with more than 2,000 posts in our forums.

About a week ago, SnapStream gave me the opportunity to get a free BTC 9019URF wireless keyboard. All I had to do was review it. Since I like ‘free’ very much, I said yes. This actually occurred at a pretty opportune time because I had been looking for a new wireless keyboard. The BTC seemed like it would fit the bill quite nicely.

My needs are pretty simple for my PVR keyboard. It’s seldom used — only for the occasional install or hardware change. Since I can also log into my server remotely, the keyboard is only pulled out occasionally. Accordingly, I need something compact that I can easily store when it’s not in use. My current keyboard is a Parex Webboard, and it has served me very well. Someone on the SnapStream forums pointed me to it. I purchased it 4 years ago this month and it has started to show some signs of wear. It uses the PS2 ports on my PC and uses infrared (IR). So I thought I might like to move up to something a little newer. The IR on my Parex Webboard was a bit of a pain, as I could never sit back in a recliner and use it — my big feet kept getting in the way. I was always moving it this way or that to get it to make contact with the IR receiver. So I was looking forward to switching to the BTC 9019URF, since it was radio-frequency (RF) instead of infrared like the Parex.

First impressions

Well right off the bat I was a little disappointed because the BTC was a little bigger than I would have liked. My Webboard was compact and fit nicely on top of my case with room for my wireless bridge to sit behind it. The BTC keyboard, with the handles on each side, is just as big as a regular desktop keyboard. I could pick up my Webboard with one hand from front to back, but the BTC keyboard is too deep for that. But the BTC’s handles on each end make it just as easy to pick up with one hand. As you can see from the picture the BTC 9019URF, the top keyboard, is quite a bit larger than my original keyboard. The next picture shows it beside a standard logitech desktop keyboard.

The BTC 9019 compared to my old Parex Webboard

BTC 9019 compared to a full-size keyboard

The layout and feel of the BTC keyboard is quite nice. The mouse/joystick is a little awkward to use, but no more so than my webboard or any keyboard with this type of arrangement, I imagine.

Installation

The installation can be tricky so play close attention to the following steps.

Step 1 Put batteries in the keyboard. It takes two AA batteries, which are provided.

Step 2 Plug it in to a USB port. It works with USB 2.0 or 1.1.

Step 3 Done.

Got that? OK so maybe that was actually pretty easy.

When I installed the keyboard for the first time I thought it wasn’t working. I had the receiver sitting on top of my computer (see position #1 in the picture below). From the angle I was at, the TV was blocking the receiver, even though I was only about 2-feet away. When I placed the keyboard right in front of the receiver it started working. I ended up moving it up on top of my TV (see position #2) and from there it did seem to function, until I started moving away from the TV. I usually sit in one of three places in my living room. The maximum distance I sit from the TV is about 10-feet. This was about the limit of the receiver, like my IR keyboard I had to sit on the edge of the furniture in order to have consistent functionality. From what I gathered from the instructions (I am still working on improving my engrish) it has 255 different IDs that can be selected by pressing a connect button on the receiver and then a connect button on the keyboard. I went through this procedure a number of times, trying a few different IDs, but the reception never seemed to get any better. And I was not going to try it 255 times.

In the end, the cause of my range problem was the television set itself. I had written a pretty scathing review of the BTC, but then I thought I should see if others using this keyboard had seen similar results. From the few reviews I found, most people seemed to be happy with the range. So I decided I should try again. I ended up getting out a USB extension cable and moved the receiver about 5 feet out in front of the TV (see position #4). I can now move anywhere in my living room, a maximum distance of about 12 feet, and the keyboard works great. In fact, I was even able to go to my office, log into my server with VNC and operate the Viewscape with the BTC keyboard. My office is probably 20 to 25 ft. away.

Position #3 is where I would like to put it. The problem is that any of the positions around the TV work no better than my IR keyboard.

BTC 9019 receiver placement in my living room

Usage

The keyboard is a pretty standard keyboard layout with 13 buttons across the top. These extra keys can be programmed for various functions. They could be set to control volume, skip ahead, skip back… well you get the idea. To be able to use these functions you need to install the driver disk that comes with the keyboard, but I just needed a keyboard and mouse, and since this is my primary PVR server, I do not install anything on it that is not absolutely necessary. So I left the disk alone.

The joystick mouse on the BTC 9019URF is very responsive and easy to use. I sometimes trim the ends of movies using Hauppauge’s video editing software. This software only works on a computer that has a Hauppauge TV tuner installed, so I have to make the edits on the server. Using my Webboard this was always a bit tricky because the joystick mouse on it was pretty much binary. The pointer was either stopped or moving full speed across the screen. The pointer on the BTC 9019URF, on the other hand, accelerates the mouse pointer as you move the it further out towards its extremes. It also moves very smoothly. I used it to trim a file and it was much easier to move to the point I wanted to in the file. You would have to use the Hauppauge software to realize how tricky this can be. Being able to get close to the point you want to trim to is important and the BTC keyboard mouse made this quite easy.

The keys on the keyboard feel pretty much like any basic keyboard. For me, and I imagine for most who are using this for a PVR, speed typing is not something that will come up a lot. Even though the box says this keyboard is “Smart for the Multimedia and Gamesâ€? I wouldn’t want to try and play a game or have to type 60 words a minute using this keyboard (although my typing 60 words a minute on any keyboard is pretty much never going to happen). For a basic keyboard mouse combo, however, it’s fine.

Bottom line
Pros
     Easy to install
     Nice layout
     Light and easy to handle
Cons
     Might have some issues with range.
     A bit to big for my taste

So, all in all it’s a nice keyboard and works well with a PVR.

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.

We’ve added a new way to pay in the SnapStream Store — PayPal! If you have a PayPal account, just choose PayPal in the shopping cart (figure 1 below) or on the billing information page (figure 2 below). Using PayPal lets you pay directly from your bank account (in case you don’t have a credit card), it saves you the hassle of re-entering your credit card information or billing address, and it lets you keep your credit card information private. I read some research that 20% of all online transactions are paid with PayPal and having seen the usage since we launched it yesterday, I believe it!

If you have trouble using PayPal in the store or if you have any questions, post ‘em in the comments.

Figure 1: PayPal in the shopping cart

Figure 2: PayPal on the billing information page

DivX is a popular format but it’s pretty tough to record your shows directly to DivX with most of the hardware out there today. The best quality you can expect using a software encode TV card and a 2.4 GHz P4 is medium quality DivX Portable — definitely not suitable for a TV (see the Beyond TV FAQ, section 3, question 13 for more on this).

So what’s a DivX fan to do? The solution is: The Plextor ConvertX PX-TV402U (yes, the model number is a mouthful). The Plextor ConvertX is natively supported in Beyond TV 4 and it has a DivX hardware encoder so you can record shows directly to high-quality DivX even if you don’t have the latest multi-core processor from Intel or AMD. And now you can purchase the Plextor ConvertX in the Beyond TV DivX bundle (great if you are new to Beyond TV) or you can purchase it standalone (great if you want to add the ability to record straight to DivX to your existing Beyond TV system).

Enjoy recording to DivX!

One of the frustrations of buying things online is having to wait to receive your order by mail. Who hasn’t imagined a buying experience with the convenience of online shopping and the instant gratification of physical stores? (OK, maybe I’m the only one who spends time imagining such things ). Anyways, we’ve been hard at work with our fulfillment partner for the SnapStream Store so you have to wait a little bit less. Starting today, any order you place before 1pm central time will ship out on the same day. And with all items in the SnapStream Store in-stock, that makes our store the home of SnapStream HTPC instant gratification goodness.