Customer Reviews

SnapStream Beyond TV 3: Television Without Limits

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Beyond TV 3 is a great DVR program. I use this program to pause and record Live TV and all the cool things that TiVO does without the monthly fees. Plus, at the Snapstream website, you can download updates to the software for free and if you want, you can download Beta versions of Beyond TV and experiment with it. The current release supports more than 1 TV tuner cards and 2 are enabled for free so you can record a show and watch a different one at the same time.

Remote recording is great and I can schedule any recording that I want from any internet connected computer. Even better, I can stream Live TV and my recorded shows to just about any internet connected computer. Snapstream provides the TV / Program guide for free and is integrated nicely. The listings update automatically and you can search for programs well into the next week. Superfast setup to record an entire season of General Hospital or The Amazing Race.

After just a few short weeks, you will have hours upon hours of shows recorded and you will be a true TV junkie. With a 250 GB hard drive, at the highest quality setting, I can record about 80 hours of MPEG-2 quality TV. Play with the quality settings and I can record more than 300 hours in very good quality. Do you know how many shows that is?

You can also ShowSqueeze a recorded show which is Beyond TV's ability to compress a large file (3 GB 1 hour show) to a smaller (1 GB 1 hour show) without losing quality. SmartSkip goes through your recorded shows and marks where the commercials are so you can skip through them easily. VERY HANDY!

Even though my wife and I simply refer to it as TiVO, it's not and is wayyyyyy better. Give it a try. It works flawlessly with my DirecTV satellite system. Good support by Snapstream and has good user forums and knowledge bases.

Buy it. Bond with your TV.

Although it seemed to install OK, I couldn't get it to record for my life. I uninstalled and reinstalled twice. After lots of fooling around with the configuration I finally was able to record!

This thing is absolutely great. One of the first things you come to appreciate is the free online TV guide. With the guide I can find my show easily and then tell it to record all new episodes. It then skips old episodes and will even follow the show when it moves from one night to another (i.e. goes from Wednesday night @ 7pm to Thursday @ 8pm). Try that with your VCR!

Recordings can take up a ton of disk space - about 2.4 gig per hour. Beyond TV has an option where it will shrink the disk space required after the show completes. You can tell it to do the shrinking during non prime-time so it doesn't interfere with your usual work. Net effect is about 1/4 of the space is needed (.7 gig versus 2.4 gig) and I can't detect any quality difference!

Beyond TV offers software that easily and conveniently records your favorite TV and cable shows.

Several features make this software a keeper. The programming guide updates automtically, allowing the user to pick any programs for recording. A built-in search function assists when looking for that favoite show. In addition, when you're away from home, Beyond TV and your computer will record exactly what you programmed.

Just make sure you're not using RealPlayer or Window Media when Beyond TV is recording. In some cases, we've found, the Beyond TV software stops recording.

Overall, an A+++. Finally, perhaps the best feature, you can skip commercials.

It is so easy to record your favorate shows. With a product called mpeg-vcr, you can edit commericals out in seconds. Then burn to dvd. Way better than tivo, and no monthly fees!

Make sure you download the trial from there website to see if it will run on your computer before you buy it.
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It didn't work for my laptop, but might be a hardware compatibility issue with the software. The user interface looks cool so I won't give the software a 1 star.

I know I don't have a bad capture card, because the supplied software (Honestech TVR) allows me to watch and record TV, listen to the radio, and connect my XBox to my laptop.

Software looks cool, wish it worked with my hardware.

Toshiba Satellite laptop
CPU: 2.4 GHz Celeron
Memory: 738 MB RAM (512 MB + 256 MB PC 2700)
Hard drive: 310 GB (60 GB internal 250 GB external)
Video caputer card: SAA7134

Overall I give Beyond TV3 a 5 star rating because of all valuable tools it has given my computer. There are some limitations I have to work with, but they maybe a result of my lack of knowledge and/or required hardware. The computer I am using this program with has the following components: P4 2.4ghz CPU, 1.5 GB RAM, ATI 9800XT/128MB RAM, Audigy4 Soundcard and a Hauppauge WinTV Go-Plus PCI TV card, with Windows XP Service Pack 2, Norton Internet Security and DSL. My experience with the program has been a little more than one week.

The installation of the program was flawless.

The TiVo features the software maker claims work as stated. Time shifting, being able to watch a recorded part of a program currently being recorded, works well. I was concerned MPEG-2 encoding would not work because my TV card did not support it. This was not a problem. The remote control of my TV card also works fine.

Converting recorded program files to a format that would play on my Pocket PC worked well. The features associated with saving hard disc space I have not used very much, but what I have used has also worked well.

The Cons or Limitations with this program based upon what I know ( Which maybe missing a great deal) are: You do not have to pay a subscription fee for TiVo that is fine, but you have to leave your computer on all the time, or be vigilant enough to know when to turn it off and on. It may be cheaper but it is not free if you are used to turning off or putting your computer to sleep while you are not using it.

An earlier reviewer here stated that if you used Windows Media Player while a program was being recorded, the recording process was damaged. I have not tested that on my system, but I have found playing a game that puts any significant load on the graphics card has the same result. I doubt that people having motherboards supporting dual processors would have any better luck. By the way this was not something I did on purpose. This is something to keep in mind if you have a computer recording programs that may also be used for games by the other half of the household population.

The good news in this regard is you can load up your system with Office applications, email stuff, and do some non-media type surfing on the internet without having any effect of the quality of the program being recorded. The ability to do this might be affected by the components you have in your computer.

If you are considering purchasing this program you might be also thinking about what TV card to buy or if the one you have is adequate. The bottom of the line Huappauge TVcard and remote (also important) works for my purposes.

The TV cards I have experience with have a feature called pinned on top. This feature coupled with the ability to control the size of the screen makes it possible to keep a reduced screen in the same place on top of any other window screens regardless of the window based selections. For example, unless you have a pinned on top window on top of a Word Document or any other application, it will not disappear the moment you make a mouse click or keypress. Being able to type in Word and keep another application on the screen is just one example of what pinned on top can do.

Taking a program recorded by SnapStream and playing it back using the VCR function of Hauppauge would seem to be the way to work around this short fall. Unfortunately I have not been able to get this to work.

As mentioned by other revieweres, this version come with a free upgrade to Version 4. The request I made for this upgrade by email took about a week and one half to process.

One of the strong points of this program has beyond the ability to capture desiriable programs put on the air (so to speak) is the data compression features it has.

My experience with the user interface to get and watch programs has worked GREAT! Understanding and using all the data compression features of this program has is beyond me at this point in time. Version 4 and my bottom of the line TV card has DivX encoding. What that does is not much of a concern to me as disc space is not a concern.

If you have a TV card in your computer, this is a must have program. If you do not have a TV card in your computer, this is a good reason to get one.

Not that it will do any good, but I will request SnapStream to include a pinned on top functionality in their furture releases of software.

I tried to install this for 2 weeks and can't intall it. The installation wizzard complains that it can't find an internet connection. The tech support could not identify the problem and told me to wait (forever?) until they fine a fix. Apprently, BeyondTV has problems communicating with some ISP's. This is a known problem that Snapstrem didn't disclose. Now I'm stuck with software that will not even install (dell 2.5ghz with 1g memory). My $62 purchase is worthless. The warrenty specifically states that installation problems are not covered. Totally dissatisfied.

Version 4 is better then version 3. you can upgrade for free! which is what i did. but over works great, using it on an ATI TV Wonder PRO.

If you want to spend all your time troubleshooting problems instead of enjoying TV, buy this product. If you would just like a DVR to setup and never have to think about, get a Tivo.

This software is a great idea, and the menus are laid out great. However, it is just like with any Windows based system, it constantly messes up. I would lose sound, my picture would stretch out for no reason, the playback would start to jerk and lose sync.

It works nice when it works, but good luck keeping it running for long. I bought this to replace my Tivo. I thought I would have more control over it and not have to pay monthly fees. Well monthly fees are worth it to have a DVR that works flawlessly 24/7. I fight with enough computers all ready to have to add another.

I love this software - has been upgraded several times and using the latest version now, with a Happauge HD tuner card in the computer. Works just about flawlessly as TV and recorder.