1. Introduction

Updated 30 June 2006

At a Glance
Product	SnapStream Beyond TV (Version 4.3)
Summary	Digital PVR for WinXP or 2000 with extensive compression features, HD support and integrated commercial mark and skip
Pros	• Automatic integrated commercial detection and one touch commercial skipping • Automatic integrated compression tools with multiple formats and quality settings • Support for a wide variety of hardware • Online remote management of recordings • Simple and straightforward installation • Help box to explain each menu item's function • Great community support
Cons	• Full "media center" features require separate program (Beyond Media) • Utilitarian interface could use a more polished look. • Must use web-browser to access full feature set

I used to be very skeptical about the personal video recording program Beyond TV (BTV) from SnapStream Media. When asked to review the just-released BTV version 4.3, I also wondered where my bad attitude had come from. Back in 2003, I was in the middle of building my first home theater PC (HTPC) and had gone to a local store to buy some hardware for the system. When the salesperson found out I was building an HTPC, he went on a long rant about a bad experience that he had with BTV. Since I didn't know any better at the time, I took his advice and never got around to trying it for myself. But it turns out that BTV is an interesting program with many innovative features. So the moral of the story is: never assume that people know what they're talking about.

SnapStream is one of the pioneers of HTPC software development, and I was excited to try it out and find out what I had been missing. And since BTV 4.3 introduced a few enhancements for HDTV users, I decided to focus on giving those features a workout using a new HD tuner card.

The first consideration for any HTPC project is hardware compatibility. Fortunately, BTV's hardware requirements are easy to meet.

Storage - BTV's minimum hard drive space requirement is 15 GB. To put that into perspective, you would only be able to fit about five to seven hours of standard definition television or about one and a half hours of uncompressed high-definition television (HDTV) onto a 15-gig drive. Needless to say, digital video recording consumes a lot of space in a short amount of time. Storage space that once seemed bottomless with a desktop system can fill up within a matter of days with an HTPC. In this case, it's definitely worth the cost to go with a higher capacity drive. CPU - BTV suggests modest CPU requirements ranging from 700MHz to 1.7 GHz depending on the type of TV tuner that you use. However, BTV is rich with multimedia encoding and compression options right out of the box. Since video encoding takes time and a whole lot of processing power, even the higher end of the CPU requirement falls miles short of the ideal. The thought of a 1.7 GHz processor wheezing through a standard encoding job makes me tired. If you want to enjoy all that BTV has to offer, a faster CPU is definitely a good idea. RAM - BTV only requires 256-512 MB of RAM depending on the type of TV tuner that you're planning on using. However, I'd recommend a gigabyte or more to give yourself some breathing room if you plan to do any multitasking. TV Tuners - BTV supports a long list of TV tuners. A complete list can be found DVB (digital video broadcasting), which is a popular digital TV format in many European countries. If you plan to install four or more tuners, BTV recommends using a RAID array to handle the hard drive traffic during simultaneous capturing. As long as your RAID array is fast enough, there is no limit on the quantity of TV tuners that you can use with BTV. To prove it, one of the test engineers at Snapstream built an amazing 11 tuner monster a few months ago called "Godzilla" and showcased it here on Snapstream's Website. Graphics - BTV does not require much by way of graphics hardware. In general, slow video cards are quieter and cheaper, so this can be a benefit if you are planning on building a quiet HTPC. As long as the video card is compatible with DirectX 9, it will fit within the requirement. (e.g.: Geforce 2 and above; and Radeon 7500 and above.) Be careful with integrated graphics processors, though. Some integrated Intel graphics accelerators are underpowered and not recommended for use with BBTV. Remote - There are several remotes that work with BTV. The most common are SnapStream's Firefly remote, Hauppauge's Win TV remote, ATI's Remote Wonder and Microsoft's Media Center remote. In addition, you can use any other remote that is compatible with a remote configuration program called Girder. IR Blaster - If you use a set-top box with your digital cable or satellite TV you will need to purchase an IR blaster (IR blasters transmit the commands from your remote to the set-top box and allow you to control channel changes through the BTV interface).

Also note for those with set-top boxes- Firewire HD recording does not function with BTV. (In rare circumstances with the right hardware it is possible to circumvent the QAM HD encryption using the Firewire connection from a satellite set-top box.)

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