Beyond TV 3.7 Released
July 15th, 2005 at 2:55 pm by Christina
We released Beyond TV 3.7 earlier this week, so Rakesh asked me to say a little about what’s inside the box.
Release notes:
http://www.snapstream.com/Products/beyondtv/release_notes.asp
The biggest splash item in Beyond TV 3.7 is the new support for Plextor’s TV402U/MV402U and support for integrated audio in ATI’s newer boards/drivers. First, to speak to the Plextor boards, they may not be the smallest USB boards out there, but they make up for the extra size with a sleek form factor. And, they have onboard hardware encoding to DivX which Beyond TV 3.7 not only supports but also timeshifts (even live TV). Trust me, that was a lot of work, but the result is very cool. ATI seems to be going the route of integrated audio on their new AIW boards and drivers. Beyond TV 3.7 now fully supports these new AIW products. I checked out the X600 on one of our PCI Express machines with Beyond TV 3.7 and was very impressed with the picture quality.
As a development team, we’ve also doubled our efforts to respond to the main issues pointed out by you guys. If you have ever uninstalled Beyond TV, you probably noticed the uninstall survey and thought “Nobody is going to read this.‿ Well, we have spent several hours reading them and identified the top issues that people were complaining about. I also spent some time talking to Tucker, everybody’s favorite tech support guy, and found out the top issues on his mind.
If you check out the release notes, you’ll see several fixes that directly address your forum posts, tech support inquiries, and feedback from our surveys. Some good examples are the ability to test Link trial with a Beyond TV Trial, the ability to easily change your default folder for recordings, and not showing hidden channels on guide search results. There are tons of other minor bug fixes that we didn’t even list on the release notes. I guess, some of the best things in Beyond TV 3.7 will never show up on a marketing flier, but hopefully, you guys will notice. So thanks for all of the input! We’re listening.
July 15th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
SnapStream Releases Beyond TV 3.7
Earlier this week, SnapStream released a new version of their PC DVR software, Beyond TV.
The new version, 3.7, includes the following new features:
Support for DivX recording and timeshifting using the new Plextor boards
Support for the new ATI …
July 17th, 2005 at 10:36 am
thanks
July 18th, 2005 at 11:42 am
Whats the Eta on the save the buffer, I know customers have been requesting that forever.
July 18th, 2005 at 2:15 pm
What about Closed-Captioning support? Any ETA on that? Several people have asked for official support for this as well.
July 18th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
Ditto on Closed Captioning. This would be great to have for live TV — but also think of the ability to search the CC files on your drive for one particular bit of dialogue… And bring up the relevant video! This would be simply awesome.
Also - I’m not clear if 3.7 can Showsqueeze to DivX now — can it?
July 18th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
I had a lot of problems with choppy and 0 mb files. With version 3.5.3, the 0 mb problem went away (at least it restarted the recording), but I still had the choppy files. Since I upgraded to version 3.7.2, I have not had a single choppy file. Is version 3.7.2 supposed to fix this, or do I still have to worry that it may happen again?
July 19th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Manuel,
It depends on the initial cause of the problem. If the problem was due to a hardware problem, than ‘no’. But if your hardware is fine, the new way we handle timeshifting has probably fixed your problem. From our beta tests, it fixed a number of similar issues for users.
Soham
July 19th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
Does 3.7 have HDTV support?
July 20th, 2005 at 9:10 am
Just downloaded and installed 3.7 — no squeezing to DivX
July 20th, 2005 at 9:47 am
Does 3.7 support the ATI All-In-Wonder 9600XT?
July 20th, 2005 at 11:32 am
3.7 doesn’t have HDTV support. As you found out Jean-Francois, there isn’t any software encode support for DivX (ie now ShowSqueezing to DivX) — you can only record and timeshift in DivX with Plextor boards.
July 20th, 2005 at 11:36 am
And, yes, 3.7 added support for the ATI AIW 9600XT.
July 20th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Soham,
It looks like the choppy file problem was resolved with version 3.7.2. Thank you very, very much.
Manuel
July 22nd, 2005 at 5:33 am
fajn
July 23rd, 2005 at 6:27 am
What tuner is compatible with Beyond tv????
July 26th, 2005 at 10:08 am
I’ve been trialling this for the past couple of weeks and upgraded the trial version to the latest. Here’s my comments:
Like: Ability to turn off sound effects
Dislike: Apparent inability to force tvtv updates - now only works through auto update every 20 mins or so. This worked fine in previous version
Would like to see: One touch record button (i.e. not just pause), especially as I have 2 tuners, so I can flip channels after starting the OTR.
July 26th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
Installed 3.7, and was looking forward the new features and fixes. To my dismay, I found that audio only showed up on the right channel. It’s clearly a problem only with BTV, because as soon as I close the app, everything is restored.
I rolled back to 3.5.3, and voila, both channels! Anybody else experience this with an SB Audigy ZS?
July 26th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Thanks guys for continuing the improvements. Still think the interface looks better than MCE.
I’ll selfishly looks for my most wanted: sanity check to keep bad TV listings from creating recordings that go for hours, and Ctrl-Enter on the Live TV option to select a specific tuner. Did they make it this time?
Keep up the HDTV development work!
July 27th, 2005 at 6:44 am
It would be nice if the main screen showed multiple folders for storing and retrieving tv programs instead of the generic recorded shows.
One for Dads Sports, one for the Kids Shows, one for Mama’s Soaps and Cooking, etc.
August 1st, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Close caption would be my top priority.
Zoom would be nice too.
August 1st, 2005 at 4:41 pm
Just upgraded from 3.5.3 to 3.7. The program rarely faultered until now. The recording engine errors and of course the apologetic dialog box pops up saying the program needs to close - sorry. BTV stays running, but I doubt I can record anything. Anyone else have this problem?
August 1st, 2005 at 5:14 pm
Without giving speed and memory, I find periodically I have recorded a program, and when wanting to watch it…takes a long time to access it, and when it finally does, audio drags…or audio is “blotchy”. Has actually froze the program on XP (Home). Needed to restart Windows XP.
I presume it’s my System…or is it?
August 1st, 2005 at 5:28 pm
BTW…I use ATI TV Wonder. Not to sound negative, this program has many potentials.
My clock speed is over 1.4, and I have assigned a 160GIG hard drive for this.
Also, I can not watch and record at the same time. Not a big deal. But would like to know if it’s a downgraded system I’m using. I realize Video is Memory hungry.
August 2nd, 2005 at 10:48 am
3.7 was a major leap forward for me. I have an ATI All in Wonder 9600 and this software version was tailor made for that hardware. Thank you thank you!!
I was using a Hauppauge USB PVR 2 but it did not do Live Streaming. The ATI does but the previous version had issues. I am now able to stream live video and it looks fantastic. The software is stable and performs flawlessly. Great job and a great version release. Keep it coming.
August 4th, 2005 at 9:43 am
I’d just like to say thanks.
I recently bought a PVR-150 and tries several PVR packages including BeyondTV. Each had its strengths, but each also had weaknesses that were significant enough that I was sticking with WinTV and building a MythTV Linux box.
I installed 3.7 with little confidence that it would work any better than the previous versions (scrambled/locked video on window resize and stuttering at the beginning of playback were annoying), but I was very pleasantly surprised. The stuttering is gone (though only Overlay mode works properly for me), and all of the other features seem to be working just as advertised as well.
Excellent job!
Now… if only we could have the ability to bypass the PVR-150 hardware encoder for instantaneous playback…
August 4th, 2005 at 6:30 pm
I’ve been evaluating every piece of software I can find looking for one that will do closed captions. My wife is hearing impaired and I was majorly bummed when I couldn’t display them right out of the box. ATI assures me the card (TV Wonder Elite) will do closed captions, but their 3rd party software (Catalyst) won’t…
Any hope this will be included in a near-future release?
Other than that I really like BeyondTV.
By the way, the tech support guy at ATI I spoke with said he uses BeyondTV at home.
August 10th, 2005 at 6:38 am
I’ve upgraded to 3.7.2 from 3.5.x two days ago. Since then any recording is series of four 0Mb files. Can’t use it. Didn’t have that problem with 3 previous versions. Using ATI ALL IN WONDER, 1Ghz (:-|) and 200Gb HD. Have been using Snapstream PVR for years with no issues … I may uninstall and install previous version. Greg
August 13th, 2005 at 12:58 am
I have been having a similar problem as Mark Herda. And Ed Gaidies; Sometimes when I record a program in 3.7 it locks up when I try to play it and eventually I have to “End Task� in Taskmaster. I can play the file with another player such as “WMP� or “WinDVD� but both audio and video are very jumpy. I rolled back to 3.5. The files that were a problem in 3.7 won’t play in 3.5 either but new recordings are OK.
August 18th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
I wish there was a PCI card I could get that allowed hardware converting to DivX. I already have a 250BTV PVR card. Wouldn’t it be horribly inefficient to send the video data out to a USB device for DivX compression?
August 25th, 2005 at 11:57 pm
Since upgrading from a previous version, my system seldom fully boots. After uninstalling 3.7, it was fine. I reinstalled and problem returned. I have a 2.4G P4 with a ton of ram. Previos version ran flawlessly.
August 27th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
It Is Very Good Software
August 29th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
TUCK… It hAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE i TALKED WITH YOU.
FOR SOME REASON i CAN NO LONGER VIEW MY BTV 3.5.
WHAT COULD THE REASON BE ?
WIN 2000 TV, WHICH I DON’T USE BECAUSE THERE IS NO SOUND EVER GIVES ME CLEAR PICTURE AS IT ALWAYS HAS.
IF I MREMEMBER , YOU HAD AN UYPGRADE FOR BTV WHICH I DOWNLOADED BUT NEVER TRIED VIEWING IT AFTERWARD. COULD IT BE POSSIBLE I GOOFED SOMETHING UP ?????
September 4th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
I can’t seem to find the link to upgrade BTV Link. Just updated my BTV server and now can’t connect. The upgrade button goes the the BTV instead of Link…. help…
September 6th, 2005 at 1:37 am
I gave up on myth tv on linux it was a bear to install, configure and get to run for any length of time beyond tv and beyond media installed with ease and in a few hours, including reformat and install of win 2000 Imhad my choice of win tv, sage tv and your products. So far your product has most of the features I am seeking. However I have a few problems, audio dropping out after extended viewing, and no access to the program schedule listings. as a feature request I like to see more news feeds, demo movies of view on demand, expanded weather info, eg: maps, several city favorites,
expanded satellite receiver control capabilities, more styles to choose from, I also like to see expanded capabilities on playlist on beyond media, and I can think of several more. Myth appears to have a full plate of features, someday I may return to it once the bugs are worked out. But for now, beyond fill the imediate need, I may demo xp media center or wait for the next release of Windows.
September 6th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
With 3.5 I had many problems, I removed it and went back to a previous version without problems. Now things seem much better but I have noticed that when playing back, I have no audio for a time.
Also, the Program Guide is so big that it takes a while to look through it. Any way to get an option to make it display more stations and times?
Thanks
September 9th, 2005 at 11:48 am
When will you have a program which will work in Windows XP PRO 64 bit on an Asus 64 bit board.
September 10th, 2005 at 11:03 am
for wintv
September 13th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
For Karl: I had the same problem with BTV Link. Just go to the download page and download the “Demo” of BTV Link 3.7.4. The installer will detect that you have a previous version installed and will offer you the option to upgrade. It works fine…
September 18th, 2005 at 4:02 am
I would like the timeshifting files that are created to have “hidden” attribute set by default or the option to have the timeshift files put in a different folder than the recordings.
September 26th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
BTV KICKS THE EVERYTHING OUTTA TIVO, HOWEVER THE ONLY THINGS I MISS IS SEEING THE VIDEO PLAY DURING 1X FAST/2X FASTER/3X FASTEST WHILE SEEKING I HATE HAVING TO FFW A LITTLE THEN STOPING TO SEE WHERE I AM? IN ADDITOIN ACTION SCENES AND GIRLS JUMPING ON TRAMPOLINES JUST ISNT THE SAME WITHOUT VIEWABLE SLOW MOTION- PLEEZ
September 30th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
I like BTV a lot the only problem i’m still having is the sound disapearing after my computer is on for a couple of days. Its annoying when you go to watch your show and it recorded fine but there is no sound.
(ati ehomewonder) The other thing that i would LOVE to see is if your use an IR blaster and it and snapstream sees no video that it would send the ON command to my cable box. My cable box shuts it self off for software updates and its annoying cause snapstream just records an hour of nothing. I would LOVE it if snapstream could dectect this condition and just turn the cable box on.
October 7th, 2005 at 9:55 am
One thing that I would like to see in the future is in the program guide and option like WMC has that will highlight action movies or sitcoms or musicals and the whatnot so I can click say action movies and as i am scrolling the program guide I can easily see the action movies….
October 9th, 2005 at 3:30 am
Does Beyond TV 3.7 work on Windows XP Media Center Edition?
I would like to record TV programs in mpeg format since file recorded on the Meadia Center is in DVR-MS format which can not be edited and can only be viewed on the recording PC.
Thanks!
October 9th, 2005 at 8:00 am
Hello,
I am new to BTV. I have one question, will BTV work with FTA satellite recievers, and which ones? Thankyou in advance.
October 9th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
From time to time after I watch a recorded show I hit the arrow to go back to the screen that has the play, delete, showsqueeze, keep until menu and my entire screen goes blank. The only way to recover is to reboot the computer. I am using a PVR150 card. It doesn’ t happen all the time, just enough to be annoying. Other than that 7.2 works fine for what I use it for… Any advice?
November 1st, 2005 at 9:15 pm
Will let you know how I make out!
Gerry
November 20th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
i just installed the new btv 4, the picture is tearing or scratchy.
do i need to buy a new video card, i have an ATI 9600. thanks
April 22nd, 2006 at 12:41 am
Perfect and gr8 article for everyone