Now shipping: Beyond TV 4.5 with optional DVD Burning Plug-in
November 16th, 2006 at 4:47 pm by Rakesh
We have a couple of new things we’re announcing today:
Beyond TV 4.5
First, we just began shipping Beyond TV 4.5, a free update for anyone that owns the full version of Beyond TV 4. Like point releases before it, Beyond TV 4.5 contains a number of bug fixes and improvements. One bug fix worth mentioning is the library screens aren’t slow anymore, for users with collections of 100 or more recordings. Another major area of improvement in this new release is the Web Admin, thanks to the community contributions to the shared-source webadmin, in particular the contributions of ccarlin.
As always, this release furthers our goal of making PC DVR something that’s easy — both easy to install and easy to use.
- Read the complete release notes
- See screenshots of the WebAdmin changes
- Download the free upgrade
DVD Burning Plug-in
…and embedded in Beyond TV 4.5 is an optional and exciting new feature — integrated DVD burning. The new DVD Burning Plug-in makes it easy to burn DVDs of your recorded TV shows and movies. Just pop a DVD into your burner, add videos to the DVD in Beyond TV and then click “Burn DVD.” It just works.
Burn to DVD on the main menu in Beyond TV
The main screen for the DVD Burning Plug-in
And the final product is a great looking DVD with all of your show information intact (things like the show name, episode title and original air date) and the menus have the same polished look of the Beyond TV interface. Here’s what the final product looks like:
Some of the technical details on the DVD Burning Plug-in:
- supports pretty much all DVD writing hardware out there
- supports pretty much all types of DVD media and technologies (dual layer, single layer, mini DVDs, DVD-RAM, DVD+R and RW, DVD-R and RW)
- fully licensed by Dolby for Dolby Digital Audio (2-channel) so the sound quality is great
- supports both video DVDs and data DVDs
- supports not only MPEG-2 (program stream) videos, but Windows Media (WMV) and DivX videos as well
- burning happens in the background, while your DVD is burned, you can use Beyond TV (or anything else on your PC)
So how can you get this feature? Well, first of all, you can purchase the DVD Burning Plug-in straight out — just find your Beyond TV 4 product key and head on over to the upgrade center. Or, if you’d prefer, you can try the plug-in before buying it. The plug-in will cost most users $29.99 — the regular price is $39.99. See the FAQ for more details on pricing.
- More about the DVD Burning Plug-in
- DVD Burning Plug-in FAQ
- Take a screenshot tour (hosted on flickr)
- Watch a video demo of DVD Burning Plug-in (hosted on YouTube)
And last but not least, something for new users
Finally, to mark the launch of Beyond TV 4.5 and the DVD Burning Plug-in, we’ve put our top-selling Beyond TV + Hauppauge PVR-150MCE bundle on sale for $99.99 (normal price is $139.99). With Beyond TV and the PVR-150MCE each normally priced at $69.99, we think this is a good deal… so if you’re reading this and don’t have a PC DVR, you can build one now for less than a $100 (and no subscription fees) and even the shipping is free.
—
And as usual, the discussion is over in the SnapStream forums — so try out Beyond TV 4.5 and the DVD Burning Plug-in and let us know what you think!
November 17th, 2006 at 3:59 am
I have held off buying this product until now do to the difficulty in getting recordings burned to DVD with 3rd party software. Now there is a plugin that says it can do that, but I’m hesitant to spend the money without having seen it work for myself. The core product has a 21 day demo. Is there any working demo of the DVD plugin. If there was I would most certainly buy, but for now I don’t know.
November 17th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Don’t care about the DVD plugin. Installed the new version anyway. Like the new features on the web admin and I think the overall package runs better now too. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Oh, and I was able to install it at home using a VNC connection through my cellphone. That’s the test of whether or not an installer is simple enough.
November 17th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
o.k.
November 17th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
i need a coupon to purchase your product
November 17th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Still no mp4 ShowSqueeze option for all those PSP users.
I will stick with BTV3 for a while longer.
November 18th, 2006 at 1:26 am
New BTV 4.5 trial does not extend trial as indicated on the email I received.
November 18th, 2006 at 5:49 am
What would make me upgrade would be the availability of an easy software that would allow me to remove the commercials before I recorded the DVDs…
November 18th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Jeff, yes, the trial you download from our site includes a 21-day trial of the DVD Burning Plug-in (in addition to a trial of the core product). Download here: http://www.snapstream.com/download/beyondtv/
November 18th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Kurt, vnc through your cell phone… nice.
Thanks for the positive comments on the release.
November 18th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
I bought this product back when it was called SnapStream Personal Video Station with the WinTV-PVR-350 and it is worth every penny!
November 18th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
The trial does not extend after already having had a trial period with 4.4 !!
Please make the trial available also as extension for previous trial users as stated in your email !
Thanks
November 18th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Bler Ler Ler
November 19th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Not bad… but wish I could reduce the the recorded show size before the burn. At times, a padded recording will have a lot of commercials before it starts. It would be nice if the actual show would display in the DVD menu windows. But most often the little preview window is filled with commercial shots preceding the show. All & all I feel the DVD burning utility is a great idea and simple to use.
November 19th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
I downloaded this software on Friday burned a two hour PBS documentary to disk. The voice goes out of sync with the video. Very slight but still noticeable.
The worst part however is that it has screwed up my Nero burning software.
If I go over to Nero and burn a DVD it fails every time. Even if I select a slow burning speed (I used to be able to do 16X).
What/how do make them (nero and beyond sw) play nice?
November 19th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
I downloaded this software on Friday burned a two hour PBS documentary to disk. The voice goes out of sync with the video. Very slight but still noticeable.
The worst part however is that it has screwed up my Nero burning software.
If I go over to Nero and burn a DVD it fails every time. Even if I select a slow burning speed (I used to be able to do 16X).
What/how do make them (nero and beyond sw) play nice?
I get Illegal Disc error. I have an HO DVD 840d writer.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
I downloaded this trial and must say, it is totally cool. Recording - Easy. Playback - Easy. And now Burning to DVD - Easy. I also agree with Ewerton Vieira. A plugin or add-on to remove commercials before burning would be cool. For now I use VideoRedo. It recognizes the Snapstream XML flags and allows easy removal of the commercials and puts the program back together. Very cool and easy to use program.
Snapstream, keep up the great wotk.
November 22nd, 2006 at 12:41 pm
I’m having a difficult time burning recorded shows to DVD’s since installing 4.5. Is the new version (4.5 w /the DVD plug-in) preventing recorded show from being burned w/other 3rd party apps?
November 22nd, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Please Please Please make a Beyond TV Link software that would use a PS2 (or Xbox360 or Wii)!!
November 22nd, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Get it for free at fry.com after mail in rebate
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/5057895
November 23rd, 2006 at 9:22 am
I’ve not yet had the dvd burner run successfully. Has anyone had any luck yet? Mine keeps erroring out, error 24 and error 14.
November 23rd, 2006 at 10:51 pm
The trial on my computer “seems” to work fine, that is until you have wasted a dvd and it “says” successfully completed. When you go to play, the menu is there, but where the selections appear, you only get a blank screen. When you go to play, you get audio, but no video. I have submitted a support ticket over a week ago, but haven’t had any response. Anyone else have this happen to them?
November 24th, 2006 at 10:21 am
I too bought Beyond TV back when it was “SnapStream” (and I still call it that!)
Bought a DVD burner to stick in the living-room machine (and some more drives - this’ll bring it up to a terabyte!) at last night’s CompUSA sale. Standing in line I talked with two people about Beyond TV; both said they’re going to check it out. I’ve said it’s not the easiest software to install - when it works fine it’s great; when it doesn’t it’s confusing as all get-out - but once it’s running it’s damn close to rock-solid. (I think one or two glitches in several years)
I only have two real complaints (everything else is “gee I wish I could…”) - (1) BTV should “pool” my drives - if one drive fills up, just use space elsewhere. and (2) I have a several shows where I “record every episode” because we’re catching up on some older episodes - but I’d like to be able to say “*never* record this episode” (and easily set for a range of episodes to never record). It’s a pain if you want to record the new shows and a few of the older, but not all of them…
But regardless, Beyond TV is darn-darn good stuff!
(my living room machine has three tuners, and I’ll add a high-def tuner soon - and that terabyte of disk, and the DVD burner. Try doing all that with a Tivo!
November 27th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
I have been using this plug-in for about a week and have found it very useful. I am able to archive shows about home improvement onto several Dual Layer DVDs and have saved about 200GB of space! I was able to create the discs quickly due to the integrated and automated DVD creation sequence. I just select the show I want to record, select the burn option and I have a DVD in about 30 minutes (I store all my shows as MPEG2 so that I maintain the best quality possible). I don’t have to create a menu or chapter skips because this is all automatically done for me. I had planned to spend the last week of this year creating the various DVD’s for my archive, but I was able to tackle this task fairly quickly using this plug-in during this past weekend. I hated the thought of spending a whole week to archive shows, but that is exactly how long it would have taken for the number of shows that I converted. Creating a show before this plug-in meant manually copying the show to another machine, using nero to find the commercials so that I could remove them, creating chapter ships every so often, creating a menu and selecting the burn option (this process takes about 2 to 4 hours (this includes the time needed to burn the disc), but it can be done in about 30 minutes with the plug-in). I am very pleased with the plug-in and would buy it again if I had to make the decision to purchase it all over again. I would like to see some more options for customizing the disc in the future though. The final thing that I would like to see is the plug-in being able to remove the commercials instead of creating chapter skips but I know there are probably legal issues there).
November 28th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Using 4.5 (paid user) with the DVD trial. Copied 4 different DVD’s all were 4 to 4 1/2 hours of programs. 2 dvd’s took less the 30 minutes to transcode and burn (checked dvd-good quality) the other 2 dvd’s took over 4 hours to transcode and burn. Why 4 hrs on 2 and only 30 minutes on the other two. No programs were HDTV. The less than 30 minutes were great, 4 hours seems long. WHY THE DIFFERENCE? It would be great if they all were less than 30 minutes.
Planning on buying the (DVD) program in less than 15 days. I get more capacity to each DVD vs what I get using Nero and quality seems equal. 2 1/2 hrs (nero)vs. 4 1/2 hours of DVD using your software.
Like what you guys/gals are doing, keep it up. Been a BTV user for about a year.
Quentin
Also, some tweak suggestions.
When transcoding, let me know which tv program it’s working on. That way I can get an idea of how long it’s going to take (especially on the 4/5 hr DVD’s. Like: Is it half way done, 3/4ths of the way done, etc.
Since you capture the programs description, add the program description to the DVD screen, nice but not absolutely necessary. You would need to show less the 6 programs on each page (screen).
November 29th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Snapstream Beyond Tv est un extraordinaire logiciel pour gérer ma carte Tv facile èa utiliser surtout sa fonction qui enèeve les commanditaire,merveilleux.
December 10th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Why I don’t understand is why they won’t support MP4. I used to depend heavily on BTV3. I used it to record everything I watched but ever since I got my video IPod I have stopped using it much.
What we need is the ability to syndicate a series recording as an RSS feed with MP4 attachments. This would essentially turn your recording into a podcast which would be picked up on your IPod the next time you docked. Its so simple to do, there must be some reason this feature is being avoided.
Please consider adding this feature. You could then sell BTV to every video IPod owner.
December 12th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
I have been investigating PVR software for about 3 weeks now. I am going to build one as a science project with my son. (we built a PC last year now we are going to turn it into a DVR).
So far, I am impressed with this software suite. I have looked at free and pay packages and so far this software is the best that I have found.
I am still doing my research but this package is at the top of my list. (BeyondTV, BeyondMedia, FireFly Remote, IR Blaster, Girder with the PVR 500 MCE from Happauge).
BTW…Bill R has a great feedback above. I have ripped my DVD collection to MP4 as well (I use with my Sony PSP for travel). It would be great to support this format as it is very compressed and saves space.
December 12th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Sorry, the setup didn’t pick up any of the channels in my area (95062) even though their signal strength with other s/w is 92% and better. It might be a great s/w package but unless it can tune and pick up signals it’s pretty worthless.
December 13th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
I ordered & received my BTV4.5, ordered & paid for the DVD plugin but how do I install the plugin? No mention of how with the shipment. If it’s on the BTV disk is it a separate install? (With a separate verification?) This was purchased for a gift so I’d like to have this sorted out before the install is attempted.
BTW:
Sent an e-mail about this to SS 2 days ago, thanks for ignoring it. Great service.
January 4th, 2007 at 4:38 am
I am very pleased, I have been a advit fan of ATI, I can do more with your product, such as recording two or three programs at the same time while monitoring all at the same time, Fan-Fantastic… Yes I think I have found a new LOVE… You do not know how long I’ve been telling people you can do this,,, Always getting that look… If we can go to the Moon and place objects on Mars, Transplant HEARTS, Kidneys and such, Why can I not view and record TV as I would like to be convienced ??? All I have ever asked is to be able to record four programs at the same time I am watching (in observance) and they laughed. I could get ATI to record 1 program while I observed it and watched another,but no more…
January 9th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Fantastic product and super easy to use and install!
I have tried several other brand TV tuners and PVRs and nothing compares to the Beyond TV tuner remote package I got from you.
It installed perfect the first time. It works flawlessly. This is one product I would recommend to people without hesitation. You won’t be disapointed.
I bought the Beyond TV Regular Cable/Antenna PCI Bundle with Firefly Remote.
January 21st, 2007 at 10:38 pm
is there a way to get tv over the internet if so please let me know, thank you.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
If only I could get good service from the software when recording HDTV on my hvr-1600. Heck, it would be nice if I could utilize both the analog and digital tuners at the same time! How about a way to down convert 1080i content to 720p so that my computer will work and playback stutter free? According to the specs listed on this site I should be OK with my hardware. Something just doesn’t quite work though. Also, the software needs to be more robust when dealing with multiple hard drives!
April 7th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
[...] napstream has released version 4.5 of Beyond TV. The biggest change to this version is the optional DVD burning plug-in. You can now burn DVDs of your recorded TV shows and movies. The bad thing about this is the cost. The DVD burning plug-in is going to cost $39.99! Many other front ends/PVRs include this functionality in the base product. To find out more about the new release and the DVD burning plugin check out the Snapstream Blog. [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:55 am
Please include a show squeeze mp4 next time for us psp users and the ability to play them back from within BTV
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:17 pm
how do i sync my dvd onto my ipod?
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:07 am
I want to share this tip:
I know there is someone out there like me that tried and failed to download movies and http://how-to-burn-dvd.com - Burn DVD’s from the internet that play on a regular DVD player.
Thanks,