SnapStream entered the personal video recorder (PVR) market 4 years ago with its Personal Video Station product, renamed Beyond TV 3 for the most recent version, which shipped in early 2004. At its heart, Beyond TV 3 is a Windows-based software package that lets you record TV shows on your PC. But that's only the beginning: Beyond TV 3 really shines in the ways you can consume that recorded TV content. Before I get to that, however, I want to step back a bit and take a look at what you need to do to make this all come together.

Getting the Pieces You Need
Most PCs don't have the necessary hardware to interact with a TV signal, so you're probably going to need some additional hardware to get a good DVR experience. At the very least, you'll need a TV tuner interface (typically a PCI card for desktop PCs, though lower-quality USB-based options exist for notebooks). These cards typically offer a number of input types, such as cable-compatible coaxial, S-video, and component video, as well as stereo audio. Today, the biggest maker of TV tuner cards is HauppaugeComputer Works, and I've reliably used Hauppauge equipment for years in both my den-based Media Center PC and my home office-based desktop PC, on which I tested Beyond TV 3; for this reason, I feel comfortable recommending Hauppauge cards.

Depending on the situation, you might also want to grab a remote control so that you can control the Beyond TV 3 experience without hovering over your PC. Not coincidentally, SnapStream sells Beyond TV 3 bundles that include TV tuner cards and remote controls. The remote I tested, a low-end Hauppauge model, is pretty junky compared with the nice remote you get with a Media Center PC. But SnapStream recently started shipping a beautiful remote called the Firefly PC Remote, which appears to answer all DVR and PC-related remote needs. (It works not only with Beyond TV 3 but also with more than 80 PC applications, including MusicMatch Jukebox.)

Finally, you'll want to address the location concern. Today's PCs, by nature, aren't exactly at home in the living room. They're noisy and delicate, compared with typical consumer-electronics equipment, and prone to—ahem—rebooting at inconvenient times. For this reason, I have a love-hate relationship with my HP Media Center PC, which has been a fixture in my den since fall 2002. Microsoft has improved Media Center dramatically since then and will ship a second major update this fall, but nothing can change the fact that the box is a PC. It just doesn't fit in the den.

SnapStream's solution would have the same problem. But unlike the Media Center PCs, SnapStream has a handy solution: Instead of keeping the PC in the den, keep it in the home office where it belongs and use a home network to blast the recorded TV shows from Beyond TV 3 to a set-top unit attached to your favorite TV. SnapStream doesn't make such a box, but Hauppauge does. The MediaMVP is an inexpensive ($99) and simple solution that also includes an interface for enjoying your PC's digital music, photos, and non-recorded TV movies from anywhere in the house. The interface isn't as gorgeous as that of XP MCE, but you can't beat the price.

Installing and Configuring Beyond TV 3
After you decide which PC to use, and after you install at least a compatible TV tuner card (and, optionally, the remote and IR receiver), you can install Beyond TV 3, which is a relatively simple step-by-step process thanks to good documentation and a handy Getting Started poster. First, you connect the TV source to the tuner card—this can be satellite, cable, or antenna. If your TV system requires a cable box (say, to get premium channels such as HBO), you'll also need what's called an IR blaster. An IR blaster is a cable that runs from the PC (through a USB port) to the cable box. A small bit of stickum glues the end of the cable over the cable box's IR port. Essentially, an IR blaster emulates your remote control. When you send a command such as "Change the channel up," the IR blaster "blasts" that command to the box, as if your cable system's remote control had done it. It’s the same system Media Center PCs use. See SnapStream's Web site for compatible IR blasters, which typically cost $20 to $50.

Then, you run the Beyond TV 3 installation program. (Be sure to check the SnapStream Web site for the latest version first.) After you reboot, you can configure Beyond TV 3 for your hardware, TV source, and guide data configuration. You'll also create a free SnapStream.Net account, which I describe below. Now, you can start the application—which runs either in full-screen, windowed, or Web admin mode—and make further configuration changes.

Under Settings, you can configure such items as recording quality, whether to use an innovative commercial-skipping feature called SmartSkip (not available on TiVo or Media Center), source type (cable in my case), storage location of recordings, and other related data. Now it's time to get busy.

Watching and Recording TV Shows
When you click the Live TV option in the main Beyond TV 3 screen, you'll see a live TV feed. You can change channels, as you might expect, but here is just one of many areas in which Beyond TV 3 outpaces Media Center. When you move the mouse around or press any remote button, you see the Beyond TV 3 overlay, which presents information such as date and time, volume level, channel, and current show information, as well as links to the Guide and options.

Sounds fine so far. But Beyond TV 3 overcomes one of the huge limitations of Media Center, TiVo, and any other IR blaster-type solution by letting you quickly scroll through the list of currently available channels, directly from the Live TV view, without having to actually view the Guide. That is, you can click the Up or Down channel button on your remote until you find the show you want, and Beyond TV 3 won't try to change the channel for each button press. Instead, the UI changes to display the name of the show on each station as you move through the list. When you finally settle on a channel, Beyond TV 3 goes directly to that channel. This type of navigation is particularly important for DVRs, especially those with IR blasters, because channel changes can be very slow. On Media Center, for example, you have to laboriously click the Up or Down channel button, wait a few seconds until the channel actually changes, then repeat. It's so painful that most people with DVRs simply stop navigating TV that way. With Beyond TV 3, channel surfing is back.

If you do want to view the Guide, however, I have more good news: Not only does Beyond TV 3 offer all the standard Guide data and navigation that DVR users expect, it offers two major enhancements over Media Center. First, the Guide appears as an overlay over the live TV signal, so you can see both the Guide and the current show. (On Media Center, the Guide places the live TV signal in a tiny window in the corner of the screen.) Second, the Beyond TV 3 Guide features a thin marker line that denotes your position within the Guide's timeline. If it's 11:03, for example, you'll see a vertical line showing you where you are in the timeline of the current shows. That line moves left to right as time advances, of course. Nice!

If you want to record a show, the functionality is similar to that of other DVRs. You can record shows on the fly by simply clicking the Record button on your remote, or you can schedule recordings using Beyond TV 3's handy Setup Recordings option. Here, you can navigate the Guide and select shows to record, search by show title, view upcoming recordings and configure other options. And when you do find a show to record, you get a number of crucial options, including Record this episode, Record all episodes, and Record all new episodes.

Sharing Your Recorded TV Shows
If you're familiar with Media Center or TiVo, this information probably sounds pretty familiar. But Beyond TV 3 boasts some additional features that set this solution apart from other options. First, Beyond TV 3's recorded TV shows are in standard MPEG-2 format and aren't restricted in any way. You can edit recorded shows in your favorite movie-making application, burn them to DVD, or store them on a networked file server. Microsoft's solution generates huge, nonstandard files that are difficult to work with (6GB for a 2-hour show), and TiVo restricts you from even copying the recorded shows from the device to a PC.

You can copy recorded TV shows to a laptop and watch them away from home. With a MediaMVP, as mentioned above, you can watch those shows from anywhere in the house. And if you're a Pocket PC owner, you can even compress those shows by using Beyond TV 3's ShowSqueeze feature, and watch them on your PDA.

Wait, There's More!
At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, there's more. If you're away from home and decide you want to record a TV show at home, you can log on to your Beyond TV 3's system through a Web-based interface and set up recordings remotely. (This feature is the reason you need a SnapSteam.Net account.) You can even schedule recordings from a WAP-enabled phone, though I haven't yet tried that feature.

SnapStream Beyond TV 3 is a full-featured, well-designed DVR product for PCs, one that is made more capable by an intelligent set of add-on products. The base Beyond TV 3 software is $60, but SnapStream also sells TV tuner/remote/software packages for $140 to $180. Even when you add in the cost of the Firefly remote ($50) and a MediaMVP ($99), the SnapStream solution costs well under that of even the cheapest Media Center PC, all while offering more DVR functionality. Furthermore, SnapStream (like Media Center, but unlike TiVo), doesn't require a monthly fee that ties you into a service for months at a time. If you don't mind tinkering a bit with your PC—the TV tuner installation isn't for newbies—SnapStream's Beyond TV 3 comes highly recommended.

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Reader Comments
You should also make the comparison to one of the newer Dishnetwork PVRs. Since most people reading this article will probably have either cable or satellite, the receiver/pvr combo is very well executed, requires no extra monthly fee for programming like Tivo does, has a uhf remote so programs can be distributed and watched anywhere in the house, has s-video and dolby optical outputs, so you can transfer a recorded program to your pc for editing, and has none of the hassles of trying to us a PC to record a program. Their latest PVR also has a usb port, but I don't know what it does, if anything yet. When all the manufacturers of PVRs put ethernet jacks on their units, then this interim solution of putting a PC in the family room can be trashed, as it should be. Now if the manufacturers of receivers and cd/dvd players will follow suit and then do some integration to eliminate or reduce the complexity of the whole setup, then maybe husbands can get some relief from the yelling that comes from the family room. John -May 13, 2004 The reviewer forgot to mention that if you already own a Prismiq Media Player you can set the Prismiq Media Server software to automatically monitor the folder that Snapstream records MPEG 2 to. Back in the living room the Prismiq will show all your recorded shows and stream them with very high quality. Search the forums at Prismiq.org for Snapstream. Snapstream also has Canadian TV listings which makes us Canucks very happy. John H. -May 13, 2004 Yes, but it still runs on a standard PC running XP, not exactly the most stable of platforms is it? Lee -May 13, 2004 Lee wrote: "Yes, but it still runs on a standard PC running XP, not exactly the most stable of platforms is it?" What are you suggesting - Linux perhaps? Mac? If you've got the bucks, a Mac would work I guess, but for me, it's too much of a closed system to be easily customizable and thereby difficult to build a "roll your own" type of system Linux is probably the only other reasonable alternative for a "roll-your-own" type of media PC system, but then it's not really the easiest platform for Mom & Pop to set-up and configure. And Linux is only just now beginning to reach the level of maturity needed in recognizing and handling multimedia hardware, drivers, and applications. XP on the other hand (especially Pro) is far more stable than ealier versons of Windows such as 98 or ME. There are also likely to be fewer Linux compatible tuner cards Seriously though, if you are comfortable with setting up and configuring Linux machines, and want to have a good (and potentialy more stable) media PC then you can still do much the same thing - check out Freevo at http://freevo.sourceforge.net/. Freevo also has functionality to browse and play digital music files and photos, which Snapstream Beyond TV does not. FYI - I believe that Tivo uses Linux as it's OS For tuner cards on Linux, I have had good success (and easy configuration) with Hauppage Win-TV products (despite the "Win" in the name - they are very Linux-friendly). I am also quite excited about some of the Linux Live CD version that are now available. If you are into audio, video, and/or multi-media check out the dyne:bolic distro at http://www.dyne.org or http://www.dynebolic.org. This distro boots from CD and will turn your PC into a media development platform based on Debian. It doesn't do the same type of PVR duties though. It's designed more for media development and also to function as streamimg media server, so scheduling a recording from a TV tuner card is not really part of its functionality or objectives. It also has an excellent, and easy to configure, Samba implementaion, so if you have other Windows PC's on you network you can access and read files from them. All applications and code used are Open Source so the ISO is free to download and burn to CD To me, the coolest thing ever would be to have a similar Live CD distro which, once booted, can function as a "media PC" and PVR like this article talks about, maybe by including and using all the best Open Source apps from both the dyne:bolic distro and Freevo. Maestro-D -May 13, 2004 Checkout MythTV. The best PVR / Media PC for Linux at the moment. A live CD distro is available. Checkout KnoppMyth which has MythTv on a Knoppix base. FrontEnd runs from CD or Net boot (MiniMyth). www.mysettopbox.tv Dec -May 14, 2004 > Checkout MythTV. - I will for sure. > A live CD distro is available. Checkout KnoppMyth which has MythTv on a Knoppix base - very cool - me like!!! Thanks Maestro-D -May 14, 2004 Does this software or any other software like it, work with a HDTV tuner. I am thinking of getting SnapStream and an HDTV tuner. I am too cheap to pay for cable and everything I watch is over-the-air anyway. Jeff Jak -May 14, 2004 What's nice about the MVP solution with Snapstream is the open-source style development going on. The consolidated UI you can download now gives you an awesome menu compared to the stock MVP setup. It allows remote control of some of the BTV features, supports external web links to weather (instant radar!), and the latest MVP software updates allow Windows Media Video, audio, and internet streaming radio. If you do use the consolidated UI - be warned that some minor html editing may be required to get weather links to work. but even out of the box, the stuff people have developed for this thing is very kool. I'm glad I went the cheap way this time, and didn't spend another $200 on the next competitor to the MVP. -=Joe JoeIsuzu -July 29, 2004 Look like a great solution. Does the MediaMVP support streaming at the higher wireless protocols? Does this Beyond TV 3 package provide a DVD burn solution. Even though you get MPEG-2 sometimes your software to burn these shows still wants to take the file and do its own conversion/checking, etc. I have used ArcSoft Showbiz 2 and it is very capable but very slow burning video to disk even if it has already been MPEG-2 encoded. So what I am asking is does this solution provide a quicker offload to DVD. With the Pioneer DVD burner TiVo unit, it can burn DVDs seamlessly and effortlessly in 1/2 to 1/8 or so the shows running time. For instance, I recorded 4 hours of programming in Basic quality and burned all the shows, from inserting the disk, to removing the disk, in 18 minutes on the Pioneer TiVo (810-H)... Daniel -September 15, 2004 For what it's worth, I consider Windows XP to be much less prone to crashes and bugs then my current PVR from Dish Network. Eric Michaud -September 29, 2004 SnapStream Beyond TV 3 worked like a charm on my $50 Hauppauge WinTV card (no mpeg hardware encoder.) The SnapStream recording software fixed problems I was having with Hauppauge's software. Setting up standard recording times was almost magical; and the ad skipping software worked pretty well. Mind you, I'm not very picky. When recording shows in mpg format, the video resolution is pretty low. But it's cheap, easy to use, and very convenient. Jack -November 22, 2004 Your Comments (required): dorin anghel -March 13, 2005 will SnapStream Beyond TV 3 work in place of my microsoft media center. Currently my system is set-up and my turner is using the media center. Can by pass media center and use my turner with snapstream rick -April 18, 2005 I WANT TO SEE TIVO IN MY COMPUTER PC RICARDO -July 24, 2005 I just purchased the Diamond PVR600. I love everything about it but it's what it doesn't include thats irritating. It's missing a IR Blaster component which connects the Beyond TV software(remote controlled) with the Dish Tuner I have. These range from 30.00 to 100.00. Diamond says it's not a necessary component but without it, half the functions of the whole unit as unuseable. OOOPS!!!! They got that one over on the little guy!! rob -January 19, 2006 Can anyone answer this - if I am using my PC as a a media station, but using the TV as the interface, can I continue to use my PC as normal while watching A DVD stored on its Hard Drive - does it output the Media Station to TV and usual Windows Desktop to monitor? Mark -February 7, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -June 10, 2006 Hey People - I found this solution - looks good though... SageTV Media Center for Linux V5 OEM Edition (http://www.sagetv.com/linuxOEMedition.html) Roswell -July 31, 2006 thnk karthik -August 17, 2006 you can use your monitor to do your stuff whilst running movie off the harddisk on your tv. with xp set your display to extend onto the tv, then drag your player accross and set it to fullscreen. with vlc player you can ffw etc. from the monitor too. bean -January 12, 2007 ps, dont use media player it will go to full screen on the monitor instead of the tv. anyone know why? bean -January 12, 2007 When u maximize in the software does it really still show the stuff in the software window like min max and close? odd. 0_o Kirby -April 13, 2007 how can i get it? niaz -February 21, 2009 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -May 8, 2009 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -May 8, 2009 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -May 8, 2009 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -May 8, 2009 READER COMMENTS: We want to hear what you have to say about this article!     Acceptable Use Policy Your Comments (required): Your email is only used if our editors need to contact you. 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