What is next for SnapStream

[jnaranjo]

just curious, now that all the previously announced applications have been released, what is SnapStream currenlty working on??

Is it BTV 4.0 with built-in(meaning in the GUI) Closed Caption support, auto recording of the buffer, and support for HDTV?

What if anything for FireFLy?

Beyond Media - (have not had a chance to try this yet)

Anyway sorry if this is already covered. I've been happily living with 3.52 since the release.

Thanks!!!

[guyc]

As far as I can work out they are busy rebuilding BTV using the new Beyond Media code base, presumably to have a much better plug in architecture and also to make a fully integrated all-in-one media solution possible.

But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by guyc

But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thats the BM developers, and a long-term milestone thats "in progress". I am sure you will see other things before that is completed.

I don't believe any official comments have been made about the next version of BTV yet, aside from they are currently working on it.

-Brett

[8IronBob]

Yeah, I would have to think that SnapStream may be doing something similar to Microsoft's MCE, especially for those who were not as fortunate to receive a Media Center PC like me, forcing me to have to buy the SnapStream All-in-One bundle to make up for the loss, plus unlike the MCE, BM or BTV does not have HDTV or FM Radio support. Of course, HD and FM Radio won't matter that much to me now, since we really can't afford to upgrade to HD yet, although that is becoming more affordable. Well, knowing the way Cleveland and Ohio can be, who knows if anybody around here will go high-def without going into debt? Those arethe economic troubles of the Midwest for ya.

[Neilm]

Hopefully, for European users, some form of DVB-T support. This is becoming the broadcasting standard in many EU countries.

[mikem]

Originally Posted by Neilm

Hopefully, for European users, some form of DVB-T support. This is becoming the broadcasting standard in many EU countries.

I am hoping for this as well. At the moment I am having to look at using MediaPortal or gb-pvr to get DVB-T cards working. At the moment the easiest way I think to achieve it would be to add support for the BDA driver model as used by MCE. This is how other pvr solutions are adding support for DVB-T cards.

[Khris]

Couple things I would like to see in a future version.

I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet, but I would like to have BTV reduce the Live TV video window to a corner while viewing the program grid. Sometimes it's nice to check through the listings while you're watching a show to see what's coming up or what else is on and not miss anything from the currently playing show.

I'd also like to see a feature where you can set a reminder for an upcoming show so that if you're already watching something and you forget the other show is on, a little dialog will popup saying "Friends on channel 57 will start in 1 min. Press Select to watch" or something to that effect.

(Anyone with Digital Cable should understand what I mean on both these suggestions)

[jdiff]

Originally Posted by Khris

I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet, but I would like to have BTV reduce the Live TV video window to a corner while viewing the program grid. Sometimes it's nice to check through the listings while you're watching a show to see what's coming up or what else is on and not miss anything from the currently playing show.

The transparent guide effectively does this.

[mikem]

Originally Posted by Khris

I'd also like to see a feature where you can set a reminder for an upcoming show so that if you're already watching something and you forget the other show is on, a little dialog will popup saying "Friends on channel 57 will start in 1 min. Press Select to watch" or something to that effect.

(Anyone with Digital Cable should understand what I mean on both these suggestions)

Isn't this the watch this episode option in the guide.

[walts81]

Originally Posted by mikem

Isn't this the watch this episode option in the guide.

No, I'm pretty sure the "watch this episode" option is only available when the show is actually on. And using it will take you directly to that channel. A reminder would be cool.

[btvfreak]

HDTV support please!

[Khris]

Originally Posted by jdiff

The transparent guide effectively does this.

Is this a setting from within BTV or an addon of sorts?

[jasahl]

Originally Posted by Khris

Is this a setting from within BTV or an addon of sorts?

In Playback Settings, use 3D accelerated instead of Overlay

[Khris]

Thanks

[cat6man]

Well, here is what I would like to see from Snapstream in the future. I assume
we should be seeing things like this on the market by 3Q or 4Q 2005.

CRITICAL: (show stoppers)
1. HDTV support is critical. MACs can already record firewire from cable boxes in the US.
We need drivers and s/w to make that possible with BTV on Windows 2k and XP. If an
intermediary box is needed (to convert firewire TS format from the cable vox to MP2 for example) that's fine and might even be beneficial to keep cycles off the CPU for liveTV
(and avoid real time transcoding).

2. Rock solid stability of an integrated player such as MediaMVP. This absolutely
must be rock solid as the current ethernet link for that hardware (with and without
the BTV interface) is not ready for prime time. If the competition is integrated
boxes like Tivo, the BTV solution must network as solidly as a single box solution.
Apparently 10mbps-half duplex is by the mediaMVP which doesn't play nicely with
all routers and ethernet devices. The connect time for me is between 2 and 3 minutes
for a mediaMVP using the BTV interface, way way way too long. Periodic disconnects
make the problem even worse (seems to happen more with liveTV than playing
back already recorded shows....also seems to be sensitive to hitting buttoms too
quickly).

3. Media player must have digital output capability (HDMI) in addition to component
output to the TV. I know there are messy issues with flags, etc but this needs to be
worked out properly.

4. 100baseT (or gigE) ethernet connectivity allowing much higher transfer rates
than the current mediaMVP

5. (added 4/19) LiveTV should have a different record quality setting
so that I can watch/stream live TV with the highest possible video quality.
We need to be able to distinguish between quality for recordings (which
use space/memory) and live TV which only uses the existing buffers
and should be settable to as high a resolution as we want. I can see
the degradation of DVD quality recording of NTSC and going to higher
quality is visible even on my NTSC set....with a high def set in the future,
motion artifacts will be even more noticeable.

Those are my critical must-have features.

In addition,

NICE TO HAVE:
1. better support for internet radio.....i'd like to be able to log on to
MLB Gameday Audio, which requires selecting a game and logging in
before the audio player is launched.....i'd like a way to do this in an
enhanced 'internet radio' functionality....perhaps launchig a script
on the PC that automates the process?

2. picture in picture for multi-tuner setups