I think I will not buy SnapStream. Reasons Follow.

[Garrett]

I've been lurking on these boards for about three months. I was initially Excited at the prospect of the software which is being sold here.

I downloaded the 1.5/1.55 trial versions, and was extremely dissappointed. I found the application would not stably run whatsoever.

I tried this on three different machines, and I was never satisfied. I used a diverse selection of capturing equipment, and no go.

I then waited and waited while the promises of the magical version 2.0 shipping seemed to be delayed and delayed. Then one morning it was availible.

Wham! I downloaded this trial version, and installed it post-haste. I used it on my Athlon XP 1700+ /w 512MB Ram, All in wonder Radeon.

I must say it was quite an improvement over the previous version, but there are a few shortcomings I have to address.

1. The lack of customizability when it comes to recording options. Some of the options are availible in the "Hardware Wizard" (a misnomer if ever there was), but only if you are using VFW drivers. Well kids, it'll be a cold day in the pit of hades before I install VFW drivers on a machine again. So no go there. The meager settings availible thru the web interface let me choose between "Crappy Windows Media" or "Crappy Windows media" formats. Nice.

2. Whilst I actually really -like- the Web interface, and I think it's quite brilliantly laid out, When I click to record now, the default for where that recording goes is into the "common" folder, which is not the default when you click "Watch". This is trivial but stupid. Yes I could have set the default on the recording to "Garrett", but Why should the default settings of an application be awkward?

3. After the program finished recording it pops up the little notification(in XP anyway) from the system tray. Where the hell do you turn that off?

4. The integrated program guide is thru a service from TitanTV. Of course, amero-centric that SnapStream is, There is no other choices, nor does it support users in CANADA. There are several tvlisting companies who do, but it's nice that the one you picked doesn't. *sigh*

5. I don't know what dumbass told you what DVD's look like, but that "Near DVD" ain't. It isn't even close to VHS on my TV. I suspect that some cleaning solution is in order for thy glasses if you think that that is even "NEAR" DVD quality.

6. I spent the large portion of Saturday playing around with the Qualities section. Be damned If I could get the quality of a single recording to match the ATI TV utility. ATI's settings let me dictate in very simple terms what quality I wanted. Why the heck doesn't yours? Your help doesn't describe all fields in the settings pages, and I could guess all day what optimal values I was looking for, but could never accomplish.

7. Finally, In spite of all of that, I almost bought. I then remembered the incredibly AWFUL support that SnapStream gives. WHY do some posts get ingnored completely? It seems that if you don't have the answer, you won't talk. In others, you tend to guess what is wrong. There are no complete guides for "what worked for us" online. You don't tell users specifically what drivers(VERSION) you use. You certainly don't give the snappy support that people in this subject area are looking for.

Considering that your entire companies' livelyhood rests on the fact that there is no other software availible at the present time, which accomplishes what yours does, it would be in your best interests to PAY ATTENTION to what customers there are, because there are always opensource/freeware projects popping up on the net that basically eat your lunch, without worrying about those issues themselves.

Heck, it wouldn't be difficult to find a half dozen developers to work on that project at all. (I know two + me=3 who would. )

Garrett

[zigguratt]

Hey, an open-source SnapStream-like application. I like it!

[Dmohorn]

Garrett, I agree. I have not seen any response from Snapstream to my message last Saturday or an e-mail from a week ago.

One would then that SnapStream would be all over keeping its existing customers happy...

They obviously go to great lengths in promoting their products and letting us know every review that was written about it. Heck, I wouldn't have even known about SnapStream if it weren't for PocketPC Magazine!

There product nice, but I think it could be a lot nice. Just the user interface is sometimes awkward to use. I've noticed that if I set a recording with the PocketPC application and also in the web application, it appears to try and copy the program twice. The list recording/watch screen should have more columns that display the nature of the recording and its size.

The streaming web server or simple web server set up is kludgy. I'm having a dog-on time getting the web server figuring out how to connect. I've tried all the ports in the configuration with both http and mms with no luck. Then I decide to simply use IIS as my server. Well, I point SnapStream to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\snap and it create the HTML, etc. ,in the directory, but all the video links within the HTML look in root of web and not "snap" directory. Arrghhhh!!! Not very enterprise level!

SnapStream -- if you're reading this, can you clearly demonstrate how both the web server and streaming server operatate with version 2.0? The FAQ mentions nothing... I see some old posts in this forum about it, but nothing appears to work. The program even tries to bind to port 80 by default on my Windows 2000 Server; which certainly fails because of IIS. Should this be a question during setup?

...david

[rakeshagrawal]

hi-- thanks for sending all of this detailed feedback. it does not fall of deaf ears. we are in the process of growing the company and the result of this process will be an ability to move quicker on feedback like yours.

several of the things you bring up are being addressed in the upcoming 'Quartz' release of SnapStream PVS -- specifically:

1- default folder settings for 'record now' vs. regular recordings

2- disabling notifications

3- simplifying the qualities section

4- support -- we're addressing by adding people to focus entirely on support. right now, folks handling techsupport are engaged in serious feats of responsbility juggling. but let me acknowledge this as a problem and let you know that it is going to get better.

And regarding TV listings for other countries -- please send us names/sites for sites that support Canada. We will gladly pursue integrating support for guides in other countries.

Keep making your posts, the whole reason we have this board here is so folks can air their issues.

[Garrett]

TVListings for Canada and the US, can be found at www.zap2it.com.

3- simplifying the qualities section

It's not that I necassarily want the qualities section simplified, I want the fields in it explained, and maybe better assistance in setting up the best encoder.

Like I said in my previous post, I've got a Athlon XP 1700 system, with some serious memory and hard drive space. I wanna use a large amount of processor power, and get great quality and good compression.

That, and the mis-labeling of "Near DVD"...

4- support -- we're addressing by adding people to focus entirely on support. right now, folks handling techsupport are engaged in serious feats of responsbility juggling. but let me acknowledge this as a problem and let you know that it is going to get better.

Well, if I see a concerted effort to improve communications, I may yet change my mind.

As I don't have enough time to code my own PVR software, I'm still open to decide. Having tried others, I'm still without anything better than the hap-hazard system that ATI ships.

And, really, That's another source of TV Listings. The TVGuide app that came with my ATI card, while the worst ever POS that I've ever used, at least has accurate listings. They store it all in a Borland Database engine.(sheesh!) Maybe you should provide a way to getting at that. Or At least tell me what I would have to provide to make my own interface for providing listings.

If you get around to fixing some of these problems, and provide a decent level of support, I may yet change my mind. Let's put it this way: I want a programmable PVR. I want it so that I can also use it as a computer so I can build my own video-on-demand system for my house. I'm almost there. Hardware-wise I'm complete. I just need better software. The first company to give me what I need, I'll buy. But I'm not paying for an unfinished product.


Garrett

[PBMax]

Gemstar is a company that MANY TV's support for getting their Guide Data. I have a RCA TV that gets the data from the cable. If snapstream can contact Gemstar and make an app to download and then display the guide data then all the titantv problems will be fixed. Since snapstream will be using it's data to generate the web page it can display it remotely and locally. All the products that use Gemstar don't charge the end user but I'm sure their is some licensing fee involved. Not sure how much titantv is costing the guys at snapstream but Gemstar is a better source (TV Guide using them or is them not sure)


------------------
Current Projects:
Rav4MP3
Snapstream Support Page

[DaveAnks]

Garrett, you made a very wise choice. I have bought snapstream but I'm contacting my credit card company on Friday regarding the payment due to the support issues.

I lost my harddrive a couple of weeks ago and lost my purchased version of snapstream with it, despite providing proof of purchase I have not had a single reply to support emails requesting a new download link.

I have had CDs damaged with other products and the company involved readly replaced the media free of charge, snapstream however, won't even email me the software again at *very* little expense to themselves.

My main point, opensource, please count me in. 5 years of c++, last 3 in a Linux enviroment working on KDE. However, as much as I like Linux I have looked in to a snapstream clone already and the pieces are fairly much in place already with some work. Unfortuatly the infrastructure and driver support isn't anywhere near Windows yet. Snapstream can basically be replaced VCR (http://freshmeat.net/redir/vcr/11085/url_homepage/), which uses avifile and cron. And Avifile support a lot of codecs and performs especially well divx & mp3 audio.

The last few weeks I've been playing around with Windows media encoder and recording shows manually, due to a missing snapstream that I've paid for. Now I know why windows media is the only supported codec, snapstream don't exactly provide much but a web interface to windows media encoder with wdm tunning. The SDK for media services is (surprisingly for Microsoft) fairly nice. Encoder can also be scheduled to record to a file with the AT command and I'm looking into a way to set the channel automatically before encoding.



[This message has been edited by DaveAnks (edited 01-30-2002).]

[Garrett]

Yeah, I'm looking at going the linux route now for my video needs. It seems there has been an extensive amount of support for video generated in the last year.

It seems with a small bit of scripting, I can have my cake and eat it too!

I'll be rebuilding my box on linux this weekend. I'll post my results back here.

Garrett

[jamesryan]

Letter Mailed to PocketPCMag

Hello

I'm sending you this letter in response to an article printed in your March Magazine.
I have religiously purchased your magazine since I acquired my first PDA, and find that your review and comments are honest and insightful.
But all this changed last week.

Based on the article "SnapStream Personal Video Station" By Diane Alicia Dumas all this creditability is now lost.

On her recommendation is went forth an spent a large sum to buy a product she recommend. Well now I ask you "Did she even test the product?"

Having installed and faced the enormous amount of issues in implementing this application I went back and re-reading the article. I now find most of her information listed and even written are sourced directly from the SnapStream web site.
There are so many blatant mistakes\missing detail that I honestly don't believe she even loaded the software.

The article never mentions a single "Bug" or problem, Yet if you would only spend 5 minutes on the support boards you will see the huge amount of disappointed customers and a COMPLETE AND TOTAL lacking of response \ customer support from SnapStream.

Half the stated features ARE NOT AVALIABLE, and the rest and completely bug riddled. Most companies call this type of software BETA and release it free.
Well I paid $150 dollars for it based on:
1 - Downright false claims this application \ Company is making.
2 - And an article printed in your magazine

I understand there is nothing you as PC Magazine can do about this, But there is something you can do about the article.
As a starting point can I suggest INSTALL and USE the application.

James Ryan
Please Note: I will also post this letter on the SnapStream Web Site.

[cvallo]

I has written a fact filled rebuttal to both Garrett and James Ryan, but I decided not to bother.

These two will never be wrong or happy.

I, on the other hand am a happy, content and grateful user of SnapStream.

Currently, SnapStream ver 1.2 to 2.0 has recorded nearly almost 1000 hours of DSS programming of every kind.

Any failures to record have almost always been user error in one form or another.

Thanks again SnapStream. I'll let you know when I hit 1000 hours of archives!

[Daniel Broad]

1000 hours! I've done loads more than that since version 1.0

I will concede that i've lost some shows due to Snapstream crashing, more than 10 but less than 20.

Reliability is now increasing exponentially with every version.

Dan.

[Garrett]

Actually, I'd _love_ to hear your rebuttal.

I'm not Jumpin' up and down angry, nor am I "never wrong".

I'm not suprised to see that someone has Snapstream working to their satisfaction. I'm sure the sentiment around here would be quite different if _nobody_ had it working.

And, oddly enough, I actually came very close to shelling out the cash for the product, had I not given myself a bit of reconsideration time. I'm not even saying that they couldn't fix what I didn't like.

I've just been keeping my eyes open around here. There are about 10 things I didn't like about SS.

I've also noticed that SS tends to give quite a lot less support than I would expect. I realize that product support costs money. If you don't have the sales you need, you can't afford to provide high levels support.

If you've got the product working fine, well then you're home free. Unfortunatly, I didn't get the results I wanted, and I have not seen examples of good enough service around here to give me the confidence to actually order the product, and live throught the problems until they are addressed.

If one day they overcome these things, I may yet buy, but I'm not going to stop looking for an alternative.

Garrett

[jamesryan]

Hello

First off my - comments were meant to reflect my experiences as a new users.
I might mention I did not “write this letter” without first working through all the boards and trying numerous solutions, but after quite considerable effort a certain frustration settles in.
Thus, PLEASE feel free to post all your comments, hence the reason I posted my info here.

Well - Back to my original point: UPDATE on my situation -
After posting my letter - I was contacted by Samir Saxena from SnapStream as well as Tech support from Titan, both companies are now actively working on solving my problems. Most of which I am convinced have been looked at and solved before.

Samir efforts have been great, He has kept my informed on what is happening and is currently overseeing my case. He has informed me that someone from tech support is looking at my problems and will be calling me Today \ Tomorrow.

I will post more updates as they happen.
James Ryan

[Dave]

Well, JamesRyan, at least SnapStream returned your call. I'm still waiting on a phone all and/or e-mail response.

I think the product has great potential--just poor execution and support.

[Samir]

DaveAnks,

Please email me:

samir@snapstream.com and we will get you your SnapStream software.

Originally posted by Dave:
Well, JamesRyan, at least SnapStream returned your call. I'm still waiting on a phone all and/or e-mail response.

I think the product has great potential--just poor execution and support.