Encouraging Words For Snapstream Users

[shalamigri]

I bought BM and BTV about 2 weeks ago. The installation didn't go as smooth as I thought it would. I had a hard time getting certain hardware to do what it was supposed to do. My wife and daughter would make jokes every once in a while about BM an BTV(they call it PROXY; I just got rid of a DVR service through Charter Communications called MOXIE) The truth of the matter is, the installation didn't go as I expected, but I am not one to give up.

During my troubleshooting process, I began to realize that many of my problems were not stemming from Snapstreams software, but my hardware instead. I had IRQ issues, issues with my onboard LAN and my onboard SATA controller. In the process of buying the products to put my HTPC together, I was being really cheap. The motherboard was form a company I had never heard of. I can't even remember the manufactuer of my RAM. I didn't even do much research on my graphics card before I bought it which was silly of me because outputting to a TV or Monitor is really the main purpose of this software. Long story sgort, I was expecting to put any old crap together and not have any problems. Man was I wrong!!!

As of now, I only have 2 bugs of my concern, but I won't list them here because I have solutions for them and they are not related to the software at all. I will say this though. Congestion has always caused problems. Just like being on the highway during rush hour. Bottlenecks!!! Things that prevent other things from flowing the way that they want to. This applies to our PC's to. Many of us have bottlenecks in our systems and don't even know it. Not enough memory can cause things to lag behind. Here's one for you. Everyone knows about wireless technolgy now. Ever tried streaming a ripped DVD from a computer with a standard 802.11b wireless adapter. Things don't seem flow very well. So you switch to a hardwire network. Being cheap and lazy you decide to install USB 1.1 to Ethernet adapters on your 100Mb network computers. That's a NO NO!! Your back to square one again becuase USB 1.1 can only transmit up to about 11Mb which is about the same as 802.11b. May I also suggest to do a clean Opperating System install before you convert any PC into a box for a specific use. Make sure you know what programs are running in the background. Know your firewall software. I prefer to use a hardware firewall myself because thats just one less thing I have to run on my computer. Get rid of spyware and adware. Don't use your HTPC as a web browsing computer. You may end up with crap on your computer that is trying to sneak to the internet behind your back, wasting your valuable bandwidth.

I don't work for Snapstream and I know that their products are far from perfect, but as greedy and stingy that Windows OS's are becoming, who would expect any sofware maker to not have problems.

My final words to new Snapstream product users. Don't give up if you've started the process. Don't turn back because of someone elses frustrations.

I do think that this company is very slick though. Out of all of the problems that I've had, I havn't had to contact them once. This forum is all of the customer support that I have needed. You know you have a good product when your customers can sit back and help out with the technical support.

My wife and daughter are starting to like BM and BTV more day by day. They really like the Games and DVD plugin. They also like being able to check the weather and also see what is showing at the movies with the touch of a button. I also just set up my HTPC to dispaly my incoming phone calls. If these products add any more features, I don't think I'll ever be able to watch my big screen again because my wife and daughter are taking it over. I guess thats where BTV Link comes in.

I hope this will inspire others not to give up and to give this product a shot.

Peace

[Glenn Hall]

Very true! I had to sort a mess with my capture cards. I would be getting jerky recordings and distorted sound. I took a look in device manager and listed resources by conencdtion.

For those that don;t know, that will list all your stuff by irq numbers, to see what you have sharing what IRQ #.

In my case I had a USB 2.0 controller, ethernet (built in) and a capture card (ATI TV Wonder PCI) on IRQ 21. Since I was too lazy to open up and switch cards around, I just disabled the USB controller in BIOS and that fixed my probs. I still have 2 USB 2.0 ports on the back I/O shield anyway.

If you can;t go without disabling things, a pci card shuffle may fix things for you.

[fester]

re: "Don't use your HTPC as a web browsing computer. You may end up with crap on your computer that is trying to sneak to the internet behind your back, wasting your valuable bandwidth."

Dude. I use my htps for BTV recording, online gaming, browsing, downloading vidz, ripping vidz, burning, vidz, more gaming, dvd watching, analog input audio/video archiving, digital audio workstation, dig video workstation.... all for about 4 years now. never had issues, bandwidth or otherwise. the HTPC (server) is in my DMZ. use hw firewall.