Beyond TV and Beyond Media Together

[gstone]

I am looking at buying both pieces but my question is do the work together as one interface or do I have swith between them depending on what I want to do?

Also will Beyond TV play DVRMS files?

[merrypig]

Presently, BM and BTV work as independant apps - but BM does have some BTV awareness and will 'hide' the interface when you 'exit' BTV so the end result is a supposed transparent switching between BM and BTV.

It's rather a fudge in my opinion. The next generation products are meant to be more tightly integrated and hopefully avoid this clumsiness. No ETA though.

[Kilrsat]

It will play dvr-ms files just fine, assuming you've installed the appropriate windows updates to enable dvr-ms playback on regular XP machines.

[gstone]

Alright on e more? What about when using TV Link, does it integrate Media functions, like music and DVD catalog?

[merrypig]

BTV link is just BTV on a diet. You would still use BM to handle the music/dvd catalog. Just as BM manages BTV, BM will also detect and manage BTV Link, so you would need a (licensed) copy of BM installed on your link machines as well as btv link.

So. um. no

[jgourd]

BM aint great but for a 10' interface it rocks. I recently added a "Woot" link to by BM so I can check the current woot if I wake up in the middle of the night and the TV is still on

[Cliffie]

In my case, I have a BTV box in my office that is big, ugly, and noisier than what I'd want in my living room. Instead, I bought a very nice case from silverstone, and installed btv link and btv on it for playback of the shows. So my main BTV machine has almost a terrabyte of storage, and runs rock solid. On my BTV link machine, I can playback music, vidoes, check the weather, play dvd's, play games, as well as all the functions of my BTV box such as scheduling shows and watching tv. The beauty of it is, even if I'm messign with my BTV link box and it crashes or locks up, my shows are still recorded on my BTV box.

It's more expensive to set it up this way, but the increased functionality that I gain more than makes up for it. I couldn't tell you the last time I actually watched tv on my box that has BTV installed on it. Basically, the only time I see it is once a month or so when I re-boot it or install an update on it. I always laugh when I read about reviews of other non-btv PVR solutions that talk about how they crash and miss a recording. The only time I miss a recording is if my tuner with an IR blaster messes up sending the correct channel change info, and that's maybe .001% of the time. Usually a re-boot takes care of that problem.

The only thing I'm looking forward to is a the next version of BM. Please Please Please let us know what's going on with BM! It's been too long since we've seen an update, I'm really anxious to see what you've got up your sleeves!