SHould I buy this?

[thayne]

I'm thinking about getting the SnapStream Personal Video Station 2.0 + PCI TV Tuner (Stereo, Radio) combo package.

My main reason for this is to be able to watch TV on my iBook (wireless) and to have a semi-TiVo like setup where I can record and watch shows when ever I like. I can get Windows Media Player for my Mac so that's not an issue.

The PC I plan on setting this up on has dual P2 350MHz cpu's and 384MB ram running Win2K. Will this machine be able to handle the encoding and serving of the movies?

What is the quality? I don't expect DVD, but is it fairly decent? What about full screen quality?

Last, but not least, does anyone know of a player that can play the streaming movies on a Linux desktop? Mplayer supports .wmf and .asf files, but I don't know for sure if it will work.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/info.html

Thanks.

[ June 25, 2002, 12:52 AM: Message edited by: thayne ]

[Jason Bottjen]

You won't be able to record at very high quality with that machine.

In fact, it will likely be so bad to not be worth it (in my opnion). This is not a Snapstream limitation, but rather just the amnount of CPU power it takes to do decent real-time recording.

Also keep in mind that you can NOT stream live TV at will, only programs that you have already recorded. So if you are looking for it to be able to 'channel surf' remotely - you can NOT do that with this product (or any other off the shelf one I know of...).

So basically, double check the feature list. If it can do what you want in the current 2.0 version - get it. But regardless of the program (Snapstream, Showshifter, etc) I don't think you will be very happy with the encoding performance with a P3-350 (dual doesn't matter, as the encoding isn't multi-cpu aware).

Jason Bottjen

Originally posted by thayne:
*SNIP*The PC I plan on setting this up on has dual P2 350MHz cpu's and 384MB ram running Win2K. Will this machine be able to handle the encoding and serving of the movies?
*SNIP*

[Magellan]

I was using a PII 400 for awhile before I upgraded to a PIV. I was able to record at near vhs quality, but absolutely nothing else can be running. Even then I would have the occasional recording glitch, and sometimes audio and video would get out of sync. Ok for keeping up on your favorite tv series, but not if you want to burn to a cd. Get an Evergreen upgrade processor (or 2?) to a 1ghz, and you will be fine. Also, try the free trial version to see if you can handle the lower quality recording settings. You can stream live tv only if you are recording on the host machine (for now).

[Jason Bottjen]

I believe it was already posted in these forums that you will need to be recodring in order to stream live video even in the Quartz version (unfortunately). Hopefully that is not true though...

Jason Bottjen

Originally posted by Magellan:
*SNIP*You can stream live tv only if you are recording on the host machine (for now).*SNIP*

[thayne]

Live viewing isn't an issue for me, I can wait

Well, I think I'll try it on the dual 350 and if it doesn't work I have a dual 733 I can use, (but I don't really want to use this machine for this) How come it's not dual aware? Doesn't it use win2k built in encoding?

[Jason Bottjen]

As I remember from testing a while back, even the most current Windows Media Encoding package isn't multiprocessor aware (at least not be default). Regardless of the OS.

Although it has been a while since I looked at it in detail.

Jason Bottjen

Originally posted by thayne:
Live viewing isn't an issue for me, I can wait

Well, I think I'll try it on the dual 350 and if it doesn't work I have a dual 733 I can use, (but I don't really want to use this machine for this) How come it's not dual aware? Doesn't it use win2k built in encoding?

[thayne]

Well, I placed my order

I'll try it out on the p2 350 machine and report my findings back. I'm pretty sure the app doesn't have to be dual aware. I think the OS spreads the threads accross both CPU automaticly, I may be wrong, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

[Jason Bottjen]

Yeah, the OS does manage the thread distribution.

It is a matter of how many threads the actual recording process is. If they do it like the Windows Media encoder, it is one thread.

Anyway, good luck.

Jason Bottjen

Originally posted by thayne:
Well, I placed my order

I'll try it out on the p2 350 machine and report my findings back. I'm pretty sure the app doesn't have to be dual aware. I think the OS spreads the threads accross both CPU automaticly, I may be wrong, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.