BeyondTV 5.0

[ZetaVu]

"Personally I think that Snapstream should be paying us for all the troubleshooting we did for them as they released a continual stream of crap releases on top of crap releases and called them commercial software."

Ok, not sure if you had been posting under a different name, but you've put 8 posts, mostly complaining about qam and atsc lineups, then your system crashed and you switched to win7. No offense but if win7 is all you want out of a pvr then SS is definitely not a product for you, in fact, why aren't you just using one of the cable or satellite dvr's? You obviously have no interest in recording premium content in HD, win7 can't do that. You don't care about commercial skipping, archiving to dvd, format conversion, etc, win7 does none of that. When did you actually start using SS, your first post was in March, you could have done all that with a trial.

Ok, bitching aside, SS has not committed to 5.0 at this time, in fact last discussion I had with them they indicated they have the option of version 4.10, 4.11 etc. Even if they go 5.0 that doesn't mean they will force a paid upgrade. Their main business direction is enterprise, and while they are supporting the consumer end they are not planning on doing much development that also doesn't apply to Enterprise. I also doubt they will offer enterprise as an upgrade for 5.0 because then they are reducing their product placement for Enterprise, which is really a hardware software package (otherwise they run the risk of cannibalization).

Good news is they are active on the consumer front again (I've done more back and forth this week in the betas than the last three months combined). Hopefully 4.8.2 comes out with some bug fixes. The HD PVR is close to stable, biggest issue for most people is still hardware. Remember, its been out less than a year (I think, somewhere around there) and Hauppauge is still working out bugs. Hell, they still haven't installed a fan with vent holes. (One version had a fan but no vents holes) Mine has been worked fine since 4.9.1 and the 1.052 drivers.

BTW, slow motion (frame by frame) can be done by holding shift and right arrow (or FF). I haven't tried to program this into eventghost for my remote, maybe this weekend.

I do agree that the HD PVR needs to be officially supported. I think they need to cleanup some recording issues that started with the switch to the new demux in 4.9 (done to improve qam, but makes it less forgiving for OTA). I think they need to work on placeshifter some more and get a working solution for Mac and linux (placeshifter to linux would be fine, the vlc workaround is a start but can be improved upon and there are bugs with the new demux). I think they should work with some of the free htpc front ends like Media Portel, Meedios, XMBC, whatever, to have BTV run as their recording and video device and launch inside the program (no memory issues, easy integration) Hell, those with MC should be able to use it as well. Make an api that these communities can use to integrate BTV into their programs.

Closed captioning should be setup, its there its just hidden and not very pleasing to the eye or convenient. Picture in picture and video in guide/menues would be obvious.

Those of us who haven't left are here because BTV's PVR is our favorite, and a big enough improvement that we prefer to use it without the other htpc components over switching to another product. (I use Media Portal for the other stuff, the other side of the coin is media portal's other htpc components are better than the integrated products as well).

[Eric3a]

BTW, slow motion (frame by frame) can be done by holding shift and right arrow (or FF). I haven't tried to program this into eventghost for my remote, maybe this weekend.

Thanks for the tip. I had no idea! I'll add to my girder/Firefly solution. Just have to find a couple logical and free keys on the remote.

At this point it doesn't seem to work witht he Arcsoft decoder but I'll play with it some more when I have time.

No offense but if win7 is all you want out of a pvr then SS is definitely not a product for you, in fact, why aren't you just using one of the cable or satellite dvr's? You obviously have no interest in recording premium content in HD, win7 can't do that. You don't care about commercial skipping, archiving to dvd, format conversion, etc, win7 does none of that.

Well said.
During my upgrade to all HD in the house I had to review wether a couple Dish Network DVRs wouldn't just do the trick and I concluded that BTV just gives me so many options I would miss that I stayed with the BTV route.

I spoke to soon: One of my HDPVRs started freezing regularly so I RMAd this morning. The other has been going on steadily and reliably since install. Crossing fingers!

Eric

[Nick Burns]

For my remote (emulating the Hauppauge), just hit pause, then FFWD to do Frame-by-Frame.

[Webbo]

DVB Support - the only thing I need to make my PVR complete!

(and get rid of three set-top boxes, usb-uirt, three PCI MPEG2 PVR-250's and more cabling and power consumption than I want to mention!)

[MickP]

Originally Posted by Webbo

DVB Support - the only thing I need to make my PVR complete!

(and get rid of three set-top boxes, usb-uirt, three PCI MPEG2 PVR-250's and more cabling and power consumption than I want to mention!)

Hehe,

I think that you need some software and some dvb cards to make your pvr complete .

I thought that there was a dvb version of the hd homerun available. Did that not pan out for btv? SS have stated unequivocally that they NEVER plan to support DVB. What are you waiting for?

Mick.

PS: With actual dvb support rather than dvb>analog sd you'd get HD.

[Tanzz]

Subtitles!

[pwlong]

Originally Posted by Tanzz

Subtitles!

Yes, subtitles. Of all the features on the list, for me, this would be the biggest quality improvement of them all. Especially frustrating that this is not in the consumer product, since they've had subtitle support (and support for searching subtitle content) in the Enterprise product for some time.

[ZetaVu]

Subtitles of closed captions?

[pwlong]

Originally Posted by ZetaVu

Subtitles of closed captions?

Sorry, you're right -- terminology mix-up. I guess they're closed captions for TV broadcasts and subtitles for (DVD) movies, right? I'm probably wrong, but the printed text embedded in the programming that lets you keep up with the storyline when muted.

Seems like it wouldn't be that tricky to implement.

[ZetaVu]

For those unaware, with most Hauppauge capture cards (and several others) you can enable closed captioning in BTV by changing tryCC from 0 to 1 in the settings.xml file of Beyondtv in the application data (docs and settings, application data, snapstream, etc)

[tomlando]

I have a haup 2250 and I have tried several times to get the "trycc=1" to work without any luck at all. well, actually that's not true, I did have bad luck, haha. I finally just hooked up a headset, but it sure would be nice to have closed captions.

[sdsalsero]

re BTV 5.0 requests, did I already mention Matraska (.MKV) support? Not only are a lot of online downloads in MKV but most of the tools I use to archive my TV shows default to MKV now.

@ Tomlando, how do you like your Dell Vostro desktop? I'm thinking of upgrading to a new Vostro, too, but most of their towers have 80mm fans. I think their new 420 full-tower has a 120mm, though. I've long since decided to forgo 80mm fans for my HTPCs...

[tomlando]

to sdsalsero:

I have been using the Vostro slim tower, about the size of a VCR, for about 6 months now with no problems. I added the TB HHD, 512 Video card and the haup 2250 dual tuner to the cheap, but new Vostro. It stands alone on top of a stereo cabinet so it is well ventilated.

[tommax]

For me it does not matter what they add into v 5.0. They have made it clear they do not intend on making a more complete product. I use BTV only to record and convert some shows that I wish to keep without DRM, my use of BTV has slowly gone down since the release of VMC and now I have upgraded to W7 which is excellent, I am checking into several conversion utilities for W7 files and if I find one I like I will most likely be dropping BTV all together (6 link licenses and 3 BTV licenses down the drain). I wish it were otherwise because BTV has been a fairly reliable tool but I have more than just PVR needs and the XBox360 can do everything I can do on the MC itself except netflix which has excellent integration into both VMC and W7... but I also run a Windows Home Server and PP3 coming out soon will allow recording to be shared between W7 PC's and the family 3 pack is a good deal so we have 8 PC's running W7 now...

I used to have a dedicated BTV server waiting for integration that allowed DVD Playback, Music, Photo's etc but that now will never come, now I have 2 tuners in my Windows Home server that rarely get used, even a decent WHS plugin would be something of use to me, but only Sage seems to want to cater to home users as BTV has gone almost soley commercial, and it seems Ss has relegated it's home community to beta test the waters for their real goal which is commercial sales, it's not my product so I am not going to tell SS how to run their business, I am just finding less use for their products which I am sure they must have taken into account when they decided to abandon many users who wanted the features I spoke of which also probably makes sense if they are truley selling enough commerical copies of BTV, my couple hundred bucks probably seems irrelevant.

I suppose if I could have my wish it would be to have BTV and Link integrated into VMC or W7 MC replacing the TV Strip with a BTV Strip, although I would miss the guide, especially in W7 but it would be the best setup for me.

Yes Replace VMC and W7's TV Strip with a BTV Strip that works within either (pref W7) and I would purchase that, otherwise I am looking for ways to put the final nail in my BTV coffin.