Check out this post to the snapstream company blog. Beyond TV is moving to version 4 and adding support for direct DivX encoding, radio recording, and HDTV support amongst a host of other features. I’ve been waiting for this for quite a while. If you’re not familiar with it, BeyondTV is Tivo for the build it yourself crowd. It’s the primary way I interact with video content and an application I use daily. It blows away what you can do with a Tivo. Upgrades are only $30, or for around $100 you can get the software and an HDTV encoding card. I will definitely upgrading the moment this comes out – native DivX encoding alone makes this worthwhile.
The best feature of version 4 is something called “back capture”. BeyondTV has always worked by recording everything being watched live, in order to give you the ability to go back and replay what you just watched. With back capture, all that stuff that’s already being recorded is now available to be saved. This gives you the ability to press the record button long after the beginning of a program and still have a complete recording, including the beginning. Now, all of TV’s unexpected delights can be captured in their entirety. Frankly, I prefer the Windows MCE interface to BeyondTV’s, but the abilty to back capture made me pay for the upgrade. Also, Snapstream is very generous with the upgrades, and they’ve promised not to charge for an upcoming marriage of BeyondTV and Beyond Media.
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Hi Any Mouse,
Thanks for the head’s up on back capture, I wasn’t aware of it and it does sound like something I would make heavy use of.
I like the MCE interface too but I wish MS would just sell MCE as a shrinkwrapped product instead of as a distinct OS distribution. I get free OS licenses to MS products through work which do not include MCE.
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