Beyond TV 3.5 - SnapStream's Bread and Butter Undergoes a Minor Facelift

Beyond TV 3.5 - Visit by the Doctor's Scalpel

As we mentioned in our beta coverage, we wanted to see SnapStream take some logical path in tying channels together between different channel lineups. It seems that SnapStream has decided to take a partial step in our original recommendation. Instead of allowing users to tie channels together, SnapStream will allow for automatic channel tying if two conditions are met:

1. The channels must share the same channel number; and
2. The channels must share the same channel call sign (station name).

Our configuration used two PVR cards (one ATI AIW and one Hauppauge WinTV PVR-BTV) with one tuner set to cable and the other to antenna (local broadcast). In our case, channel 2, 5, 7, and 9 are the same on our antenna and cable channel lineup, so we only get one entry for these channels. If there are two channels that have the same channel number, but don't share channel call signs, entering that channel number (via keyboard or remote) will bring you to the first of those two channels. And with channel tying, recordings will still go to a cable feed if at all possible.

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There are some minor changes from BTV 3.4, like low profile text in the description and more downloading information, all of which we mentioned in our beta coverage.

Note that there is a new MPEG-2 decoder option that SnapStream provides, which means that you don't have to have a separate software DVD player installed to get that decoder benefit. There are a few changes in the deinterlacing options. Previously, the options were: none, software, software (progressive fields), and hardware. Software utilizes the overlay function, so BTV 3.5 splits this into two fields:

• Video Renderer, options: software, 3D accelerated
• Deinterlacing, options: none, hardware (only available once 3D accelerated is selected)

Quality-wise, we prefer 3D accelerated over an overlay video renderer, as it utilizes the graphic card to do some of the work. In all, everything seems a bit smoother under 3D accelerated, but we only recommend using this setting if you have a decent video card (something of the true DX9 variety) - we were using an ATI Radeon 9800. One of the immediate benefits is that you can see TV in the background of the screen while looking at the program guide, but this isn't a feature new to BTV 3.5.

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And for those concerned with overscan, SnapStream includes a compensation function in BTV 3.5.

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Interestingly enough, SnapStream has the foresight to include support for Portable Media Center devices in their native PMCE format, which cuts down on the transcoding time.

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