beyondtv

In a fit of nostalgia, Mike Garcen over at Missing Remote took a trip down memory lane and wrote up a brief history of HTPC technology.

If you're a long time tinkerer, you've probably been finding ways to watch TV on your PC since the late 90s. I'll never forget the thrill of installing my first ATI All-in-Wonder card, only to realize that garbage in = garbage out. I didn't have cable at the time, and trying to encode digital video from bunny ears wasn't the smartest move I'd ever made.

Ironically, 8 years later I've just picked up an HDTV antenna in the hopes of recording over-the-air high definition signals with a PCI TV tuner.

Garcen also takes a look at some early HTPC cases, remote controls, and HDTV sets you may have had your eye on back in 1996.

Ubuntu and its siblings Kubuntu and Xubuntu are widely considered some of the easiest Linux distributions for non-geeks to set up and use. But that doesn't make setting up a Linux based media center any simpler.

Sure, you could just install Knoppmyth or Mythdora if all you want is a PC running MythTV. But what if you want a multipurpose PC?

Well, there's some good documentation for setting up a MythTV frontend, backend, or both on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. A backend is a machine that can record TV shows and store photos, videos, and music. It acts as a server, letting frontend PCs on the network play back those files. Or you can install a frontend and a backend on a single PC.

The process isn't quite as simple as installing PC-based software like BeyondTV or SageTV, but the walkthrough makes installation about as easy as it gets.

Snapstream just pushed out a beta of BeyondTV 4.61. The big new feature? Support for the HDHomeRun. Why is that important? Because the HDHomeRun lets you record HD content in two ways.

First, it's got an ATSC over-the-air tuner. But you can also use it to record QAM unencrypted HD channels from your cable company. While most cable companies encrypt the majority of their channels, you can usually pick up your local network affiliates unencrypted. So BeyondTV 4.6.1 could let you record content from ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and the CW on your PC.

Setup isn't for the faint of heart. But Snapstream's got a set of instructions in their beta tester forum.

Snapstream, the company behind BeyondTV, has launched a new product called Couchville. Odds are Couchville is the evolution of the secretive Columbus project Snapstream began beta testing last year.

So what is Couchville? Well, to put it simply, it's a TV guide. But it's a bit more than that. First, Snapstream has integrated BeyondTV Buzz. If you click the Buzz button, you'll see the top 15 programs recorded by BeyondTV users over the last week, as well as the top scheduled recordings for the next few days.

The other thing that sets Couchville apart from other TV listings sites like TVGuide.com or Zap2it is that it has a web 2.0, AJAX feel to it. Instead of clicking on a "next page" button to get more listings after a page refresh, you can click and drag the guide much like you would drag a map in Google Maps.

While BeyondTV was busy pushing out a point release of its PC-based PVR software, competitor SageTV has been working on its own series of updates. Over the last week, SageTV developers have issued several release candidates for several software updates, featuring a total of 110 bug fixes.

SageTV is a complete media center suite that runs on Linux or Windows PCs, with a place-shifting client for Mac (meaning you can stream recorded programs from your PC to a Mac). Unlike BeyondTV, SageTV provides a 10-foot interface for accessing music, photos, online video, and stored videos. In other words, it does pretty much all the same things that you can do with Windows Media Center, but provides far more in the way of user customization options. I'll be curious to see how programs like these do now that Microsoft is including Media Center functionality in several retail versions of Vista.

[via Missing Remote]

BeyondTV 4.6 is out, with a number of new features and bug fixes. 4.6 is a free upgrade for BeyondTV 4.x users. Here's a quick look at what's new:

• Microsoft Vista 32bit compatibility
• Web based DivX streaming
• Support for Hauppauge HVR-1600 in dual tuner mode
• ShowSqueeze and SmartChapters now work if you have Windows Media Player 11 installed (previously, installing WM11 would cause major glitches in programs you ShowSqueezed to Windows Media Video)
• "Display Upcoming Episodes" now displays all channels a show airs on
• The Web Admin is faster
• Improved video playback
• Faster SmartChapter generation
• Faster keyword searches

Bonus feature: If you tried out BeyondTV 4.5's DVD burning plugin for 21 days and decided not to buy it, you can get another 21 days free with BeyondTV 4.6.

Update: I just installed the upgrade, and I'm still having major problems with the audio in WMV ShowSqueezed files. I'll stick with using DivX compression for now and see if I can't find a solution to post about later.

[via byopvr]

CTpvr version 2.1 is out, and while the software isn't as well known as PC based PVRs like Windows Media Center, SageTV, or BeyondTV, CTpvr does have a few nifty features, like support for picture-in-picture.

Here's some of the new features in version 2.1:

• CTpvr now includes its own subscription-free TV listing data, with support for multiple channel lineups.
• Support for alternate composite video input
• Additional hardware support
• Some UI tweaks
• Import video, music, and recording information via plugins
• Play movie trailers for files stored in video libraries

CTpvr is available for $30, or you can run a free trial version for 15 day.

[via Missing Remote]

The first new show fall show to take a tumble into canceldom has been announced: Kidnapped is officially done and will complete with a total airing of 13 episodes.

So, in looking at all the entries, the person who chose Kidnapped as the first show to be canceled with the closest guess to the number of episodes (13) is ...

erroneous_nick, with Kidnapped in 7 episodes!
And was only the third entry in the contest -- nice call.

Congrats to you, Nick! Or is it erroneous? Well whatever it is, congratulations -- we'll get in touch with you shortly regarding where to send your new HD PVR system from SnapStream!

(UPDATE: Several folks have pointed out that they believe Smith to be the true canceled show here. After some discussion within the 'Squad and an analysis of the rules stated in the contest, our decision stands.)