Digital Home Thoughts: SnapStream Media's Beyond TV 4

Under The Hood
Launching Beyond TV 4 for the first time, you'll find just about everything you need right at your fingertips (Figure 7). Recorded Shows, Live TV, SnapStream.Net Guide, Setup Recordings, and Settings - all the basics. The sound effects used in BTV can get a little annoying (especially if you are used the Tivo 'blip'), but even that can be easily disabled.


Figure 7: The main Beyond TV 4 menu.

As far as the basic recording options are concerned, you can modify your recording quality and the padding (Figure 8). Advanced record settings can be made through the Web Admin interface (which we'll see a little later in the review).


Figure 8: Some of the basic recording options include preferred recording format and padding.

Have an older video card that isn't doing well with the 3D Accelerated rendering? Or perhaps you want to adjust the Seek Auto-Compensation. Either way, the Player Settings is where you'll find these basic settings (Figure 9). You can even adjust the display (size and position) from this area.


Figure 9: Have an older video card? You can use the player settings to adjust the rendering (along with various other options).

Another important set of options can be found under the ShowSqueeze and SmartSkip Settings. We'll cover what those actually do in a bit, but in this menu (Figure 10), you can decide how to maximize your viewing capabilities by automatically adding chapters to a show or even compressing the file size to save space.


Figure 10: Maximize your viewing capabilities with the ShowSqueeze and SmartSkip options.