The Test

We ended up using All-in-Wonder, Personal Cinema, and TV Wonder cards for our testing. The only thing that we noticed was the slightly distorted sound with Personal Cinema cards.

Since it looks like we are going to be doing multimedia networking stuff for a while to come, we have standardized our multimedia network with D-Link LAN, 802.11b and 802.11g equipment, which consists of:
  • DI-624 2.4GHz 802.11b/802.11g Router
  • DGS-1008D Gigabit Switch
  • DCF-660W 2.4GHz Wireless CompactFlash Card
  • DWL-122 2.4GHz 802.11b Wireless USB adapter
  • DWL-120+ 2.4GHz 802.11b Wireless USB adapter
  • DWL-G120 2.4GHz 802.11g Wireless USB 2.0 adapter
  • DWL-G650 2.4GHz 802.11g Wireless Cardbus adapter
Yes, it is a very good multimedia network.

Our test system for SnapStream's Beyond TV 3 ended up being the Shuttle ST61G4 XPC with a Pentium 4 at 2.6GHz, 1GB of Kingston HyperX PC4000 RAM, and a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB hard drive.

Index Installation and Set-up
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  • batorok - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link

    as a Sagetv user I'm pretty miffed they didn't compare the two. Sagetv 2.0 has a really nice new interface, handles multimedia (pics, mp3z, movies, dvds including vob files) pretty well, has multituner support, and better image quality of viewed tv (I demoed both before buying sage). Since tv is what it's all about, the picture quality is what's important to me.
  • reboos - Thursday, May 13, 2004 - link

    MythTv is very nice.
  • mcveigh - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link

    good question crazy_vag

    I don't think snapstream supports HD capture cards
  • crazy_vag - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link

    When will I be able to record Soprano's in HDTV on HTPC???
  • mcveigh - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link

    I think you should consider comparing it to tivo/replay as I think this is more what it is aimed at replacing.

    also I would like to see more info about multile tuners.

    how about a shoot out of personal video software in the future?

    SnapStream vs. sage TV vs. windows MCE vs. ????
  • Jeff7181 - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link

    Wonderful review. Looks like a very robust piece of software. If I was in the market to build a HTPC I'd probably buy it. From what I see, I like the information windows... they have a little bit too much info, but at least they're transparent so you can still see the show... unlike Comcast the last time I paid for digital cable.
  • llamas - Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - link

    Are you considering a review of SageTV 2.0 (just released)? It would interesting to hear how it compares with BTV3. SageTV supports multiple tuners, and has client software with the same interface as the server.

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