Haven't used Snapstream in about 5-6 years (since I switched to all-OTA and all-DTV) but it was the best offering then for standard analog TV.

I hope snapstream stays strong as an alternative to the Microsoft/hollywood conspiracy that wants to control ones viewing entirely. They certainly want to control your access to commercial-free TV and pre-recorded programming using DRM as an excuse.

I've been using a commercial STB (LG 3410A) as a DVR, and thinking of switching back to Snapstream on a PC to get better editing and ad-skipping functions. Nowadays a PC and 300gb HDD are so cheap one can dedicate a unit to TV use, probably networked into other PCs used either as editors or viewers.

The anti-consumer Hollywood racket has apparently spread to the downloaded TV Guide, which does not display PBS stations. Also, the STB doesn't display the Guide info available in every DTV feed. On a standard STB one need merely press a button to get either the schedule for the current channel being viewed or a description of the program being viewed. But on the STBs suborned into the Hollywood racket these functions are not implemented, so you have to go to the TV Guide controlled by the racketeers, which gives them a lot of control. Fortunately, one can still go manually to an online internet schedule provider like Titantv.com or zap2it on your regular PC, but then you gotta manually set your DVR. I expect to obviate these problems with Snapstream on a PC with an uncontrolled receiver.

It looks like the Hollywood scum intends to use Microsofts MCE as a vehicle to put the nosebag over the viewers heads (in order to feed the gullible horse 33% Cheap Commercial Chaff with the oats, with the option to increase the chaff as it pleases them). Some of the new HDTV PCI cards require that the MCE PC have an MCE-approved analog TV card also installed, and the purpose of this can only be commercial as there is no technical requirement.

Your PC and your TV are no longer your own, folks. The manufacturers are building in tools to restrict what you can do with them, at the behest of the Hollywood mob. You have two choices (besides abject submission): boycott, or build your own.

As for the famous "flag", it does not do what we all voted that it should do, namely, suppress any program tainted by Howwy Mandell (how did he escape and return to society?) as we all voted (you do remember voting, don't you?) but to be turned on as the broadcaster pleases to suppress reproduction thru controlled STBs and PCs. You are forewarned to buy equipment made before June 2005 which doesn't honor the flag.

I use Beyond TV 4 as a pvr and love it. Once it records a show it shrinks it to a smaller size (they call it showsqueeze) and also marks the commercials. After that, you can watch the show and once you come to a commercial, hit the up button on your remote and it skips the commercial. Commercial skip is about 95% accurate for me although it does miss or miss-mark a commercial occasionally. This is the #1 feature for my wife & daughter.

I have three tuners so I can record up to three channels at once and watch a pre-recorded show at the same time.

I have another tv (connected via 2nd pc) networked to the first one and it uses the same saved shows etc.

Great software and worth trying out

Brent

Personally I use SageTV and it's by far the best PVR/Media Center software out there. It's the only one with Placeshifting that lets you access your content from anywhere you want. I also love the media extenders, they're a nice low-cost way to get my SageTV on the 3 different TVs in my house. I tried SnapStream, but it was too unstable and they also heavily censor their forums which made me uncomfortable with them as a company. And SageTV also supports Linux. :)

I'm a long time Beyond TV user and I've tried SageTV from time to time, including the latest version 5, and my experience has been that Beyond TV is far more stable than SageTV and it's also a lot easier to install. I highly recommend Beyond TV over the other options out there (including MCE, Yahoo Go TV, MediaPortal, etc.)

Recently upgraded to SageTV(ver 6) from BeyondTV (ver 4.7). I've been beyondTV user for many years, but when I saw SageTV.. I had to switch. If you haven't bought yet, download trial of both and you decide. The features I like about SageTV is Close Captioning, the flexibilty in the menus (EVERYTHING is adjustable in the user interface) and the ease of setup for my HDHomeRun QAM network tuner.. I tried for days following the beyondtv instructions... nothing worked like they said it would... anyway, they're both good... you decide about what is important.