From the SnapStream blog The Hauppauge HD PVR “in the lab” at SnapStream


Since there’s been some excitement about the upcoming Hauppauge HD PVR product, I thought I’d share some photographs of Hauppauge’s new product “in the lab” here at SnapStream:

see pretty pics of the prototype hauppauge HD PVR unit

Wow... just wow! http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/hd_pvr.html Finally an easy way to record HD program on to your PC using your satellite set top box or digital cable STB.

HD PVR is the world’s first High-Definition video recorder for making real-time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. HD-PVR records component video (YCrCb) from cable TV and satellite set top boxes, with a built-in IR blaster to automatically change TV channels for scheduled recordings. Audio is recorded using AAC or Dolby Digital.

more delicious product shots over at SHSpvr's hauppauge forum

also see engadget coverage of the HD PVR

Thanks to miller for the heads up!

SnapStream is looking for people to beta test ipod/iphone integration with BeyondTV

from the blog entry: "You may have read recently that iTunes is not going to have NBC programming starting with the fall season. This would be a disaster for all of us iPod/iPhone users if it weren’t for the Beyond TV 4.7 Beta that has the capacity to automatically transfer shows into iTunes compatible formats.

4.7 has a plugin that allows recompression to the h.264 format and an rss feed (aka podcast) that makes getting shows into iTunes automatic (which then can automatically sync recordings to your iPod video, iPhone or Apple TV).

Available today, we have a public beta of the upcoming 4.7 release that includes many other sweet new features as well. To download this release, you can join the beta program by signing up at http://beta.snapstream.com"

Via Slashdot: Linux.com compares 3 MythTV centric linux distributions (KnoppMyth, Mythdora, & MythBuntu )

"The piece looks at Mythdora, Mythbuntu, and KnoppMyth, with an eye towards ease of installation and the actual utility of the install. From the article: 'For regular system maintenance, KnoppMyth simply isn't in the same ballpark as MythBuntu and MythDora. The live CD heritage of Knoppix means you cannot update individual packages, which is fine if you like that, but for an always-on system like a MythTV back end, I'd prefer flexibility and configurability of a mainline distro. When all is said and done, if I were building my TiVo replacement today, I would do it with MythDora. "

Vista View has announced that they will be releasing the Saber DA-1N1-e PCIe dual tuner card this week. The Saber DA-1N1-e is a combination ATSC (digital/HDTV) tuner and ViXs chip hardware encoded analog tuner.


From the press release: Vista View introduces the Saber DA-1N1-Etm PCIe Combo tuner card. This tuner combines the best Analog tuner technology with the best Digital tuner technology. This PCIe tuner card is the almost twin sister of the Saber DA-1N1-I, introduced in mid July.

Both cards give you 2 tuners, 1 Digital and 1 Analog, on one card. On both cards the Analog portion has a high quality ViXS hardware encoder and both are Vista certified. The main difference is that the Saber DA-1N1-E has a PCIe interface and is ATX height. With this addition to the Saber line customers can choose PCIe or PCI and still have the same great quality combo tuner choices."

Read the rest of the VistaView Saber Press Release...

via engadget: "DVR" added to Merriam-Webster dictionary

"These are just a few of the 100 words adopted by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for its Eleventh Edition. The publisher's announcement Wednesday also included long-time tech jargon DVR (digital video recorder)...

PCalchemy is giving away an Apple iPhone!

From PCAlchemy's newly launched newsletter "From time to time we will be announcing some great giveaways. We figured we would start things off with a bang and announce a drawing of a brand-new unopened 8GB iPhone. To qualify you simply need to make a purchase from pcalchemy.com between the dates of 7/1/2007 and 7/15/2007. The iPhone will be shipped UPS Next Day Air on Monday 7/18/2007, so some lucky person will be receiving a free 8GB iPhone on the 19th."

So if you were planning on picking up a few odds and ends for your pvr, this might be a good week to do it. :D

Saw the bad news on Zap2It Labs via Slashdot: Zap2It Labs Discontinuing Free TV Guide Service

For several years we have offered a free TV listings service to hobbyists for their own personal, noncommercial use. In October of 2004 we posted here an open letter saying the future of Zap2it Labs was at risk because of certain growing misuses of the Zap2it Labs data. Unfortunately this misuse has continued and grown. These misuses, combined with other business factors have led to the decision to discontinue Zap2it Labs effective September 1, 2007.

We thank those users who have honored the terms of the agreement, and we suggest you consider the many TV listings options offered by the commercial licensees of TMS TV listings data.

discuss the Zap2it Labs free tv guide data closing in our forum.

It'll be interesting to see what comes to replace this market need for guide data for Mythtv and other free PVR/HTPC software.

UPDATE: Discussion of what this means for GBPVR in the GBPVR forum. There's a lot of smart people in the byopvr/HTPC community, I'm sure we can figure out *something* to keep the free PVR software train rolling.

ATI is shipping Radeon HD 2400 & HD 2600 with HDMI/HDCP Goodness

"Both cards will also include the company's Unified Video Decoder (UVD), are based around a 65-nanometer chip, and will support HDMI and HDCP."

BeyondTV gets a mention in the grey lady!

"Q: Q. Is it possible to plug in a TV cable to my computer and use it like a VCR to record programs?


A: A. In most cases, you just need a TV tuner card for the computer and a program to do the recording...


...Some cards include their own recording software, but programs like SnapStream’s Beyond TV (www.snapstream.com) give TiVo-like powers to your Windows PC. You can also buy the Beyond TV software bundled with a compatible TV tuner card if you haven’t made the hardware purchase yet."

NY Times Technology Q & A section (silly mandatory registration required: use bugmenot.com to bypass)

"There comes a time in a homeowners life that he realizes the importance of being able to play full high-definition content from his neighbor's house 5 doors down… wirelessly.

Never mind the fact that getting the needed 20mbit sustained wireless connection for HD inside of a single house is difficult. The prospect of playing Music, DVDs and even full resolution HDTV between houses is just too tempting.
"

You can read the rest of the story on how they did it over at the SnapStream Blog article Watch HDTV anywhere in the neighborhood (AKA: House to House wireless network for HDTV)

It's about two guys here at SnapStream and their adventures setting up cross-neighborhood wireless network so they could watch DVDs and HDTV (recorded with Beyond TV, natch) from each others houses.

SnapStream releases BeyondTV version 4.6.1, now with unencrypted QAM goodness!

Some exciting improvements (release notes):

- Library monitoring and performance improved.
- HDHomeRun (ATSC and QAM support) now supported.
- Serial tuning for DirecTV D11 Model 500 now supported.


Don't know what the heck "unencrypted QAM" is good for? Ask about it in our HDTV DVR topic forum :)

W00t! BeyondTV Release Candidate 4.61 has unencrypted QAM support and they could use your hand testing it.

That's awesome! I'm totally getting an HDhomerun now.

For those that are saying "Unencrypted QAM, huh? What?!" You cable company often provides local HD channels that aren't "scrambled" and a QAM enable ATSC/HDTV tuner can decode the digital signal and you can record/watch local HDTV channels.

This doesn't help with pay HDTV channels like ESPN, HBOHD, HDNET, etc... you'd need a cablecard for that, but it's still handy if you like HD content but are on a budget :)

The always insightful Cringely speculates on Apple's H.264 encoder/decoder plans

"
Now comes the rumor I have heard, that I believe to be a fact, that has simply yet to be confirmed. I have heard that Apple plans to add hardware video decoding to ALL of its new computers beginning fairly soon, certainly this year.

Why Apple would do this is fairly clear to me, but first let's clarify what I mean by hardware video decoding, because it isn't implicitly the MPEG-2 format used in present-day DVDs. I'm not saying Apple's video-decoder chip won't also decode MPEG-2 (it may or may not -- I simply don't know), but the chip's primary codec is H.264, which is at the heart of both Apple's QuickTime software and its iTunes video downloading service."

BeyondTV 4.6 released with Vista Compatibility & divx place shifting (release notes linked)

Thanks G808 for the heads up

I'm in an internet cafe in costa rica so this news story's brief... I'll be back soon! -- rampy