SnapStream PVS - recording guide plus tips and tricks

By: Chris Kaminski 

Date: Sep 11, 2001

Version: 1.5

 

Shows can be recorded weekly, on weekdays, daily, or as a one-time. The recording interface defaults to ˝ hour recording increments, but that can be overridden with the ‘precise’ checkbox. Personally, the ˝ hour increments worked great for me for almost everything.

 

Once you have the time, channel, frequency and name set, you can save/schedule the recording or move on to the advanced options. There are all sorts of things to tweak like setting the Genre, MPAA rating and Parental v-chip rating. The most usefull options include overriding the default ‘compression quality’ and scheduling the recording to automatically be encoded for PocketPC’s.

Direct interfacing with electronic program guides (EPG’s) is not supported in ver 1.5 of the SnapStream PVS software but will be included in a future version.  When EPG integration happens, you will able to click a show in a guide to record it – no more manual time and channel setting. Note: There are free EPG’s on the Internet like the one at (link removed, dead link)

“If you have more than one computer with a TV card, you can configure one computer to be the "master" and set as many simultaneous jobs as there are TV cards to translate the TV signal.”

That’s a quote from the SnapStream product FAQ located here .

All you need to do is configure one server as a master, then configure the others as slaves. Now you can record multiple shows at once! If you are serious about TV recording and have a home network, this seems like an excellent way to go.

With Windows XP is here and the SnapStream software integrates flawlessly with the new OS. There are many new developments that will be a part of the XP release including burning shows directly to a CDR (and soon a DVDRW!) 

I quickly found myself setting up weekly recording for my favorite shows. Since cable-TV tends to air multiple times a day, I try to set up shows to record in the wee hours of the night. I always kick myself in the butt for not watching the new Southpark or Stargate – now I never miss a new episode. Deleting a re-run is as easy as clicking a trash can… I am now a SnapStream junkie.

The quality of the output depends on the resolution and compression method you select. The default near-vhs quality records 30 minutes of audio and video on a 150Mb file. At that size, a 40Mb hard drive could hold 130 hours (wow!). 13 video qualities come predefined and you can add more.

A special feature allows you to ‘Transcode’ your videos into other formats including formats for the PocketPC. These PocketPC formats take the file size down to about 30Mb per ˝ hour of video. With the cost of 128Mb compact flash cards down to under $80, watching a 2 hour movie on your PocketPC becomes a reality. Obviously the faster the PocketPC the better the quality, but I found my HP Jornada 548 to work just fine.

If course you can always install your own codec’s. I plan to examine more codec’s in a revision to this article. Check back on this page in a few weeks.