Downhill Battle

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Downhill Battle

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[ Mediacentric] To commemorate the RIAA’s renewed efforts towards “let’s save our market by sueing our customers”, maybe it’s time to review just what all is wrong with the music industry as it stands — artists not making money of CDs (or pay-for-download sites, for that matter); narrowing diversity by pay-for-play radio, the marginalization of independent artists, etc...

Some slightly related from Technorati and Google.

[Calloutz] Zeal Worthy Option: BeyondTV 3.5: Unlike MythTV which allows unlimited tuners for frizzle, you get 2 licenses with BeyondTV, then each additional tuner license is 20 bucks, or bundled with the tuner if you buy from Snapstream direct. Also related with cost, BeyondTV will only stream to other PCs, and Snapstream seems to have no intention (nor the R&D I imagine) to put together a settop remote box, like Microsoft’s Media Center Extender. The idea behind a central server as a repository for all digital content is appealing because of it’s less complex nature, in that there is no longer a hunt for tapes or searching which PVR a certain show was recorded, etc. But if you have to purchase and manage a PC for each viewing space, then the appeal is largely lost.

[Tech Shorts] xlobby and Centerstage: I’ve also been watching the community that has formed around the macmini to create a home media program called Centerstage.

[Byopvr.com] Build Your Own PVR :: Why Tivo When you can Freevo?: It's meant to be a shake and bake PVR kit in a box with a Conexant chipset based hardware MPEG encoding tuner card, BeyondTV Subscriber Edition, Beyond Media (full), FireFly remote control, and most of the possible cable combinations you'd need to set up your DIY PVR. A pretty darn good package for $130 bucks, but you'll need to wait for the official review to know if it's worth it =)

[Terrystockdale.com] Home Theater PC: The two big alternatives were Sage Technologies' SageTV® and Snapstream's BeyondTV®. Snapstream's product was the older of the two and had gone through several generations (they recently released version 3.5). SageTV was a relative newcomer with some significant unique capabilities. Both had large followings, but I liked the SageTV forums and the support and camaraderie exhibited there.

[Dorffweb.com] Kevin C. Dorff's Blog: I think I am quite happy with BeyondTV 3.5.2, so I will probably go with that. The downside to BeyondTV is that it doesn't include any "media player" options such as playing video files (Divx, Xvid, etc.), playing audio (CD or MP3), looking at picture albums, etc. The SnapStream "media player" solution is a program called BeyondMedia. BeyondMedia looks nice but its integration with BeyondTV is essentially nil (a menu option to launch BeyondTV) and its video playback leaves something to be desired -- although I figured out ways around most of the issues I was having.

[Tvharmony.com] TVHarmony: BeyondTV 3.5 Out this Friday: PVR Software vendor, SnapStream, is going to release a new version of BeyondTV this Friday with support for multiple tuner cards. I've been anxious to try 3.5 ever since AnandTech released this preview.

[Pvrblog.com] Beyond TV: A PC PVR for Mortals | PVRblog: What really got my goat was Snapstream's laser focus on nice but far-from-essential features (DivX transcoding, PocketPC transcoding, rolling their own program guide instead of continuing to use the nice-and-free TitanTV.com) instead of putting their resources into customer support. I am convinced that the companies that do well over the long haul are those that are "fanatical" about supporting their customers.