Registered: Feb 2003
Location: NYC
Posts: 28

Has anyone used either Snapstream or Frey-Sage TV?

Snapstream was featured on Tech TV's The Screen Savers yesterday and I was intrigued and they gave it favorable reviews. It seemed to bring PVR functionality to a PC with a TV Card. I often find myself using my PC's TV card when the wife is dominating the main TV & Tivo with the likes of Food TV and Trading Spaces.

Just Curious...
kd

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 4

I've been a happy Snapstream user for close to two years. I built a dedicated Snapstream server so I could keep up with my History Channel shows and to keep a catalog of shows to watch on my computer while I'm working late. I record all my "Dad-only" stuff on my Snapstream machine and let my wife and kids monopolize the TiVo (except for the several shows that my wife and I watch together).

Snapstream does all its encoding in software, so the quality you can get depends entirely on your CPU power. I record everything at what it calls "Cable/DSL Medium", which produces a 320x240 video with 32kbps 44kHz mono sound and a file size of about 185MB per hour. That's not good enough for full-screen viewing, but it's fine for watching in a little window in the corner while I'm concentrating on other stuff. (I've got an old Next Generation episode running right now.) My server's CPU utilization hits about 35% while recording at that quality level, so I could user a higher quality if I wanted. But at this level I can keep *lots* of old shows on disk and there's minimal load on my network and CPU while I'm watching something.

My server specs:
o Pentium 4 at 1.6Ghz
o 256MB memory
o Three 80GB disks - 2 as RAID-1 (mirrored) array, 1 standalone for now
o Hauppauge Win-TV tuner card
o Soundblaster Live! audio card
o Windows XP Home
o Snapstream V2.0

The same machine also acts as a print server and file server for MP3 files.

A lot of people seem to have trouble getting Snapstream to work reliably, but I've been lucky with it. That may be due to good hardware choices. I first tried a leftover ATI All-in-Wonder card and had problems, so I switched to the Hauppauge card. I also found that the built-in audio on my Intel motherboard gave poor sound quality, so I installed a leftover Soundblaster card.

With a dedicated server, I have very little trouble with missed shows. To be extra safe I installed a utility to reboot my server every night. These days I might miss one show in several hundred recordings. (That reliability doesn't include misses due to schedule changes - this version of Snapstream doesn't have any automatic schedule-tracking features like TiVo.)

I'm happy enough with version 2.0 that I may not bother upgrading to version 3.0 when it finally becomes available.

I have no experience with Sage TV. In fact, I never heard of it until now. Its ability to use hardware encoding is interesting. That lack is the biggest drawback with Snapstream.

__________________
Bob
Only one TiVo so far, since 1999
(Philips 30hr upgraded to 141hr)
plus SnapStream PVS computer

Last edited by bobg573 on 05-29-2003 at 04:01 AM

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 1700

The screenshots for snapstream 3.0 look very nice:

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/...screenshots.asp



SageTV doesn't look quite as refined:
http://www.freytechnologies.com/stvscreenshots.html

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location:
Posts: 2

SageTV is also considered highly stable by its users. And it has support for multiple tuners. And their latest addition of networking features is really interesting. It's much more of a networked PVR than Snapstream is.

Snapstream even says in their release notes for 3.0 (and this is the final release for 3.0, not a beta):
MPEG-2 TV and Recordings can hang under high cpu stress from other applications.
MPEG-2 TV can hang after many hours of uninterrupted usage.

I don't know about you, but I don't think Snapstream is even considered a realistic option for a PVR because they even say it might crash and then I'd miss my recordings! I evaluated both and chose SageTV as the easy winner.

Last edited by pvrgeek42 on 05-30-2003 at 01:12 AM

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 1700

Snapstream 3.0 available now

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/Products_PVS3.asp

$49 till 6/15 then $99

Maximum control over your television: don't just record and rewind your favorite shows intelligently -- play them back on your TV, PC, Pocket PC, or your wireless home network. Record shows in MPEG-2 or Windows Media. You can even remotely control Personal Video Station 3 from an Internet browser, your WAP cell phone, or a web-enabled Pocket PC.

All of this with... with no subscription fees and no high hardware costs.

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