PocketPC Addict Reviews SnapStream PVS 2.0!

brad · #1 01-21-2002, 01:13 PM

SnapStream's innovative software Snapstream PVS boasts: "Discover what thousands of users already know – SnapStream PVS makes it easy to record your favorite TV shows on your PC and then watch those shows anytime, anywhere. With SnapStream, watch TV on your PocketPC while you commute to work or on your laptop as you jet across the country."

Does SnapStream accomplish what it sets out to do? Read our review to find out!<body>

Turning your PDA into an Entertainment Center
SnapStream PVS 2.0 Review

 January 21, 2002
Review by Brad Isaac, Editor



Introduction

As someone who has looked at Replay TV and Tivo and thought “I need one of those”, I felt SnapStream PVS was definitely worth looking into. SnapStream PVS is a software application that works in conjunction with your TV Tuner card to record television shows on to your computer. Not only that, however, SnapStream has functionality that is well beyond your typical VCR. The software also has built in ‘streaming’ software that allows you to publish your recorded programs to the web for viewing from any computer that has a web browser. SnapStream also offers an add-on module called Pocket PVS that transcode recorded shows and moves them to the memory on your handheld device. Finally, SnapStream has partnered with a company TitanTV.com that much like tvguide.com gives Local and Cable TV and Satellite TV listings, however, it gives the added functionality of allowing a user to click on a program and to have it automatically add the program into the queue to be recorded.

With all of the options that SnapStream offers, it has the potential to be one of the all time greatest apps. Or it could become so convoluted it will fall flat on it’s face. So the questions this review will answer is does SnapStream live up to all the actions it attempts? How easy is it for a user to get up and running? What type of results can we expect from video, sound and transcoding to PocketPC?

Setup

When the SnapStream kit arrived, it came with WinTV’s latest PCI tuner card (internal), a CDRom with WinTV drivers, another CDRom with the SnapStream PVS software and SnapStream Pocket PVS software, and two Getting Started Guides – one for SnapStream PVS and the other for SnapStream Pocket PVS.

Installation was easy enough. Insert the CDRom in the CDRom Drive, and choose your install options from the list. From there, it is the typical ‘hit next to continue’ to complete your install.

Once SnapStream has completed install, things get a little more tricky. You now must begin step #1 of setting up your hardware to work with the software. We are on Cable TV, so we chose Cable for the broadcast video source. We verified that Hauppauge WinTV Capture was our capture card. The only potential problem I would see here would be if you unknowingly had a Graphics card with TV input built in.

Next, onto setting up the WDM capture device. It says You have selected a DirectShow based capture driver (Did I!?!) I did not know that. Well, anyway, I’ll just choose Video Tuner because that actually means something to me.

Next comes confirming your channels, I guess that’s correct, I don’t keep too many of those channel Frequency settings in my mind for later recall. I hit “Next.”

SnapStream will then run a test of the hardware settings and confirm your soundcard and sound drivers. Pretty basic, choose a channel for the test and simply hit next.

The final parts of hardware setup involve deciding whether you want to password protect your configuration settings and whether users will need a password to watch your shows over the Internet. With so many of us using cable modems and DSL these days, password protecting your settings is very important. SnapStream does sit down in your system tray and remains connected to the Internet unless you purposefully disable it. So passwords would be a must.

Now that our hardware configuration is out of the way, it was time to jump right in and record a show.

Recording

SnapStream PVS 2.0 looks as if it was written for XP, and if I understand their literature correctly it in fact was. However, it does run on Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000. But as you can see, it looks much like XP. Okay, I’ll admit it, I love XP’s interface, and I love the way SnapStream’s interface looks as well.

So beginning with the Home screen of SnapStream, it’s now time to hit the record button and watch some computer movies! Well, not so fast I found out. There were a few items that needed to be configured beforehand.

Upon hitting the Record button, I was pleasantly surprised to be taken to TitanTV.com. Here after setting up an account and giving your name address and all your credit card numbers (just joking on the credit cards.) Titan TV is free. You are given a TVGuide type of layout of your Local, Cable or Satellite TV.

On Titan TV, you simply choose the show you would like to watch and here is where I believe SnapStream goes the extra mile. You do not have to make a note of your show and go to another screen to program SnapStream to record it. You only have to click the videotape Icon and then SnapStream does the rest.

Watching


After recording is complete, watching your show is easy enough. Simply click on the “Watch” ICON and you’ll get a list of shows to choose from.

Things did become a bit confusing however, because there were listed several different (what SnapStream calls “stores”) One was labeled Brad, another named Common and another named PocketPC. Stores represent different recording settings you might use for different shows. For instance, if you think of a VCR, you can record shows at different qualities. First there is SP or Short Play for the best quality (Uses all the tape for a 2 hour recording). Then there is SLP or Super Long Play for the worst quality (Fits as many as 8 hours on one tape.). SnapStream allows you to create different complete setups that can be applied to different recordings. In other words, if you want to record Days of our lives every day and have it be good quality for Computer watching, but now transcoding to your handheld, you could create a store named “good no convert”. Another show may be okay quality but your main purpose is to send it over to your PocketPC you can create another store for that called “PocketPC” like I did. See Picture above.

I realize this may seem a bit confusing to some, I’m still not sure I have it all correct myself. Which leads us to probably the biggest drawback to SnapStream. It is not for computer novices. Yes, the developers of this product are brilliant. There are a lot of bells and whistles in SnapStream PVS; however, some of the features take a lot of practice and (should I say skill?) to apply with any amount of consistency. If my kind Mrs. was to call me up while I was away and ask me how she could record Survivor using SnapStream, I might be able to walk her through it, but I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so – especially if she wanted to watch it on her iPAQ!

Which brings us to transcoding and synchronization (probably the most intriguing reason PocketPC Addict found for researching this product.) If you are not sure what I mean when I say transcoding, let me say that is how you go from a VHS quality show to something you can watch on your PocketPC. It is how SnapStream converts the original file into a format that can be used on the small screen. After transcoding is complete it is automatically synched over to your handheld.

It is our observation that this happens almost by magic! There is not a register of any activity in ActiveSync, so it isn’t immediately apparent anything is happening as it synchs the show over to the handheld. One way to tell is to right click on the SnapStream ICON in the systray and choose Pocket PVS.

Pocket PVS will launch and show you what shows you have recorded using SnapStream. It will also tell you whether it is copying to your handheld or “ready to copy” to your handheld. Now just because it says “ready to copy” does not mean it eventually will. In order for SnapStream to copy your show, it must be designated as a show that in fact you want transcoded and synched. If you forgot to set it up initially while setting up to record, you can easily use Pocket PVS to transcode and synch the show in question.

As you will see when you dock your PDA, you get a picture of your handheld with a red arrow symbolizing the synchronization. You also get a progress bar. As I stated before, your shows synching to your PDA occur in the background unless you are running the Pocket PVS window. I’ve started synching this particular program 3 to 4 times and had mindlessly undocked the iPAQ, just from simply forgetting it was synching a show! When this happens, the best I can tell is it deletes the partially copied show and starts over from the beginning.

One little thing I noticed about the software that can be great or deadly depending on how you look at it is the PocketPC ‘store’. Remember when I told you earlier about ‘stores’ – the profiles for quality settings you use for your different shows? Well, I created one called PocketPC and set it to ‘standard iPAQ’ quality – in doing so, every show that is recorded under the PocketPC store is assumed to be a Pocket PVS show. Thus, everything recorded using that store is synched over to the handheld, like it or not!

Also, since synching happens automatically, I’d make sure I had plenty of space on the CF card! I haven’t seen what happens if you accidentally dock your Handheld with a full CF card and it starts synching.

Quality

Now to talk about the quality of your recordings, the following, is a list of the different qualities one can record their shows. The following is a list of some of their encoding settings:
 <ul>[*] 56K Modem[*]Dual Channel ISDN[*]Cable/DSL Medium[*]Near VHS[*]VHS[*]Near DVD[*]PocketPC - iPAQ Standard[/list]
The slower speeds would obviously be for streaming your shows over the Internet using slow modem connections. Then there are mid-range streaming choices like Single and Dual Channel ISDN and Low cable/DSL. My favorite setting for streaming video is actually iPAQ High. To me it just seems like the best all around video quality and sound for an Internet stream.

The picture you get over the Internet is your typical small screen with standard sound. I set up a recording in this manner for a news broadcast and attached to my computer from over the Internet. The picture was quite good. A friend, who also connected, found better results from his location to instead download the stream and play it locally on his own computer. This is a personal preference issue of course. However, on the Internet, I think it’s a bit unreasonable to request full Wide screen 29 frames per second Dolby surround stereo recordings.

Speaking of unreasonable expectations, this issue brings us to our next SnapStream point. If you look above, there is a listing for Near DVD quality. I spent some time browsing SnapStream’s support site and found that several users were complaining about the “Near DVD” quality setting. May be it’s just me, but expecting near DVD quality out of any TV capture card with just an analog cable input seems like a pretty silly request. Maybe SnapStream should consider renaming the Near DVD quality to “Highest Quality” to avoid the headaches.

From the perspective of a PocketPC enthusiast, I find the quality of the transcoded shows to be well within the acceptable and enjoyable range. I’ve recorded 4 shows that I set to be transcoded and synched to the iPAQ. Using the iPAQ Standard setting, I found the picture to be a tad choppy, with some artifacts, but still good. The sound was a little low when using the external speaker, using headphones made the sound definitely easier to hear. There are reports of some tweaks to improve sound, but we did not test those for this review.

Conclusion

It is possible may be looking to SnapStream as a replacement for a Tivo or Replay TV unit and are thus expecting a head to head comparison. As I own neither of the two, I was unable to do a direct comparison for our review. I have, however seen the Tivo in action. To compare them is about like comparing apples to chickens. But if I must, I will say this: If you are expecting SnapStream to be an equal replacement to the Tivo, the picture quality may disappoint you. However, I feel SnapStream more than makes up for the hardware limitations with its functionality. Like Tivo, it allows you to point and click to the programs you like for automatic recording, it allows you to stream your recordings over the internet (No web authoring or streaming experience necessary) and last but not least, it allows you to synch your shows over to your PDA so you can take them with you and watch them while you are away from home.

I found SnapStream to be a brilliant product that is full of bells and whistles. My one complaint with the product is it is not that user friendly for the average PC user. I kept thinking what would my father do if he wanted to use this product instead of a Tivo. He’d be calling me every night and I would be whispering to my wife “Say I’m not here!!!” (Just kidding.) It would be a challenge though.

For the user who gives this a try, and I recommend you do, I’d say it’s like anything else that is cutting edge. If you’re going to try and live on the cutting edge, you’ll probably get nicked a couple of times. But be persistent, and you’ll catch on quickly, and start having fun! Their demo policy is quite generous. They give you a fully functional version that will record up to 2gigs of shows and transcode up to 32 Megs onto your PDA. There is no time limit to this demo.

Finally, I’ll say that there is just something nice about having a show to watch when something unexpected happens. Imagine what those long lines at the Post office would have been like this past Christmas if I had SnapStream on the iPAQ with a pair of headphones! I would not have become nearly so frustrated!


Pros

Point and click recording of shows

Easily stream shows over the Internet to any location with a web browser

Seamless synching of recorded shows to your handheld device

Less expensive than Tivo

Cons

Difficult and confusing configuration

Not enough detailed instructions

Final Score 9 out of 10 </body>