Beyond TV

Review by Michael E. Callahan aka Dr. File Finder

Beyond TV, by SnapStream Media,lets you watch and even record television on your computer. I was impressed with the selection of things I could watch. A nice feature about this is that you can watch it when you want to, and there are no monthly or yearly charges. No charges for the service at all. A slick feature is the ability to search for things you might want to watch based on your criteria. For example, you could search for a particular title or a specific actor. When you find what you want you can even skip any commercials you may encounter. Cool.

With Beyond TV you can fast-forward, stop, pause, rewind and more. The software even has a built-in program guide that includes listings for the US and Canada. You can also get a full range of FM radio stations to play and record. Just like a real video recorder you can program the software to record specific things at specific times. I liked the fact that the software supports a variety of file formats including WMV, DivX and MPEG-2. And you can easily burn the content you've saved to DVDs. The program also has a feature called ShowSqueeze that can compress your recordings so they take up less space. Another slick feature is that you can set all your recordings to automatically be saved in a compressed format. Neat! Heck you can even put some of the things you record on your Palm Pilot or Pocket PC.

Beyond TV has an astonishing array of features and functions, and yet the program is quite easy-to-use. There's even a setting that puts the equivalent of bookmarks into your recordings. This feature, called SmartSkip, divides a movie, for example, into a number of parts. It's very much like dividing a recording up into segments or chapters. So, if you know you have a favorite scene in The Matrix, you can skip right to it. Nicely done. And, if you want to share your content with others on your network you can opt to buy a separate product called Beyond TV Link. This lets everyone on your network view recorded and live content.

Beyond TV is a powerful product that's full of features and functions that can greatly enhance your enjoyment of TV and radio on your computer. In reviewing this product I started checking into similar products and in the future I'll be doing a Dr. File Finder's Picks Roundup of computer TV and radio programs. If you're really into television, radio, movies and recording you might want to take a good look at Beyond TV. Check it out.

(Reviews provided by Tucows)