The Associated Press gives a thumbs up to Snapstream’s “Beyond TV 3”, a PC-based personal video recorder software that functions much like a TiVo. And unlike TiVo, Beyond TV’s programming guide is provided free, compared to TiVo’s $12.95 monthly charge. Other features include the ability to push video streams out to remote web browsers (so you could watch your home-recorded shows at work) and commercial break recognition (to help automagically skip forward without pressing a button.)
In addition to the $80 retail cost for the software, your computer must be equipped with a hardware TV capture card, like those from Hauppauge or ATI. A giant hard drive probably wouldn’t hurt, either, as recorded video streams can take up a lot of room.
