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System Requirements
Basic Requirements
- Operating System
- Microsoft Windows XP Home
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional
- Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (5) or
- Microsoft Windows Vista
- Microsoft Windows 7
(Beyond TV does not support any Windows 64-bit operating system, only x86 32-bit.)
- DirectX 9.0 or greater
- Processor:
- Using a TV tuner card with Hardware encoding (recommended) (1) :
- Pentium, Celeron or AMD Athlon at 700 Mhz and above
- Using a TV tuner card without Hardware encoding:
- Pentium 4, Celeron or AMD Athlon at 1.5 Ghz and above
- 256 MB RAM
- Sound Card
- Video Card:
- nVidia GeForce 2 and above
- ATI Graphics Radeon 7500 and above
- Others with 16 MB RAM, 3D Acceleration, DirectX 9.0 compatibility (2)
- 15 GB Hard Drive
- In systems that use 3 or more tuners, recording capacity is limited
by the speed of the hard drive and available bandwidth. In order
to utilize additional tuners, the system may need additional hard
drives that are faster or configured in RAID mode. The more hard
drive space, the better the performance will be.
- Supported TV tuner cards -- partial list (complete list below)
- ATI TV Wonder 600 PCI (analog/digital hybrid)
- ATI TV Wonder 600 PCIe (analog/digital hybrid)
- ATI TV Wonder 600 USB (analog/digital hybrid)
- ATI TV Wonder (PCI /USB)
- ATI All-In-Wonder "X-Series" models (X300, X600, X800, X850)
- Avermedia AVerTVHD MCE A180
- Dvico FusionHDTV7 Gold
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150MCE
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 (PCI analog/digital hybrid)
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 (PCI-E analog/digital hybrid)
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250
- Hauppauge HD PVR
-
Television Source
- Analog Cable
- Digital Cable (3)
- Satellite (3)
- Antenna
- Internet Access
- Optional Hardware
Requirements for ATSC
- Intel® Pentium®, AMD Athlon™ processor at 1.7 GHz or higher
- 512 MB Ram
- ATI Radeon 9550 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 or Higher
- 40 GB of available hard drive space (this will allow 5 hours of HD Recording)
- BDA Compliant ATSC Capture Card
- Windows XP Service Pack 2
- See the OTA HDTV Setup Center for more detailed information
Requirements for clear QAM
- Intel® Pentium®, AMD Athlon™ processor at 1.7 GHz or higher
- 512 MB Ram
- ATI Radeon 9550 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 or Higher
- 40 GB of available hard drive space (this will allow 5 hours of HD Recording)
- Coax cable source
- Windows XP Service Pack 2
- QAM Compliant Capture Cards:
- Hauppauge HVR-950Q
- Hauppauge HVR-1250
- Hauppauge HVR-1600
- Hauppauge HVR-1800
- Hauppauge HVR-1950
- Hauppauge HVR-2250
- AverMedia M780
- AverMedia A180 (QAM capable ones)
- ATi Theater 650 family
- Silicon Dust HDHomeRun Dual Network Tuner
- See the Clear QAM HDTV Setup Center for more detailed information
Minimum Requirements for Hauppauge HD PVR
Note on HD PVR
- Core2Duo equivalent or higher CPU
- ATI 36XX series or higher or nVidia 86XX series or higher (must be capable of H.264 hardware acceleration)
Note: the playback of high definition H.264 requires a fast CPU and at least 256MB of graphics memory
- Sound card
Requirements for Placeshifting
- Core2Duo equivalent or higher CPU
Requirements for H.264
- Decoding H.264 Videos
- The following table lists minimum requirements for H.264 playback.
| |
Video Type |
| |
480p |
720p |
1080p |
| CPU |
2.0 GHz Pentium 4 |
2.8 GHz Pentium 4 |
3.0 GHz Pentium dual-core |
| RAM |
512 MB |
512 MB |
1 GB |
| Video Card RAM |
64 MB |
64 MB |
64 MB |
- Syncing Shows to iPod®, iPhone™ or Apple TV™:
- To sync shows to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV, Apple iTunes® will need to be installed on either 1) the PC running Beyond TV or 2) on a computer that has network access to your Beyond TV PC. (Apple iTunes download page)
PC Remote Controls
- SnapStream Firefly Remote (Buy it here)
- Hauppauge WinTV Remotes/silver and black
- ATI Remote Wonder
- Keyspan Digital Media Remote
- StreamZap PC Remote
- Media Center Edition Remote
- Other remote controls that are compatible with Girder
Supported TV tuner cards (analog)
- With Hardware Encoding (1)
- Adaptec AVC-3610
- Adaptec VideOh! Media Center (USB 2.0)
- Adaptec VideOh! Media Center (PCI)
- Adaptec USB 2.0 Dual TV Tuner
- ADSTech InstantTV Deluxe (USB 2.0)
- ADSTech InstantTV Deluxe (PCI)
- ATI eHome Wonder
- ATI TV Wonder Elite
- ATI Theater 550 chipset based TV tuners, including:
- ATI Theater 550 Pro
- Sapphire Theatrix
- Others by GeCube, Gigabyte, MSI, Tul, and Yuan
- Other models by ATI or Sapphire may use the same chipset as well
- ATI Theater 650 chipset based TV tuners
- ATI TV Wonder 600 PCI (analog/digital hybrid)
- ATI TV Wonder 600 PCIe (analog/digital hybrid)
- ATI TV Wonder 600 USB (analog/digital hybrid)
- AverMedia m150
- Avermedia m175
- Diamond XtremeTV PVR550 (PCI)
- Diamond XtremeTV PVR600 (USB)
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 (more information)
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150MCE
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250
- Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250BTV
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-350
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE
- Hauppauge WinTV-PVR USB2
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 (PCI analog/digital hybrid)
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 (PCI-E analog/digital hybrid)
- NVIDIA® DualTV MCE tuner
- PixelView PlayTV P7000
- Plextor PX-TV402U / PXM402U
- Prolink Pixelview PlayTV HD
- Yuan MPG-600
- Yuan MPG-843
- Yuan PG-600
- Without Hardware Encoding:
- ASUS TV880
- ATI TV Wonder (PCI / USB)
- ATI TV Wonder Pro (PCI)
- ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0
- ATI TV Wonder VE
- ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon family
- ATI All-In-Wonder "X-series" models (X300, X600, X800, X850)
- AVerMedia AverTV Stereo (PCI)
- AVerMedia AverTV Studio family
- Hauppauge Win-TV Go PCI
- Hauppauge Win-TV Go FM
- Hauppauge Win-TV Go Stereo PCI
- Hauppauge Win-TV Radio
- Hauppauge Win-TV USB
- Hauppauge Win-TV USB Pro
- Hauppauge Win-TV USB 2
- I/O Magic PC PVR
- LifeView FlyVideo 98
- LifeView FlyVideo 3000
- nVidia Personal Cinema family
- Osprey 100 (PCI) (Using BTWinCap Drivers)
- Pinnacle PCTV (PCI)
- Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe
- Pinnacle PCTV Pro
- Pinnacle PCTV Rave PCI
- Pinnacle PCTV (USB)
- PixelView XCapture PCI (Conexant 2338x chipset)
- Plextor PX-TV100U / PX-AV100U
- STB Systems (PCI)
- TerraTec Cinergy 400 TV
- Read more about supported TV tuner cards
- Read more about multiple tuner support in Beyond TV
Supported TV tuner cards (ATSC)
- ADSTech InstantHDTV PCI
- ATI HDTV Wonder
- ATI Theater 650 chipset based TV tuners
- ATI TV Wonder 600 PCI (analog/digital hybrid)
- ATI TV Wonder 600 PCIe (analog/digital hybrid)
- ATI TV Wonder 600 USB (analog/digital hybrid)
- AverMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180
- Dvico FusionHDTV5 Lite
- Dvico FusionHDTV3 Gold-T
- Dvico FusionHDTV5 Gold
- Dvico FusionHDTV5 Gold Plus
- Dvico FusionHDTV5 Gold USB
- Dvico FusionHDTV7 Gold
- Dvico FusionHDTV7 Gold USB
- Hauppauge HVR-950 (USB stick)
- Hauppauge HVR-1600 (PCI analog/digital hybrid)
- Hauppauge HVR-1800 (PCI-E analog/digital hybrid)
- Hauppauge HVR-1950 (USB)
- Kworld ATSC-TV 310U USB
- Kworld ATSC-110
- Pinnacle Systems PCTV HD Pro Stick (USB Stick)
- Silicon Dust HDHomeRun (clear QAM)
- VBox Cat's Eye DTA-151
- VBox Cat's Eye USB-A 3560
Supported QAM TV Tuner Cards
- Hauppauge HVR-950Q
- Hauppauge HVR-1250
- Hauppauge HVR-1600
- Hauppauge HVR-1800
- Hauppauge HVR-1950
- Hauppauge HVR-2250
- AverMedia M780
- AverMedia A180 (QAM capable ones)
- ATi Theater 650 family
- Silicon Dust HDHomeRun Dual Network Tuner
External tuners: PC IR Blasters
- USB-UIRT (Buy it
here)
- IR Blaster that comes with the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150
- MyBlaster
- Actisys IR-200L
- Other PC IR Blasters that are compatible with Girder
External tuners: Serial Port Tuning
- DirecTV (Sony set-top box) serial port tuning (Buy it here)
- DirecTV (RCA set-top box) serial port tuning (Buy it here)
- Motorola DCT-2000 (with 7.54 or above firmware)
DVD Burners
- Any multimedia compliant DVD recordable drive
- All popular recordable DVD formats are supported: DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-RAM
Important Notes
(1) TV tuner cards with hardware encoding do all the "heavy-lifting" required
to record and watch TV which allows your processor to do other things. For
this reason, SnapStream recommends TV tuner cards with hardware encoding.
(2) Certain video cards are not compatible with Beyond TV. Please see
the Incompatible Video Cards document in the SnapStream Knowledge
Base for more information.
(3) Beyond TV requires a PC IR blaster or serial port tuning cable for tuning
digital cable and satellite set-top boxes. Certain DirecTV set-top boxes
can be controlled using serial port tuning and other set-top boxes require
a PC IR blaster.
(4) A PC Remote Control is optional. SnapStream highly recommends one if
you plan to use Beyond TV in your living room on your television.
(5) While Beyond TV supports Windows XP Media Center Edition, some
extra steps are required to make it work. See this knowledgebase
article for more information.
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