New Digital and High-Definition TV Support

1. SmartSkip on HD and SD digital recordings is now supported
   
   
2. ShowSqueeze on HD and SD digital recordings is now supported
   
   
3. Support for single or multiple OTA (over-the-air) HDTV tuner cards side-by-side with analog tuner cards.
   
   
4. New video decoder with better high definition (HDTV) decoding performance.
   
   
5. New audio decoder with support for decoding Dolby AC-3 2 channel and 5.1 channel audio streams in high-definition (HDTV) content.
   
   
6. Support for S/PDIF (Sony Phillips Digital Interface Format) passthrough output.
   
   
7. Integrated program guide data for digital and HDTV line-ups and shows.
   
   
8. Integrated HDTV indicators in the program guide and live TV.
   
   
9. New disk space indicator for high-definition (HD) content.
   
   
10. Support for tagging high-definition (HD) transport streams with program information.
    
    
11. Improved transport stream demultiplexer for playing high-definition HD streams.
    
    
12. Beyond TV Link support for digital and HDTV recordings and live TV over-the-network.
    
    
13. “StreamSnip” removes extra sub-channels from HD recordings.
    
    
14. SmartSkip chapter generation in HD recordings is 400% faster than before.
    
    

New Record to DivX

15. Support for DivX 6.1 encoding gives you Intel Hyper-threading and Dual Core optimizations. DivX encoding is up to 300% faster.
    
    
16. Native playback of any DivX file.
    
    
17. Record directly to DivX with hardware encode TV tuner card (i.e. Plextor ConvertX).
    
    
18. Record directly to DivX with any software encode tuner using the bundled DivX encoder.
    
    
19. ShowSqueeze any Windows Media or MPEG-2 recording to DivX.
    
    

New Improved Browse & Search

20. New "Browse by Category" feature. Browse shows by category and sub-category, such as sports and movies.
    
    
21. Customizable category search capability for advanced users.
    
    
22. Faster program guide search by keyword or title.
    
    
23. Record what other Beyond TV users are recording with the "Automatic Community Recordings" feature.

New FM Radio

24. New feature adds support for tuning and timeshifting FM radio.
    
    
25. Easy creation of FM radio station presets

New Hardware Support

26. Added support for more than 10 new digital and analog TV tuner cards.
    
    
27. Support for non-square pixel displays (such as widescreen displays with 1024x768 resolution)
    
    
28. Improved volume control in live TV for certain sound cards and passthrough audio.
    
    
29. Firefly Mini support in Beyond TV and Beyond TV Link
    
    
30. Multiple Set-top-box or satellite receivers can now be controlled by Beyond TV, through support of multiple USB-UIRTs on a single PC.

Easier to Setup

30. Setup wizard now easier to use.
    
    
31. E-mail address is no longer necessary for TV listings.
    
    
32. High-definition (HD) signal strength and detection pages in the setup wizard allow for correct antenna adjustment.
    
    
33. New detection and notification of incorrect system times during installation.
    
    
34. Setup wizard now overrides registry restrictions that would otherwise prevent installation.

General Improvements

35. New "Drive Pooling" technology allows you to record to multiple hard drives as if they were a single combined drive.
    
    
36. New Control Beyond TV with your internet-enabled cell phone with the new "Firefly Nano" web-based remote control.
    
    
37. New Beyond TV Buzz: Participate in the SnapStream community and see what other users are watching (link)
    
    
38. New User interface design
    
    
39. New Support for 'backcapture' -- allows recording a show from the beginning, even if you hit record after you started watching.
    
    
40. More efficient scrolling in large libraries of recorded shows.
    
    
41. Improved product documentation
    
    
42. New Record On Any Channel allows scheduling a single show to be recorded on any channel that it airs on.
    
    
43. New Reduced disk fragmentation allows you to more efficiently store your favorite recordings.
    

Program Guide

41. New Manually configure the number of channels and hours that appear in the program guide.
    
    
42. New Feature allows users to work around unusual 1-2 minute program guide conflicts (such as the infamous ER vs. CSI conflict)
    
    
43. Faster and more reliable program guide data updates.
    
    
44. Faster and more intelligent scheduling and conflict management engine.
    
    
45. Improved program guide database format reduces required disk space and enables new search capabilities.
    
    
46. Automatic program guide database format migration during version updates.
    

Better Licensing

47. New End User License Agreement (EULA) allows developer usage of certain Beyond TV web services over the network without an extra license.
    
    
48. New unlimited tuners, at no additional charge, in Beyond TV 4. Build Medusas and Hydras to your heart's content!
    
    
49. Free upgrade of all copies of Beyond TV Link 3 to Beyond TV Link 4.
    
    

Configuration for Advanced Users

50. TV tuner specific selection of the recording file format (ie MPEG-2, DivX or Windows Media) if multiple types of TV tuner cards are present.
    
    
51. New advanced settings for controlling the throttling applied to background ShowSqueeze and SmartSkip operations.
    
    
52. New task scheduling algorithm allows dual core machines to run multiple Beyond TV tasks simultaneously (Potentially a 1.6x to 1.8x speedup on Intel dual core systems)
    
    
53. Improved serial port tuning for DirecTV boxes.
    
    
54. New advanced setting to control recording engine process priority.
    
    
55. New feature allows locking to 16:9 aspect ratio option in windowed mode.
    
    
56. Support for playing back Microsoft Media Center Edition recordings (dvr-ms) -- both standard definition and high definition (HD) recordings.
    
    
57. Disabled ShowSqueeze™ and SmartSkip™ options in the web admin for inappropriate file types.
    
    
58. Language localization infrastructure and string tables now available for 3rd parties.
    
    
59. Improved agent detection of service lapses with automatic restarts of lapsed services.
    
    
60. Improved timeouts and error messaging when Beyond TV Link cannot detect a network connection.