TVSquad

AVerMedia has launched a new PCI-Express HDTV tuner that can handle your usual ATSC, ClearQAM and NTSC television signals. In other words, you use the AVerTV Bravo Hybrid PCI-E to watch standard definition television or unencrypted HDTV signals from an antenna or cable box.

Like most other TV tuners in its class, the Bravo Hybrid can encode your high definition and standard def TV streams as MPEG-2 video files. But the card can also encode videos using the H.264 codec, allowing you to compress your videos to save space in real-time without the need for a blazing fast computer processor. Not only will your H.264 videos take up less space on your PC, but they'll also be iPod-compatible.

The AVerTV Bravo Hybrid PCI-E is available now for about $80.

[via Electronista]

SyncTV is a spinoff for Pioneer Electronics, focused on providing a video download service that gives customers far more control over how they purchase and view videos than any almost any existing service. We first told you about SyncTV back in November, but over the weekend I got a chance to check out the service which is still in private beta.

The software client does pretty much everything you'd expect. You can browser through several existing channels of content, download, and view programs. There's no HD content, but videos are encoded with the H.264 codec and look decent enough in full screen mode on my 1280 x 800 pixel display. You can watch a video shortly after you start a download and download speeds seem pretty zippy.

What really sets SyncTV apart from the competition is that you can subscribe to channels of content and watch any content in the channel. Or you can purchase individual episodes which you can watch at any time, even if you stop paying your monthly subscription fee. Or you can purchase an entire season of episodes. Unlike many online video stores SyncTV aims to host every single episode of the series it distributes.

It's been nearly two years since Microsoft announced plans to let DirecTV customers watch and record programs using Windows Vista Media Center. I wouldn't blame you if you'd kind of forgotten about the whole thing or thought that the two companies had given up on the idea. But Chris Lanier uncovered a Microsoft job listing that would seem to indicate that the companies are still working together.

This is a job posting, not a press release, so we have to read between the lines to figure out the details. But Microsoft is looking for a software design engineer to work with "newly developed dual-tuner TV receiver devices." In addition to the dual-tuner tidbit, it appears that the devices will support Pay-Per-View and H.264 HD video.

Of course, there's still no word on when you'll actually be able to get a tuner from DirecTV or how much it will cost.

Beyond TV 4.7 is officially out. The latest version of the popular Windows-based PVR software has been in beta for most of the last month.

So what's new? A couple of big new features since BeyondTV 4.6 and a few enhancements since we last told you about Beyond TV 4.7.

Updates since Beyond TV 4.6

• Optional plug-in that automatically transcodes recordings to H.264 and syncs them with your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV using an iTunes RSS feed
• New drive pooling feature lets you make use of multiple hard drives by recording to whichever drive has free space
• Use any web-connected portable device (iPhone, PDA, laptop) as a remote control
• Automatically record top picks from other Beyond TV users
• Optional plug-in for burning DVDs from PCs running Beyond TV Link software.

Improvements to Beyond TV 4.7

• Play H.264 videos
• Extend recording time while a job is currently being recorded by hitting the record button and adding the amount of time
• Recover recordings that were interrupted due to power outage or reboot
• Beyond TV Link can now stream live TV for multiple days without stopping, so you never have to stop watching TV. Ever.

BeyondTV 4.7 is a free upgrade for existing BeyondTV 4 users. A full version will cost you $80 if you need a retail package and DVD, or $70 if you download the software from Snapstream's web site.

Snapstream Media has released a new beta of their PC-based personal video recorder. BeyondTV 4.7.1 includes a number of useful updates:

• A new plugin allows you to automatically convert recordings to H.264 for viewing on an iPod or other portable device (earlier versions of BeyondTV featured automatic conversion to DivX or WMV only).
• You can generated an RSS feed that allows you to automatically import those files to iTunes.
• A new "drive pooling" feature lets you treat multiple hard drives as one recording source, effectively increasing your potential storage space.
• Use your internet connected PDA or mobile phone as a remote control with the new Firefly Nano/Remote Library feature.
• Automatically record the top shows based on BeyondTV Buzz community feedback.
• Burn DVDs using a BeyondTV Link machine.
• There's a new calendar view for upcoming recordings using the web interface.

Overall, this is a pretty exciting update. H.264 support is something that probably should have been included in BeyondTV for years. And drive pooling will prevent me from having to go out and buy a larger hard drive now that I'm recording HDTV programs.

The automatic BeyondTV Buzz recordings might not be quite as useful as TiVo suggestions or Guru guides, but they do offer a step in that direction.

PBS tech guru Robert Cringely is going around spreading rumors about an upcoming Apple upgrade. Here's the deal (best taken with two asprin and a grain of salt): Apple will add a chip that handles video decoding and encoding to all of its computers this year.

The chip will be capable of proessing H.264 videos, meaning you can watch all of those videos downloaded from the iTunes store without putting any real strain on your CPU at all. The bigger story will be the chip's encoding power. Because with great power comes... great capability of recording television programs.

It'll cost Apple about $50 per device to add the new chip. But the chip could pay for itself in no time flat by ensuring that every Apple computer sold, from the Mac Mini to the high end Mac Pro will be able to handle all sorts of multimedia and video functions. And in a world where computers are increasingly used to consume, create, and upload videos to YouTube, that's a killer app.