Comparing ATI Multimedia Center with Beyond TV 3

[presto]

I downloaded Beyond TV 3 for trial and thought I would share my impressions so far.

Beyond TV beats ATI Multimedia Center in the following:

1)Interface - Beyond TV is very slick looking and easy to use.

2)Scheduling - Beyond TV let's you choose to record all episodes of a program if you want. It keeps track of the episode names so you don't get duplicates. MMC only let's you schedule one show at a time or repeated recording of the same time block. It does not keep track of episode names.

ATI Multimedia Center beats Beyond TV in these areas:

1) Quality of Video - MMC has video filters which I use to make captures that are very small but still very good quality. I can get 7 or even 8 hours of TV on a DVD and they look great. Beyond TV does not have these filters. I'm still playing with the settings so maybe I'll get better results but so far all my captures are not as sharp looking as I'd like. Fine for everyday watching but I want my DVD's to look better.

2) Searching for Shows - Guide Plus in Multimedia Center let's you see a lot of channels at once. In Beyond TV the lettering is much bigger and you can only see about 7 channels without scrolling up and down. Maybe there is a setting for this though.

Any one else have comments on Beyond TV 3? What settings have you found work best?

[destronz]

Beyond TV is ok, I've played with it and it does work pretty well. However, many these days are searching for a complete solution and this really isn't it. It cannot play a DVD if its interted into the computer, nor can it play locally stored video files unless its was stored by the PVR software itself.

It does however have the neat feature to convert your movies if you like into Divx during periods of inactivity which is pretty neat.

Like I said its pretty good software, BUT its only good for what it is, which is PVR software, with nothing else.