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Turning Your PC Into a Super

Techstination feature for Friday, April 25, 2003

Turning your computer into a super Tivo. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. The ability to pause live TV and easily record programs to watch whenever you choose has won Tivo and similar hard drive personal video recorders a lot of fans. If you have a computer with a fairly inexpensive TV tuner card, you can accomplish the same things. And with add on software from a company called SnapStream Media, it gets even better. The latest version of the company's Personal Video Station software, version 3.0 lets you stream and share video over a home network or the Internet. CEO Rakesh Agrawal...

"We've created an interface for the application that really makes it look and feel a lot like a regular consumer electronics device. It doesn't look or feel like a PC application, but like something you would use on a big screen."

The Personal Video Station includes a program guide that is downloaded through the Internet. Unlike Tivo, there is no monthly fee. And once you've recorded shows... you can download programs onto a PocketPC... burn them onto CDs or DVDs... or watch over a network... including live programs...

"So you can go to any machine on your network and you can dial up the SnapStream Web interface and from the Web interface you can choose watch live TV."

The process may take some tinkering, so it isn't quite as easy as a Tivo to use. The Personal Video Station sells, at launch, for under fifty dollars. Tivo by the way has some new capabilities we'll be telling you about in an upcoming report. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.