Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers

Snapstream released the latest version of their developer’s kit for Beyond TV, which turns your computer into a Tivo.  According to the Snapstream’s developer wiki:

With the Beyond Media SDK you can customize the application in two ways. The first is giving an entire face lift to the application through the skinning system. Every visible component of Beyond Media can be changed to your heart’s content. These changes can be as simple as a new set of colors or as complex as a complete re-design of every screen and every widget.

The second way you can customize Beyond Media is through the creation of a plugin. A plugin allows you to add screens or features to the Beyond Media application itself. In this area, Beyond Media is acting like a 10ft. optimized display system with its own widget set. Using these components you can create your own application inside of Beyond Media that can do anything from serving as an alarm clock to ordering pizzas online.

User-created plugins can be a source additional of functionality for any software and I think it is a great idea for Snapstream to offer an SDK for any ambitious users of their software.  I use Beyond TV 4.6 on my office computer but I unfortunately have not dabbled in the world of plugins.  Plugins could be a good way for Snapstream o distinquish themselves from Microsoft’s media center (which also allows for user-created plugins).