Thanks to all supporters who have encouraged me to work on version 4 over the past year — you're all welcome to begin using pre-Alpha test builds, now that it's reached a reasonable level of completeness.

System Requirements:
Windows 7 — 10 (Linux/X11 coming later.)
A reasonably beefy graphics chip (Intel Haswell or better.)
A DVB-T/T2/S/S2/C/ATSC TV tuner.

What's new and exciting?

A brand new look and feel with a simpler interface, but still fun an exciting with animations and stuff.
Optional background service integration making it a more suitable Windows Media Center replacement.
Video now always “Just Works” with no way for 3rd party components to interfere with your shizz, thanks to a completely custom end-to-end media pipeline.
A fun waveform on the seek bar so you can see/skip where the ads are (mileage varies) and also you can zoom out to see multiple shows in the timeshift buffer.
Multiple speaker output controls and audio channel up/down mixing.
There's now a built-in video processing engine so that display drivers can no longer ruin the picture quality.
A better guide search including a full search as well as quick search and more intuitive scheduling.
A unified Library system for managing shows, schedules, etc.
A user system so that family members and friends can have their own channel lists and favourite things streamed to their own v4 clients.
It's a lot easier to set up multiple SichboPVR clients around your home compared to v3.
Remote Controls are now a first-class citizen with an on-screen keyboard, custom remote key mappings and everything.
Custom text scaling for those with limited vision, or if you simply want to cram more guide rows on screen.
Adaptive layouts so things move around or shrink as the window size changes.
Simpler colour scheme system with a bunch of fun default options, including high contrast (black on white, or white on black) for folks with limit eyesight.
Time of day and show rating restrictions for kid's accounts.
Set up multiple locations for when travelling with laptops and a TV dongle or access TV servers from friends and family.
A Wish List feature so you can paste in a bunch of movie titles or keywords, and it'll automatically record things if they come up.
Automatic on-the-fly channel logo generator so that stuff always looks tidy and consistent, but without being boring or needing lame bitmaps.
Simpler "you just click one button" setup for most over-the-air use cases
It's now much easier to set up manual one-time recordings or recurring series that don't exist in the guide data.
Proper translations for a bunch of languages.
Still fast and lightweight with a reasonably small footprint. Download is only ~13MB, which contains both x86 and x64 editions.
HTTP Live Streaming (live .m3u8) is SichboPVR 4's only mode of video playout from your TV tuner, which should mean easier compatibility for supporting mobiles and things later on.
No more "hot keys" necessary. For example, the old v3 "F5 always on top mini-mode" is now a simple pin icon.
OpenGL as well as Direct3D 11 rendering modes.

Still to come...

The initial Alpha release is Windows-only because it's been a marathon getting to this stage and I don't want to plow through another six months of work before people get to try it. Ubuntu Linux releases are coming later.

Linux/GCC builds.
Web front end for mobiles/browsers.
Video editor/meme creator.
Transcoding.

FYI...

The voluntary supporter programme started 2019 unfortunately has not materialised into a liveable wage. Meanwhile I've got bills to pay. To that end, v4 requires a contribution from anybody wanting to use it. Thank you to the 552 wonderful people who are currently supporting me today — I hope you'll enjoy your v4 builds as well.

Rock on,

- Simon