Cost of SageTV: right price or too high?

[korben_dallas]

Someone commented to me recently that SageTV was too expensive. At the time I didn't really give it that much thought.

A few years ago, I began working on music composition on my PC. It gave me an impetus to look into copyright issues. At the time, I had some computer application ideas and wanted to meld some of my music to them, so I started looking into patents and trademarking also. This caused me to do some soul-searching, and I came to the conclusion I couldn't keep all the pirated sofware music movies and videos, since this was exactly opposite to what I was doing with my own works.

Fast forward a few years.. There isn't a single bit or byte on my computer that isn't properly licensed. And I'm a student, so finances are tight, but I still feel strongly that SageTV is well worth the price.. as well with several other $100-$200 applications I have. In fact, I may have paid more for SageTV if it had been higher. Sure there is always room for improvement, but I think the Kardatzke bros have put together a feature-rich application and deserve the monetary reward for their work and continued support.

[jptaz]

I agree 100%.

I have purchased 2 licenses of SageRecorder, 2 Licenses of SageTVClient, 1 License of SageTV.
I have also purchased 2 USB UIRTs 3 Actisys IR.

I purchased them from Frey evn though some of them would have been cheaper from other sources.

The guys have done a real good job of keeping the features coming and they have not charged for upgrades which is a great value.

John

[Crazedz]

Well ok sagetv isn't free and their maybe cheaper costing products out their but then their are also more expensive ones out their as well.

Of the cheaper/free ones i have seen non of them quite stack up to sage for features and abilities not to mention stability and supported hardware. Of the more expensive ones non measure up to sage for features and abilities or stability but match or excede sage in supported hardware like as in HDTV support.

Sage also doesn't charge for extra tuners either which i think is just a plain case of to much greed. How can anybody seriously justify charging someone a license fee for a tuner they didn't sell to them heck a tuner shouldn't need to be licensed anyway god talk about Gates envy.

But lately other pvr makers have provided better support than whats been seen on the sage boards from jeff and dan not that they haven't been busy but being this well absent 3.0 better have everything including the kitchen sink dog gone it. Otherwise it wasnt worth leaving the customers hanging here on the boards like this.

I haven't purchased much from freys yet though i still have plans to but my plans are starting to evolve and i only hope freys new version can support the new steps im taking like HDTV if so i got plenty to spend on their software which i feel is very well worth the cost dispite some of the drawbacks.

[nerys]

the cost of there softare is a bit steep at first glance but its not "out of line" steep especially once you "get it working" and once that happens boy does it work well.

I understand the tuner thing to a point. the idea was not to charge for more tuners. the idea was to offer a "lower" price to those that do not want or need the extra tuner support. its just a different buisness model thats all.

As far as I can tell at least from my usage angle there are only 2 real competitors

Beyond TV and Sage TV

ie they are both PVR software programs that support multiple tuners

I NEVER FOUND sage (hey guys you need to work on that) I have been looking for multi tuner support for at least 2 years. and I am a pretty avid googler :-)

Never a peep about sage. I eventually cobbled together my own multi tuner by trial and error using my pvr250 and a ATI Wonder VE

if I started the wonder ve first and THEN the hauppauge they both ran and played nice (mosr of the time) alas its not a pretty solution and the wonder ve REALLY sucks :-(

Eventually by luck I found the Medusa System project using beyoind. so I jump into the beyond pages wondering how I missed this

it was not good for me. no mpeg1 support (critical deal breaker aspect for me)

so to get to the point, the only reason I am here is sage was GIVEN to me by a beyond user ie a beyond user pointed me to sage :-) thats how I found sage

GOT to make it easier to find sage tv :-) I think my angle was niche (dessiring multi tuner) and that may have limited my search results preventing me from finding sage :-)

Some suggestions. first I firmly believe the majority of user will see the price as well worth it once they actually USE sage

GOod job on the unlimited 15 day trial but its got a problem that I can forsee happening.

what happens if a person does not have the hardware to USE sage and by the time they DO get the hardware or resolve the problems it expires ? does sage have a process in place to extend that 15day say another 15days for these types of users ?

if they never get to use it they are not likely to dish out the $ :-) (just a thought)

oddly considering the kind of software this is I have almost ZERO problems getting sage going. it was almost too easy. all the "problems" I had were not with "sage" per say but with my desired implimentation of sage.

the only problem I had was with the DLL update or whatever it was not letting me change channels. this I believe though is handled in the beta and will be part of the next release so that should be less a problem.

otherwise VERY impressed :-) there are plenty of other things that annoy me but they are pet peaves and relatively minor (most of them)

Overall I am VERY impressed. also just for the heck of it to try out the software as it was intended I loaded it up full screen and USED it as a 10foot tivo replacement. Very Impressed. no good for me (its not how I watch tv) but I was still VERY impressed :-)

I got the mce500 and installation was flawless did not even need the cd. it installed showed up in sage went through the setup real quick for source and epg details and thats it. auto integrated and auto updated as if they had always been there.

VERY impressive.

Keep up the great work and get that studio released :-)

Chris Taylor
http://www.zodiacreview.com/

[kny3twalker]

was not very fond of the UI for 1.4
the first time I used beta 2.0
I knew I had to have it and bought it
the next day

[bebanovich]

I agree that they have done a good job with the pricing considering how much Sage can do (with the help of the community). It seems like a tricky market considering all of the hardware purchase considerations and growing pvr options (it must be tempting to add $9 to cable bill for dual tuner, no fuss recorder - don't even have that option in my neighborhood).

My only minor issue is with the limited trial period. With the amount of tweaking Sage users do, 15 days is too tight to really live with the software (a must for anything tv related). I tweaked obsessively into the wee hours over my vacation and still wasn't 100% sure after 2 weeks. Three weeks would have made it an easier decision for me.

[Lucas]

I think that Sage TV offers good value for money at the price it is at.
It is software that allows me and you to automate home entertainment.
At least before I tried it, although I played with the idea in my mind, I could not have imagined its benefits... watching what I want and when I want.

For the people who believe it is too expensive, they need to remind themselves about how much they pay for the O/S, Office tools, Anti-virus etc...

If one does not believe in paying for software then there are plenty of freeware out there. It is just that if you don't pay then you cannot expect a level of service quality.

For some software this may be fine.

But for the software that pulls all my music, videos and pictures together, I want to pay for it and I want it to work day-in and day-out.

[Gog]

Originally Posted by Lucas

For the people who believe it is too expensive, they need to remind themselves about how much they pay for the O/S, Office tools, Anti-virus etc...

I disagree.

I own a sageTV and sage client license and I am completely satisfied by what I can accomplish with that 100$.

But let's be serious: we're a bunch of wackos!

I own sage because I like tweaking PC and messing around until I get what I want but I do not beleive it is a viable business model. Eventually PVRs sold by the cable company will be everywhere and affordable (it`s around 600$ here. My sage setup is more expensive than that but not that much)

Eventually analog cable will stop being available and I don't see anybody step up to provide digital cable tuners. I know that for me that's the point where sage goes out the door. I'm not going to go through the multiple set top box with multiple serial-UIRT to have digital signal DAConverted then in through multiple tuner cards. I'll pay the 200$ to have a nice clean box that my GF won't hate me for and sage will be dead.

This is what they are trying to prevent with the linux-client-in-a-box but I have my doubts they'll make it.

Gog

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by Gog

Eventually analog cable will stop being available and I don't see anybody step up to provide digital cable tuners. I know that for me that's the point where sage goes out the door. I'm not going to go through the multiple set top box with multiple serial-UIRT to have digital signal DAConverted then in through multiple tuner cards. I'll pay the 200$ to have a nice clean box that my GF won't hate me for and sage will be dead.
Gog

Actually, you don't even need a tuner anymore in your PC, just use the Firewire enabled cable box, connect that to your PC, and use the Universal Network Encoder from the hardware forum, and you not only get your Analog (depending on your provider), you get HDTV as well.

I've used my local provider's (Charter Cable) PVR box, and I can say without a doubt I hate the interface. I hate the interface on all their digital boxes, even the new HD box I got yesterday. As soon as I can get all the setup straightened out with it, its going on my system as a UNE tuner, and I'll not look back .

I also have spent quite a bit of cash on my Sage setup, not just in licensing, but in tuners as well. Currently I believe I'm licensed for one Sage server, one SageRecorder, and either 3 or 4 client licenses (I'm only using 3, but I think I bought a 4th one since I was planning on setting up a machine for another TV).

I basically bought a PC just to be a server for the storage, bought HD's, and bought 5 total tuners so far. I've set up 2 machines specifically as clients with special hardware in both, and my main desktop I use also has client on it so I can manage recordings, and schedules as well as run comskip on it on occasion. I'm planning on soon reconfiguring my server machine with a dual board (not sure if I'm going to go Xeon or Athlon MP yet tho), and move all the comskip stuff to the file-server to get rid of the slowness of doing it over the network

Heck, I'm almost to the point of setting up a completely seperate 1g network in the house just for the Sage stuff.

[jptaz]

I will only go to my CableCOs option if it is a fully network PVR and the DVR junk that is out there. So basically if it does not have something as capable as SageTV in the box I don't care about doing the multiple DAC conversions. My wife can work SageTV easily and I do not believe she would like the interface on the Cable Box DVRs at all.

And frankly the quality of my recording shows from my Digital Cable Boxes is almost as good as directly from the Box to my TV and it can be viewed any where in my house.

[hoep]

heffe2001:

Heck, I'm almost to the point of setting up a completely seperate 1g network in the house just for the Sage stuff

I'm planning in final state 8 tuners on 2 servers with just a 100MBit network. Would you assume to go to 1GBit ? 8 x 6MBit/s on a full switched 100MBit are not enogh?

I like my Sage setup (the most reliable system i've ever had), but performance on the ui side esp. with a large video/audio collection could be improved. Sometimes Sage thinks some seconds before doing what i want.

[Gog]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Actually, you don't even need a tuner anymore in your PC, just use the Firewire enabled cable box, connect that to your PC, and use the Universal Network Encoder from the hardware forum, and you not only get your Analog (depending on your provider), you get HDTV as well.

Thanks for the pointer, looks like interesting developments.

But still, I maintain that we're nuts...

Gog

[Wakecrash]

What makes going the Sage route expensive is not the purchase price, it's the flexibility of adding or changing. I have gone something like this.

Start out with server only, add client, add bigger hard drive, add client, add MVP, add pvr bd, rewire house with ethernet, add network switch, add hard drive, add pvr bd, add MVP, add KVM switch, buy big remote with more buttons, all the little misc hardward odds and ends to make the above work,,, now considering bigger hard drive or perhaps add anouther sat box and pvr bd.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by Wakecrash

What makes going the Sage route expensive is not the purchase price, it's the flexibility of adding or changing. I have gone something like this.

Start out with server only, add client, add bigger hard drive, add client, add MVP, add pvr bd, rewire house with ethernet, add network switch, add hard drive, add pvr bd, add MVP, add KVM switch, buy big remote with more buttons, all the little misc hardward odds and ends to make the above work,,, now considering bigger hard drive or perhaps add anouther sat box and pvr bd.

No kidding, I've probably spent $300 just on cooling and quiet components

[jominor]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

No kidding, I've probably spent $300 just on cooling and quiet components

I've spent a little over a $1000 on just 3 tuners(two 250 PCIs and one 250 USB2) and 6 200g drives(3 for TV, 3 for divx movies). The entire machine CPU P4 2.4, 1 gig PC2100 ram, cat5, speaker wire, 8500DV ATI, extra cheap case $40, 6 enclosures for the drives, and Sage server and 1 client for about another grand.

My HTPC started as my Oracle and main data server. A VPN to my job eliminated the need for Oracle at home, so the HTPC has just grown. Even my wife thinks that the system was worth the expense.

[silkshadow]

In my HTPC trek I have found that the software is what spawns more stuff. Most of the hardware I already had. Only added a tuner card and USB-uirt (both of which I bought from Sage) and a new mobo and processor for the server. However on the software side I got Sage, then winddvd 6 (which was a waste of money), then Meedio, then girder, then Sage client, then J River media center, then the J River plugin, a few $5-$10 donations (though they were well earned) sprinkled in the mix, then I'm buying Videoredo or MPEG-VCR (and thats gonna be painful as I own Adobe Premiere already), and another Sage client might be forthcomming as well as Zoom Player.

I am not sure when it ends. And if say, Meedio TV or some future product offers more than Sage or more of what I need from a PVR, I will have a new set of software to buy. So, on this topic, cheaper software would be real nice as software has a shelf life. I have processors, hard drives, power supplies, motherboards, etc that have been with me for years. No software I own has come even close to that. Heck, I still have a pentium2, mobo and ram that's still working that I have no idea what to do with (potentialy the next Sage client). So should Sage be cheaper? Yeah I think so, MythTV is free :P (joke, I am kidding). I think Meedio should be far cheaper too (it dosen't even have a decent music system yet). The only product in the list that, IMO, was really priced right was J River and the plugin. J River was ~USD24.95 and its a real good media jukebox solution and the plugin was $10 and is an amazing piece of work.

Now am I complaining? Hell no! The fact that this forum is so responsive + the addons it provides makes up for the extra money that I think is overcharge or whatever (same applies to Meedio). My opinion is that, if studio ever gets released, there will be an explosion of even more of these things. Just look at Meedio and how many things there are to expand it. That will add alot more value to the cost of Sage and maybe, would make having to buy Meedio/J River/J River plugin unnecessary for new customers who are like me. Thats almost $100 in savings and a potentially better Sage. At that point the $80 would definately be worth it. Till then, yes, I think the price is a bit high.

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by hoep

heffe2001:


I'm planning in final state 8 tuners on 2 servers with just a 100MBit network. Would you assume to go to 1GBit ? 8 x 6MBit/s on a full switched 100MBit are not enogh?

I like my Sage setup (the most reliable system i've ever had), but performance on the ui side esp. with a large video/audio collection could be improved. Sometimes Sage thinks some seconds before doing what i want.

I would think that if all you're going to do is stream video/audio, your 100mb network should be fine. I do alot of copying of the mpg files sage produces to another machine to strip commercials & then burn to DVD, and it takes quite a while to copy a 6g show over a 100mb connection. Also I'm going to assume that as long as I'm doing comskip over the network, it also should have as much speed as it can, so it can analyze the shows as quickly as possible. Hopefully soon I can get that dual board and somewhat alleviate part of that though.