Timeline for official Canadian listings support?

[Lester Jacobs]

Is there any updated information available which talks to the availability of a 'Canadianised' version of SageTV or, more importantly, official support for Canadian EPG listings in SageTV? Given earlier posts in this forum and the Canadain PVR survey now on the SageTV home page, it appears that there are at least some serious initial steps in this area.

Just wondering if anyone would care to comment on timelines, etc for supporting us Canadian users.


Cheers
Lester

[dkardatzke]

The survey exists to define the interest of a Candian PVR with EPG service. For us to get a better feel, please help us promote the survey in other forums, and anywhere else to get more feedback.

Until then, I can't give much of an estimate on timing.

[Berg]

Good afternoon,

I can't help but to ask, now that listing service is available throughout the US and that SnapStream is set to offer/offering Canadian listings to its users, what are the plans for Sage ?

I also noticed that the survey banner was no longer on the Web site. What does this mean ?

Since there are so many similarities between Canada and the US and since Canadian listings are available from Zap2It, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to implement.

As a side note, I personally think that having a "separate" version of Sage TV for Canadians would be a mistake. Many Canadians either receive US based stations over the air, but more importantly, many use US based satellite providers for some of their programming.

Since Sage can/could support multiple listings, many Canadian users would use a Canadian listing and a US listing in the same installation.

So, how about it guys, what are the plans for Canadian listings ???

Thanks.

[mikbro]

If I understand it correctly Sage can support the listings with no changes, it simply costs money to buy the Canadian listings from Tribune Media Services. The amount is not inconsequential. Sage would need to have a fairly good idea that they are going to recoup those additional monthly costs with license fees from new sales.

[Berg]

There is no question that this is the case.

There would also have to be some development work , but I don't imagine this is insurmountable.

The issue for me is - can Sage afford not to enter the Canadian market with listing service, if they want to be the leaders in the business.

The population of Canada is roughly equivalent to California with better "technology" adoption than the US on average and notably so for broadband internet. The hardware/dedicated PVR market is relatively untouched in Canada since TiVo is not here. Aside from some recent efforts by the two Canadian DTH satellite providers, PVRs are pretty not available with Canadian listings.

This would make solution like SnapStream and Sage great, if they supported Canadian listings. Now that SnapStream has raised the stakes, I am hopping Sage follows suit.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box now ...;-)

[pawn]

Berg:

You crystalized my thoughts exactly.

We have a population of roughly 1/8th of the States', but with the unusual factors you described, I don't think I'm using hyperbole when I suggest Canada could easily provide up to 25% of the PC based PVR market.

That said, I'm more or less happy with the XML listings, I just can't shake this feeling that there's a time limit on how long Zap2it is goung to let people grab their listings.