Are you happy with Sage dependability?

[steingra]

I think SageTV is very reliable (on my hardware platforms) I have it running on 3 different PC's and they all work fine.

I have to reboot the main sagetv *server* once in a while, maybe once in 60 days? But heck I dont think thats bad IMHO.

It took some time to get things tweaked. But one of the main reasons I decided to use SageTV is because it offers a LOT of opportunity to tweak things if you want to. And the forum of people here are more than willing to help you through any problem as far as I have seen. I am very pleased with my decision to embrace SageTV. I love it a LOT. AND I ALSO love the new features that are coming out, like placeshifting. And I enjoy the MediaMVP support that has worked flawlessly for me since I upgraded to a more recent beta version that supported those things.

I am just waiting to get a better music jukebox directly support in SageTV software. That will make me real happy. Until then I am using the Winamp plugin.

There are so many different choices when deciding on hardware to run it on. The one thing I wish we had here was a place to allow everyone to add in their hardware components into a master database, that we could all search. It can be anonymous if needed. Just to get a good warm fuzzy when looking at purchasing new hardware for SageTV systems. You could learn from others, avoid purchasing mistakes, save time and headaches, by having that kind of information available to query on a separate section of the forums.

Of course everyone would have to do all the data input of their systems, and give a rating, like 5 stars for rock solid, 1 star for piece of junk, stay away....
or whatever.

It would take time to build up something like that, but over time would become more and more valuable.

[cmaffia]

stability is 99% for me on both of my systems and I have built about 4 since I purchased sagetv. Whenever I had an issue it was always a hardware issue.
However I agree about first nailing down the current features.

Since day one MP3 support/interface and usability has suffered.
It really has changed since I purchased v2.0. I would like to see that finally developed as the rest of the features.

However Placeshifter came quick and is VERY usable and stable even though some may consider it feature creep.

As far as the quality of programming and development... these guys are top notch!
SageTV is the only reason I need to install a Windows OS at home. I am still waiting to take the plunge in SageTV for Linux

[stevech]

Top priority, IMO, is for SageTV to release a baseline with simplified and streamlined menus for the common, day-to-day, non-esoteric functions. Such as deleting a recording after watching.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stevech

Such as deleting a recording after watching.

What exactly do you want it to do -- ask if you want to delete a recording after you finish watching it? If so: see Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Ask to delete recording at end of playback.

- Andy

[stevech]

good. Got that one.
Now - how to have simple STOP RECORDING LIVE TV.

[blade]

Originally Posted by stevech

good. Got that one.
Now - how to have simple STOP RECORDING LIVE TV.

If you're watching LiveTV press the stop button on the remote.

[stevech]

Hauppauge's USB2 remote has no button marked "stop".

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by stevech

Hauppauge's USB2 remote has no button marked "stop".

Unless you've customized the Hauppauge remote layout, the default button assignments are listed on pages 234 & 235 in the v4.1 manual. Note the one with the white square on it.

- Andy

[ben_95sl1]

They need to add features to attract customers.....it's a business after all, and they need to sell licences. We've already bought the software (and now we have to buy a placeshifter licence??? sneaky). Hopefully articles like htpcnews will force them to improve the media items. Vista should scare them a little....I think the linux route might become the future for them. Or maybe they'll get flattened.

That being said, I've found it to be very stable....I've had a few weird cpu/stutter issues in the past, but all gone now. Considering me and my gf use the sage htpc as an appliance (1yr+ without resorting to actual real live tv), it's certainly done its job. I don't have to reboot the computer to keep it running 24/7 and it's plugged into a ups for power glitches.

To keep stable.....I do nothing.....don't change stuff if it's working. I have no use for windows updates, virus scanning, new drivers, etc.

[roxy99]

Am I happy with Sage dependability?

I am a little disappointed given the clock errors I've been experiencing.
See :
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16817

I hope Sage finds what causing the problem.

Software dependability is not to be measured depending on whose hardware it's installed on as others in this thread have implied but rather it is a function of OVERALL dependability accross a wide variety of reliable DX9 and Windows XP compliant hardware. Since my system is reliable with all other software, I have to conclude that my hardware is not the issue.

If we are speaking of hardware dependability then the reverse holds true: A given hardware config should run reliably a multitude of reliable software.

[blade]

Originally Posted by roxy99

Software dependability is not to be measured depending on whose hardware it's installed on as others in this thread have implied but rather it is a function of OVERALL dependability accross a wide variety of reliable DX9 and Windows XP compliant hardware. Since my system is reliable with all other software, I have to conclude that my hardware is not the issue.

The problem with that logic is that PVR software demands things of your hardware that other applications do not. Saying that you're system is stable while browsing the web or playing a video game so it should be stable as a PVR simply isn't true. Deinterlacing a Sage recording is much different than running the latest 3d shooter. Also most programs aren't regularly reading/writing multiple gigs of data to a drive. How many people run VIA or SIS chipsets without any problems, but add a tuner card and stability goes down the drain.

My point is a system can appear stable with one app and not with another depending upon the demands placed on the hardware.

[mayamaniac]

Its tricky to rate SageTV dependability. I think if you just run a simple 1 or 2 tuner setup with just default options, and use recommended hardware, then it is as stable as MCE 2005 or Tivo. Now as soon as you add more options, such as flakey hardware, SageTV clients, MVP Media Extender with Divx Transcoding, Placeshifting, comskip, webserver, Sage encoder, etc.. dependability will likely decline. But given the options, I rather have the extra options than not have it.

[darrenkarp]

My motivation in trialing STV is to replace MCE 2005 as STV supports MediaMVP as an extender. I am not willing (at this stage) in spending £300.00 on an Xbox 360.

However, I have tried for 3 days now to get STV up and running with my twin tuner cards (150 and 350) and 2 Sky STB's. I finally got everything working earlier and was watching live tv when I decided I wanted to change channels. Everything froze.

STV appears unstable for me despite every attempt in setting it up. I have an excellent spec PC as far as I'm concerned and MCE 2005 runs smoothly.

If STV wants to compete than they need to add some polish to their main app, and I don't mean GUI wise. The core needs to be looked at in detail with as many beta testers as possible from all around the world.

I'm willing to provide any kind of debugging report as necessary but not for long....that Xbox seems more likely as time goes on!

Darren

[jominor]

Originally Posted by darrenkarp

My motivation in trialing STV is to replace MCE 2005 as STV supports MediaMVP as an extender. I am not willing (at this stage) in spending £300.00 on an Xbox 360.

However, I have tried for 3 days now to get STV up and running with my twin tuner cards (150 and 350) and 2 Sky STB's. I finally got everything working earlier and was watching live tv when I decided I wanted to change channels. Everything froze.

STV appears unstable for me despite every attempt in setting it up. I have an excellent spec PC as far as I'm concerned and MCE 2005 runs smoothly.

If STV wants to compete than they need to add some polish to their main app, and I don't mean GUI wise. The core needs to be looked at in detail with as many beta testers as possible from all around the world.

I'm willing to provide any kind of debugging report as necessary but not for long....that Xbox seems more likely as time goes on!

Darren

Everything won't work for everyone. I had a solid 2.x experience and just recently upgraded to version 5. The only problem I had during the upgrade was the remote and I caused that.

Everything is up and running and I've even gone beyond v5 with a few plugins including the awesome commercial skip.

I would say that, in my roughly 2.5 years of Sage(3 tuners 950g of storage,clients, placeshifter), the experience as been great!

[blade]

As jominor said, just because it's not working well for you doesn't mean it doesn't work well for others. Also having fast, modern hardware doesn't always mean you have a good machine for HTPC use. My Sage server is an old BX machine and I'd put it up against anyone's HTPC when it comes to stability.

Drivers, chipset type, java, directX, etc... can all cause stability problems. How are you changing the channel? IR blaster or serial port? If it's a serial port connection is it possible you have an IRQ conflict between the serial port and something else?

[NEOSG]

I found once I switched to a client/server setup, and ran the server as a service, my stability has been almost perfect.

Several weeks now without any glitches. The only time I ever have to stop the server service is if I need to make a change for recording storage.

it is partially frustrating to see a cranking box just sitting in the basement, but it is doing it's job. it currently has 3 OTA HD tuners (soon to be 4), 2 R5000 tuners, and 2 USB cable tuners (soon to be 0). I have been able to record 7(soon to be 6) things at once, and still watch stuff from the clients/extenders. The ony thing I did as far as real tuning, was to have a dedicated storage drive for each tuner/encoder. I also spread those drives across different SATA/PATA controllers.


Again, once i went to having a server running sagetv as a service, and viewing things only from clients, things have been really solid

[jominor]

Originally Posted by NEOSG

I found once I switched to a client/server setup, and ran the server as a service, my stability has been almost perfect.

Several weeks now without any glitches. The only time I ever have to stop the server service is if I need to make a change for recording storage.

it is partially frustrating to see a cranking box just sitting in the basement, but it is doing it's job. it currently has 3 OTA HD tuners (soon to be 4), 2 R5000 tuners, and 2 USB cable tuners (soon to be 0). I have been able to record 7(soon to be 6) things at once, and still watch stuff from the clients/extenders. The ony thing I did as far as real tuning, was to have a dedicated storage drive for each tuner/encoder. I also spread those drives across different SATA/PATA controllers.


Again, once i went to having a server running sagetv as a service, and viewing things only from clients, things have been really solid

Actually, this is similar to my experiences. The biggest problem I had with Sage as a standalone was an occasional freeze of the playback when fast forwarding from time to time. It some became obvious how to fastforward to mostly avoid this. I almost never had a problem when I didn't fastforward and even when the problem occured, it was on the order of something like once or twice a week. Translated, this is a lockup that caused maybe 5 minutes of downtime per week when the system ran 24/7.

When I moved my server into the basement, still running 2.02, this problem vanished and I was solid. This was actually why I didn't upgrade until 5 because everything worked so well.

I had to go out of town for a few days, so I spent a few hours upgrading to 5 to get the placeshifter. The upgrade which broke down as:
1. the upgrade was minutes,
2. getting forum help about remote wonder. response took a few hours
3. configuring PS

Everything is rock solid.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by darrenkarp

My motivation in trialing STV is to replace MCE 2005 as STV supports MediaMVP as an extender. I am not willing (at this stage) in spending £300.00 on an Xbox 360.

However, I have tried for 3 days now to get STV up and running with my twin tuner cards (150 and 350) and 2 Sky STB's. I finally got everything working earlier and was watching live tv when I decided I wanted to change channels. Everything froze.

STV appears unstable for me despite every attempt in setting it up. I have an excellent spec PC as far as I'm concerned and MCE 2005 runs smoothly.

If STV wants to compete than they need to add some polish to their main app, and I don't mean GUI wise. The core needs to be looked at in detail with as many beta testers as possible from all around the world.

I'm willing to provide any kind of debugging report as necessary but not for long....that Xbox seems more likely as time goes on!

Darren

Please submit a bug report or a support request, we'll happily assist you in getting it running.

[srothwell]

Originally Posted by NEOSG

I found once I switched to a client/server setup, and ran the server as a service, my stability has been almost perfect.

Several weeks now without any glitches. The only time I ever have to stop the server service is if I need to make a change for recording storage.

it is partially frustrating to see a cranking box just sitting in the basement, but it is doing it's job. it currently has 3 OTA HD tuners (soon to be 4), 2 R5000 tuners, and 2 USB cable tuners (soon to be 0). I have been able to record 7(soon to be 6) things at once, and still watch stuff from the clients/extenders. The ony thing I did as far as real tuning, was to have a dedicated storage drive for each tuner/encoder. I also spread those drives across different SATA/PATA controllers.


Again, once i went to having a server running sagetv as a service, and viewing things only from clients, things have been really solid

How are you connecting the box to your TV set if the main CPU is in the basement? I'm going DVI from the PC to the TV and I'd sure like to get the server out of the TV room. Only problen is where I want to put it is like 60 feet away and I don't think I can get away with that length.

Also, you said you had 2 USB cable boxes. Are you getting video over USB out of a cable box? If so, how?

Thanks

Stacy

[jominor]

Originally Posted by srothwell

How are you connecting the box to your TV set if the main CPU is in the basement? I'm going DVI from the PC to the TV and I'd sure like to get the server out of the TV room. Only problen is where I want to put it is like 60 feet away and I don't think I can get away with that length.

Also, you said you had 2 USB cable boxes. Are you getting video over USB out of a cable box? If so, how?

Thanks

Stacy

I use a standard cat5 100 connected to a micro-ATX that is located on a shelf in my entertainment center. It looks like a larger stereo component. A little loud though(the fan) next time I'll go for a small for factor. This runs the Sage client.

I also use Sage(formerly the client, now the placeshifter) on a wireless laptop that I move to my library, or other rooms as the mood hits.

For the USB, that's all USB2 drives and 3 tuners(2xPCI,1xUSB2) and I use analog cable.