Do You Want DVD Burning Functionality?

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by roxy99

There are always people who will pay for upgrades.

From the SageTV download page:

Please note that the upgrade to version 4 is free for all current SageTV licensed users.

[dblaine2]

For me it was a nice feature in Cayars STV (Sage 2.x days) that I have lost. KJakes only works in a specific STV that I don't care to use.

It was interesting when I had the feature because I had a bunch of friends that would say "boy I wish I saw that episode". I would probably have it recorded (we tended to watch the same stuff). Then I would burn it to DVD with the Sage-looking titles, etc. They would then say "hey what made these DVD's". It was a cool plug for a cool product. Some of my friends went and bought Sage because of this little intro. (Hmmm. Don't believe I got any kickbacks for the added business? Hmmm).

Anyway, its a feature I miss even though I didn't use it everyday.

[tmiranda]

No way I'd like burning functionality. Adding any kind of non-core functionality diverts resources, decreases stability and generally makes the product bloated. It would also probably not be as good as other apps that are specifically designed to be used for editing, authoring, burning, etc. DVD burning functionality would be a total disaster IMHO. I want Sage to be the best media center software available, period.

[technazz]

Im a no thanks as well. Just Curious...


Why archive shows on DVD's when Hard Drive space is cheaper?

What do most of you do with the burned DVD?

Rewatch on Portable DVD player?

Rewatch on Stand Alone DVD Player?

Archive?

[cmaffia]

I'd like to see DVD burning in the core just like the way Placeshifting and MVP media support (which was an addon) was implemented.

I would like to see Nielm's webserver added to the core and I would love for them to take a break and improve the things that have been neglected such as MP3 and DVD player functionality.

Also on my list is FM radio support as well as the ability to play regular audio CD's within Sage

Originally Posted by tmiranda

No way I'd like burning functionality. Adding any kind of non-core functionality diverts resources, decreases stability and generally makes the product bloated. It would also probably not be as good as other apps that are specifically designed to be used for editing, authoring, burning, etc. DVD burning functionality would be a total disaster IMHO. I want Sage to be the best media center software available, period.

[DFA]

I think that "Placeshifter" now precludes nielm's webserver.

I'm with tmiranda as far as DVD burning is concerned. Not very useful to me. DVD burning is not a casual thing with the authoring, chaptering and editing that goes into it. Not something that would contribute much if anything to the WAF quotient either. That's a litmus test for me.

DFA

[cmaffia]

I like the simplicity of the webserver. It has completely different purpose and functionality.
It would be yet another way to control your sage environment, especially when a proxy server is locked down at a particular location. a Web interface is still very viable.

My wife would love an easy way to archive her movies. She has me do it all the time which involves me copying the MPEGS to another machine which has all the tools I need to do so. If I can do it in my livingroom without having to do anything more than select the show and put in a blank DVD... come on... that's cool! I am not asking for anything fancy.. just burn on DVD what Sage recorded! If you want to do more than that then there are other ways. Are you listening Jeff? :-)

Originally Posted by DFA

I think that "Placeshifter" now precludes nielm's webserver.

I'm with tmiranda as far as DVD burning is concerned. Not very useful to me. DVD burning is not a casual thing with the authoring, chaptering and editing that goes into it. Not something that would contribute much if anything to the WAF quotient either.

DFA

[Fluffdaddy]

=cmaffia
just burn on DVD what Sage recorded! Are you listening Jeff? :-)

That's all I need as core. Don't need anything more fancy then that

[MurrayGill]

Originally Posted by technazz

Im a no thanks as well. Just Curious...


Why archive shows on DVD's when Hard Drive space is cheaper?

What do most of you do with the burned DVD?

Rewatch on Portable DVD player?

Rewatch on Stand Alone DVD Player?

Archive?

How do you figure Hard Drive space is cheaper?

I can get 100 blank DVD-R's for around $50 CAN.

That's 470GB of data for $50.

Can somebody tell me where I can get a 470GB hard drive for $50?

That being said, I'd prefer they concentrate on core functionality instead of add on features as well. It's not hard for me to burn to DVD now, even without any customizations at all.

What I want to see is some way to organize my media within the client according to criteria I define. e.g. my shows under one menu item, my kids shows under another, my wife's under a third.

Why bother developing stuff we can already do?

[ozfiles]

When I was using BeyondTV there was a plugin that was available to record to dvd. I didn't use it often but it was handy to have it available to me when I wanted the portability to take a show to someone's house who only had a dvd player. I still have the vcr it doesn't get used very often but it's still handy to have it sitting there and be able to output to it when someone just wants a videotape copy of a show, the oldies still have trouble with new technology.
With so many formats still out there the more portability of a product the better.

regards.

[dblaine2]

Originally Posted by MurrayGill

How do you figure Hard Drive space is cheaper?

Apparently not a math wiz

Originally Posted by ozfiles

When I was using BeyondTV there was a plugin that was available to record to dvd. I didn't use it often but it was handy to have it available to me when I wanted the portability to take a show to someone's house who only had a dvd player.

Yes very handy!

But I agree there is a lot more stuff to work on with limited resources that Sage has available.

[jradi]

I REALLY wanted this feature, I even bought a dvd burner and tried to get the 3rd party apps to work but gave up after a few weekends.

Over Black Friday I bought a toshiba standalone dvd recorder and it rocks, beats out an integrated dvd burner as far as I can tell. I can record up to 10 hrs on a single dvd (real time, don't have to wait for sage or some other app to convert 10 hrs of video, which would inevitably take ALL NIGHT and then some). Plus it was super easy to get up and running - plug sage into the recorder, the recorder into the tv. Press play on one, record on the other and done.

If I want to que up 10 hrs of video, I use a separate app to play the video files.

Which reminds me - Sagetv with integrated playlists in the Video Recordings, that's a feature I'd like to see (not the playlists in the media library, its too much of a hassle to transfer files to the media library w/o sage transfering them back into "archived recordings")

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by jradi

Which reminds me - Sagetv with integrated playlists in the Video Recordings, that's a feature I'd like to see (not the playlists in the media library, its too much of a hassle to transfer files to the media library w/o sage transfering them back into "archived recordings")

You can do this in V6, and also in SageMC


Dirk

[garyellis]

Dear Santa Sage....

Please work on 2 things...

1) HD MVP

2) CD playing support


That's all I want for Christmas.....

P.S. There will be milk and cookies for you next to the HTPC...and give Mrs. Santa Sage a big hug...


Merry Chirstmas to all,

Gary Ellis

[jmiddleton]

Windows XP has burning functionality built-in. Right click your file, choose "Send to" and pick the burner. It may not have as many features as some of the commercial products but the price is right. I can see where it would be useful if this right click menu could be exposed inside Sage instead of having to use Windows Explorer.

I think most people who burn recorded content want the ability to edit their recordings and play them back on a standard DVD player. This requires authoring software and the better products tend to cost as much or more than Sage although you'll probably find a basic authoring tool on the CD that came with your capture card. I don't think it's reasonable to build this capability into Sage. Better to negotiate a cross marketing agreement with the developer of one of the better authoring programs so Sage customers can get a discount if they want the product. Not everyone will. I just purchased a 320Gb drive for $100.00 here in Canada - a 500Gb drive would have set me back $200.00. With the new vertical recording technology we should have terabyte capacities by Spring. It's true that a spindle of DVD-R's will cost less per bit but not much - especially if you value your time.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by jmiddleton

I think most people who burn recorded content want the ability to edit their recordings and play them back on a standard DVD player. This requires authoring software and the better products tend to cost as much or more than Sage although you'll probably find a basic authoring tool on the CD that came with your capture card. I don't think it's reasonable to build this capability into Sage.

A lot of us are already burning shows to DVD with EPs excellent DVD burning plugin, completely free ...

Dirk

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by jmiddleton

Windows XP has burning functionality built-in. Right click your file, choose "Send to" and pick the burner. It may not have as many features as some of the commercial products but the price is right. I can see where it would be useful if this right click menu could be exposed inside Sage instead of having to use Windows Explorer.

I think most people who burn recorded content want the ability to edit their recordings and play them back on a standard DVD player. This requires authoring software and the better products tend to cost as much or more than Sage although you'll probably find a basic authoring tool on the CD that came with your capture card. I don't think it's reasonable to build this capability into Sage. Better to negotiate a cross marketing agreement with the developer of one of the better authoring programs so Sage customers can get a discount if they want the product. Not everyone will. I just purchased a 320Gb drive for $100.00 here in Canada - a 500Gb drive would have set me back $200.00. With the new vertical recording technology we should have terabyte capacities by Spring. It's true that a spindle of DVD-R's will cost less per bit but not much - especially if you value your time.

Well, i've got the authoring software covered for free with my plug-in, but it would be very nice if the Sage core had a built in DVD burning abilities so people didn't have to launch an external program from Sage to actually burn the DVD's.

edit: Dirk beat me too it

[jbarr]

This is a very interesting discussion.

I'd personally like to see DVD burning functionality built into the core of ALL PVR/DVR setups including SageTV. But I do have some reservations. To me, the DVD burning add-on is one feature that really raises the bar in functionality, and positions SageTV in a class separate from and ahead of most other PVR/DVR implementations. And it's a feature that I think many really want. The question is how to implement it: core or add-on.

I host a "ReplayTV to DVD HOWTO" on my JimsTips.com site, and over the years response to that page has been very positive. The way I see it is that now that the DVD player and the PVR/DVR have replaced the VCR, many people simply want that ability to be able to backup, archive, and transport the content they record. Obviously, this is a feature that not everyone will use, but believe me, there are many who would choose SageTV over the competition if this was a marketed feature.

But therein lies the problem. Let's not forget that this is an industry segment that is highly dynamic, competitive, and influenced by many factors. Yes, having features that let you gain a competitive edge is invaluable, but some features ride along a very fine line between providing the user with what he wants and maintaining amicable relationships the media industry and similar groups. For example, MOXI HD DVR users got burned by many cable companies, because it is the cable companies who ultimately decide what MOXI features are available to the end-user. They decided that a 30 second skip was not in their best intrest, so the user gots screwed out of a valuable feature (valuable at least from the user's perspective.) The feature was available, but internal and pressure caused th cable companies to impose this limitation.

In my optinion, SageTV is able to fly under the radar in many respects because of its add-on architecture. Its add-on capabilities provide functions that many other PVR/DVR providers won't touch. But it leaves Core SageTV as a viable, competitive, "everyone-friendly" product that doesn't seem to bother the likes of the media companies. But if features like auto-commercial skipping, DVD burning, DVD and CD ripping, were rolled into the Core, it could potentially open SageTV up to problems. The fact that these options are NOT Core lets SageTV move forward without issue.

As for the current DVD burning add-on, it works, and works very well for me, but it still has the feel of an "add-on". That is certainly no disrespect to the developer--on the contrary, he has been one of the most responsive developers I have ever dealt with. It's just that the setup requirements and tweaking to initially get it to work were quite tedious. Whether DVD burning is in the Core or an add-on, I think the goal should be to get the implementation to a point where it is very easy for the user to install and use it. It really shouldn't be any more difficult than installing any other application or add-on. (Again, this is not the fault of the devleoper, but in how it must be implemented given what the developer has to work with.)

And regarding SageTV development, I don't think this poll was intended to steer the developers' priorities, but to see if this is a feature that SageTV should consider pulling in to the core. Obviously, SageTV has more pressing issues to work on, but we also need to look at the big picture. More features certainly means more development and support, but development and support resources can be expanded as long as it is financially viable for the company.

So my ultimate vote is yes, put it in the core, because I think this is an essential function, but if it means protecting SageTV, then leave it as an add-on, and in that case, then let's support the add-on developers to make these add-ons the best, and easiest to use!

[Goodspike]

I voted no, because I use Sage so that I don't have to watch anything twice.

[GKusnick]

Here's a bit of irony for you:

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I burn shows and imported videos to playable DVD's so rarely that I wouldn't put forth the effort to piece together anything to do it on my own...