Trying to decide on buying SageTV... issues giving me pause...

[IncredibleHat]

Over the last two months, I have been running through all the trials of three major contenders: SageTV, BeyondStuff, and MeedioCrap (You can be rest assured I won't even spend a single dime towards Meedio. That has got to be the worst heap of trash I have ever born witness too).

I actually reformatted my machine, and tried SageTV for another trial period because I needed to refresh myself with it after the blinding I received while trying out Meedio.

Sorry, but I just had to run the trial again... If SageTV was all-that, I wouldn't have had to try the Trial again. I would have simply been happy to fork out the serious cash to pay for it. However, I see now a version 5 just released... and it makes NO mention towards any of the issues I have with SageTV... so I am again given pause.

My issuesin no particular order)

Why can't everything respond to "ESC" to "get out" and return to what you were previously doing?!?

Getting "out" of any particular window, menu, popup, or what-have-you, is NOT intuitive. It seems every display has its own way of being exited. Some you press left. Some you press the same keycombo (remote button) you did to bring it up. Some you have to NAVIGATE to a 'Cancel' selection! And some you just have to bang around and find your way back to where you were before getting there (this mostly refers to the TV Guide).

I configured, and reconfigured my awful FireFly remote to various things, and I simply could not for the life of me get the "Exit" button working like it should. I found it simply wasn't the fault of the remote, but of SageTV itself and its pathetic way of handling every window and menu completely differently. Uniformity is good thing when making things simple. Which an HTPC should be... simple to use.

The people of SageTV (this is not meant to be harsh, but needs to be said) really should hire some Interface & Flow Designers.


No way to "Don't record this single event" of a favorite show that is auto-set to record.

Example: I setup a favorite for like Scrubs, record all, any channel. Then I look into the scheduled recordings (or the guide), and see a nice list of Scrubs setup to record over the next two weeks. I scan them, and notice one is obviously one I have seen and don't want to record. I click on it, and after digging through the many menus of this action, I find NOTHING to allow me to "Don't Record This One"!

This may sound upsetting to some, but BeyondTV does this flawlessly. You can select any show that is scheduled to record, wherever it may show up (the guide, a recordings listing, etc), and click it, and in THAT immediate menu have an option of "Don't Record This". It is THAT EASY.

SageTV does not appear to have that ability anywhere. The closest I could find, is removing the show as a favorite. GUH! Thats stupid. The only other way I found, was wait till the show is recording, and hit the stop button a couple times, and it finally stops recording that particular show. But that is even more bothersome.


Graphical interface garbage glitches.

At random times, the screen has become a kaleidescope of polygons. Solid colors shattering off in various directions and flashing and flickering wildly. I assume this may be a bug with my ATI 9800 Pro card and the onscreen rendering of menus. However since this only ever has occurred in SageTV, I have to list it as a concern that is annoying. Doesn't happen all the time, but it has happened enough times during the Trial, to know it occurs.


Hung TV Card?

Twice now, something SageTV did, caused the PVR150 card to simply stop working. It would just go black. Nothing, nadda. Only way to fix it was to quit SageTV down completely, and load it back up. Odd, no other application has done that yet with the tv card. This is a bit concerning, as if it does this while I'm away, and a show is set to record... welp fooey I won't be able to see that episode.


TV guide gets updated way too slowly.

It seems like it only updates ONCE A WEEK! Thats awful really. Shows and guide data appear to change daily, and to have week old stale data in the system, has resulted in quite a few favorites not recording properly. I want it to update every morning, like 10am or even noon. I cannot find anyway to make SageTV do this.

I won't say BeyondTV did it better. Theirs was screwed up big time. Even though I had told it to "update automatically" I found that it was constantly telling me that it was running out of days in the guide to show, and I had to go manually tell it to update. Piece of crap

However, this was the ONLY thing that Meedio did right! They allowed me to pick a method for updates. Every day, at an hour, every week, or every other day, or whatever. And it actually worked! Too bad the rest of the program was bad.


No option to turn off Time-Shifting.

Honestly, sometimes you just want to watch live tv, and browse channels. However since its forced into time-shifting (always recording what you are watching, and displaying live-tv 2 seconds behind ACTUAL live tv), browsing channels is painfully slow. Plus the disk crunching that goes on doing it.


No button to quickly bring up and dismiss the TV Guide.

This could simply stem from the above gripe about there not being a simple exit button that gets you out of what you just went into. However, I have found that while watching TV, I have wanted to pull up the guide, scan about to see if anything good may be on (this behavior came about from not wanting to channel surf due to it being painfully slow). I have the "Menu" button on my remote to bring up the TV Guide. However pressing that button again does not dismiss it. And hitting the "Exit" button on the remote, goes all the way back out to the main menu of SageTV (since I was unable to assign any decent 'esc' key like function to it). At this point I have to hit the "Left" button on the main menu, which for some reason then goes back to the channel I was watching.

I swear... the tip-sheet I have to reference just to figure out navigation is appalling. It is NOT COUCH FRIENDLY!


Weather feature is lacking.

First, getting to the weather screen is the most round about and sluggish thing to accomplish. Secondly, itd be nice if it had the ability to link to a URL that is from a local weather station that displays the current area radar.

Ok... this has become a large post, and I doubt anyone will have actually read through it all. There are other teeny minor things, but those are just dumb stuff like the wording used for menu items, and the placement of some stuff. Inconsequential compared to the larger issues.

I really want to buy SageTV... because one BIG problem exists with BeyondTV that makes me not want it. That being playback of recorded shows gets all 'herkyjerky' if I try to fast forward through commercials, resulting in me stopping the playback, then starting the playback "where I left off". Annoying to say the least huh!?

Anyhow, I've written too much ... I will wander off now.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

No way to "Don't record this single event" of a favorite show that is auto-set to record.

Example: I setup a favorite for like Scrubs, record all, any channel. Then I look into the scheduled recordings (or the guide), and see a nice list of Scrubs setup to record over the next two weeks. I scan them, and notice one is obviously one I have seen and don't want to record. I click on it, and after digging through the many menus of this action, I find NOTHING to allow me to "Don't Record This One"!

This may sound upsetting to some, but BeyondTV does this flawlessly. You can select any show that is scheduled to record, wherever it may show up (the guide, a recordings listing, etc), and click it, and in THAT immediate menu have an option of "Don't Record This". It is THAT EASY.

SageTV does not appear to have that ability anywhere. The closest I could find, is removing the show as a favorite. GUH! Thats stupid. The only other way I found, was wait till the show is recording, and hit the stop button a couple times, and it finally stops recording that particular show. But that is even more bothersome.

The item you are looking for is "Watched". Sage won't record anything marked as "watched" or "DOn't like". If you set that episode as watched, then Sage won't record it. "Don't like" is for teaching Sage about shows you don't like and don't want it to "Intellegently record"

Graphical interface garbage glitches.

At random times, the screen has become a kaleidescope of polygons. Solid colors shattering off in various directions and flashing and flickering wildly. I assume this may be a bug with my ATI 9800 Pro card and the onscreen rendering of menus. However since this only ever has occurred in SageTV, I have to list it as a concern that is annoying. Doesn't happen all the time, but it has happened enough times during the Trial, to know it occurs.

AFAIK, that is a DirectX bug, not really a Sage bug. However, Sage may be displaying more info on the screen, such as "watched bars", that causes issues with DirectX. For me, I haven't seen that issue since V5 came out.

TV guide gets updated way too slowly.

It seems like it only updates ONCE A WEEK! Thats awful really. Shows and guide data appear to change daily, and to have week old stale data in the system, has resulted in quite a few favorites not recording properly. I want it to update every morning, like 10am or even noon. I cannot find anyway to make SageTV do this.

I won't say BeyondTV did it better. Theirs was screwed up big time. Even though I had told it to "update automatically" I found that it was constantly telling me that it was running out of days in the guide to show, and I had to go manually tell it to update. Piece of crap

However, this was the ONLY thing that Meedio did right! They allowed me to pick a method for updates. Every day, at an hour, every week, or every other day, or whatever. And it actually worked! Too bad the rest of the program was bad.

It is set to DL the EPG every 24 hours. The exact time that it DL's is not directly settable in Sage. If you want to trigger a DL, then make a change in the source setup and that should DL the EPG, then it will DL a new EPG every 24 hours from that point. Or else, install nielm's webserver, you can trigger an EPG DL at any time you want by clicking on a link. Then it will DL every 24 hours from that point.

No button to quickly bring up and dismiss the TV Guide.

This could simply stem from the above gripe about there not being a simple exit button that gets you out of what you just went into. However, I have found that while watching TV, I have wanted to pull up the guide, scan about to see if anything good may be on (this behavior came about from not wanting to channel surf due to it being painfully slow). I have the "Menu" button on my remote to bring up the TV Guide. However pressing that button again does not dismiss it. And hitting the "Exit" button on the remote, goes all the way back out to the main menu of SageTV (since I was unable to assign any decent 'esc' key like function to it). At this point I have to hit the "Left" button on the main menu, which for some reason then goes back to the channel I was watching.

On my hauppage remote, I just hit the back/exit button, and it will get me out of just about any screen. It may take 2-3 presses, depending on how far I have drilled into the menus.

Weather feature is lacking.

First, getting to the weather screen is the most round about and sluggish thing to accomplish. Secondly, itd be nice if it had the ability to link to a URL that is from a local weather station that displays the current area radar.

The path to the weather screen can be changed if you don't like having to drill down into the menu to find it. I use nielm's dynamic menus and have "weather" listed in the main menu.

Also, I think there is a "weather import" that will give you more features. One feature I remembe seeing is moving weather maps and even live traffic maps.


The nice thing about Sage is that as long as the "backend" runs good, then the "frontend UI" can be altered to better suit your needs. Sage offers Studio to registered users which can be used to tweek the UI. And other users have designed tweeks via completely new UI's, called STV, or designed smaller tweeks that just add a couple items to the original STV. Those small tweeks are called imports, STVi. More info on this can be found here, http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=27

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Why can't everything respond to "ESC" to "get out" and return to what you were previously doing?!?

Check the available commands -- there is an Options command (Esc, Ctrl+O, Right mouse click) that will also close Optiosn menus. There is a Back command to return to the previosu menu you were on.

No way to "Don't record this single event" of a favorite show that is auto-set to record.

Example: I setup a favorite for like Scrubs, record all, any channel. Then I look into the scheduled recordings (or the guide), and see a nice list of Scrubs setup to record over the next two weeks. I scan them, and notice one is obviously one I have seen and don't want to record. I click on it, and after digging through the many menus of this action, I find NOTHING to allow me to "Don't Record This One"!

Mark the show as Watched. It is in the immediate pop-up menu when you select the show. SageTV won't re-record shows you've already watched.

TV guide gets updated way too slowly.
It seems like it only updates ONCE A WEEK

It updates daily. One of the FAQs is: How often is the Program Guide (EPG) updated?; it covers all you wanted to know about EPG updating.

See the rest of the FAQs and the PDF manual that is installed in your SageTV directory.

- Andy

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Why can't everything respond to "ESC" to "get out" and return to what you were previously doing?!?

For menus, use the Back command (Alt+Left) or click the Back button next to the Sage logo. For popup option dialogs, use Esc or right-click. Your problem may be that you haven't mapped Back to any button on your remote. (OK, Andy beat me to that one.)

Graphical interface garbage glitches.
Hung TV Card?

These both sound like hardware/driver issues. If they only happen in Sage maybe it's because Sage exercises your hardware harder than other apps. Make sure your OS and device drivers are up to date, you have the latest version of DirectX, etc.

No option to turn off Time-Shifting.

If you're watching on a regular TV, you always have the option of using the TV's own internal tuner. (And no, not everybody just wants to watch live TV sometimes. Some of us are quite happy never to have to sit through a commercial again.)

[HeyItsDoug]

Incredible,

I was in a similar position as you are just a few weeks ago. I actually purchased Sage last year but never used it. I got hooked on BTV and it's extremely polished and stable UI. It arguably has to be the best "out of the box" experience. I also have MCE 2005 and while I think it has the most intuitive UI it has it's share of challenges too. Anyway, I have the Haupagge remote and the FireFly remote and also an MCE 2005 remote. I have found the MCE 2005 remote works best, for me, with SageTV 5. (I realize you would have to purchase this remote) But I must add I am using the SAGEMC 16x9 .stv which is an MCE 2005 imitator. After I finally got SAGEMC configured and tweaked with ComSkip and importing my DVD Profiler data I have not looked back at MS MCE 2005! This .STV is everything MCE is and a whole lot more! And I think it might provide a couple solutions to some of your concerns.

The 'Back' key on the MCE Remote will emulate what I think you are expecting the ESC key to do. It takes you back one step - similiar to the back button on an Internet Browser. And if you use the SAGEMC .stv it provides a Channel Browse facility that allows you to press the up and down arrows on the MCE Remote and look at what is playing on other channels while still watching full-screen live TV. The Left and Right buttons allow you to browse what is coming up later in the day on whichever channel you are currently reviewing; and this is all done in the bottom of the screen without ever leaving your currently watched programming! If you are browsing and find something you want to watch instead you merely click the OK Button and away you go. Or you can choose to set up the program for recording, set a Favorite etc. As for quick access to the actual program guide, you merely press the GUIDE button and then after you are done reviewing you just click the BACK Button and you are back at live TV. (Or back to the recorded program you were watching if that's the case. I guess you could call it an intelligent BACK button as it doesnt just dismiss the currently displayed window it actually remembers where you were last. So drill-UP is very easy.) Finally, if you really just want to go from the GUIDE to live TV then you just click on the Live TV button and you are taken to Live Television NO MATTER where you are in the SAGEMC UI. I realize this all requires a little tweaking (took me about 15 minutes total) but if you have not looked at the SAGE MC .stv you might want to give it a try. And ComSkip is extremely more accurate then SmartSkip on BTV ever will be! ;-)

Yes, not being able to disable TimeShifting is a bit of an inconvieneince but since channel surfing isn't really neccessary with the SAGEMC Browse feature there is no waiting for channel changes.

I hope some of this helps.

Doug

[blade]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Graphical interface garbage glitches.

At random times, the screen has become a kaleidescope of polygons. Solid colors shattering off in various directions and flashing and flickering wildly. I assume this may be a bug with my ATI 9800 Pro card and the onscreen rendering of menus. However since this only ever has occurred in SageTV, I have to list it as a concern that is annoying. Doesn't happen all the time, but it has happened enough times during the Trial, to know it occurs.

I assume you are using VMR. Do you have the unsupported extras enabled? As has already been said turning on the watched bars can cause the problem when using VMR. I'm sure there are probably other things that can trigger it as well. I believe there was some work done on it awhile back, but I'm not sure if it was a Sage problem or just the developers trying to correct for another MS bug.

I've been using Sage for nearly a year and a half and the only time I've had the problem was when using the watched bars. I don't think it's a common problem so it may be something with your setup if you're not using any unsupported extras.

[mike1961]

A few months back I evaluated both BTV and Sage. I was pulled to Sage almost immediately because of features, customizability and of course the great support from these forums. The fact that BTV had different packages (music add on, video add ons, etc) was a real turn off. I'm buying software not a car. For me, it's like "make it simple, tell me what I get and how much it costs." I plan to enjoy my media center for years to come so an extra $50 or $100 or whatever doesn't matter much to me.

One thing that was really huge to me aside from customizability is being able to set up Sage as a server (not sure if BTV has that or not but it would be a real drawback if it doesn't, more on that later in my post).

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Why can't everything respond to "ESC" to "get out" and return to what you were previously doing?!?

I use HIP (free/shareware) for my remote to control several applications and I programmed a STOP button to stop the video and always go to the main menu (it's just two Sage commands...Stop and HOME). I also programmed a Menu button on my remote to go to the main menu (but then the video will continue playing and it's just one command HOME). It's that kind of flexibility I like.

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

This is a bit concerning, as if it does this while I'm away, and a show is set to record... welp fooey I won't be able to see that episode

I have a six year old who just loves to press buttons, pull plugs out of walls (you get the picture). If the HTPC in the family room or bedroom crashes it's no big deal because I have Sage server running on the computer in my office (out of the house). One of the beautiful things about Sage is a "central file system" where everything is saved in one place then I can watch it anywhere I want. Once it is set to record, it is all tracked on the file server and if the other computers crash it's no big deal. Also, it's more reliable to run a separate server (especially when running other applications on a workstation the workstation is just not going to be as stable as something that just "sits there" like file server). I have not missed a show yet (one time I did when I marked it as "watched" and I did not know it would not record because of that).

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

No option to turn off Time-Shifting.

My ignorance...can someone explain just what time-shifting is? Is this where you are "behind live TV in the queue" and if so, why turn it off?

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Honestly, sometimes you just want to watch live tv, and browse channels. However since its forced into time-shifting (always recording what you are watching, and displaying live-tv 2 seconds behind ACTUAL live tv), browsing channels is painfully slow. Plus the disk crunching that goes on doing it.

Some of that may be your setup. There should be no real "disk crunching." Not sure what you are talking about. Be sure your tuner card has hardware encoders on it or you will really be using the resources on your system.

I don't see what browsing channels should have to do with being behind by 2 seconds or so. Changing channels is no slower or quicker for me than if I do it directly through the cable box without Sage at all. But, it's certainly not fast through the cable box either.

Mike

[blade]

Originally Posted by mike1961

My ignorance...can someone explain just what time-shifting is? Is this where you are "behind live TV in the queue" and if so, why turn it off?

Some of that may be your setup. There should be no real "disk crunching." Not sure what you are talking about. Be sure your tuner card has hardware encoders on it or you will really be using the resources on your system.

I don't see what browsing channels should have to do with being behind by 2 seconds or so. Changing channels is no slower or quicker for me than if I do it directly through the cable box without Sage at all. But, it's certainly not fast through the cable box either.

Mike

Sage records even when you watch "live TV". Some other programs don't do this they use a buffer instead. Since Sage records everything, anything you watch is recorded to the hard drive. Some people don't like this. They want a PVR that records to the hard drive only when they tell it to.

There are limitations and drawbacks to using a buffer instead of recording as Sage does. Most Sage users prefer the way Sage works. There have been threads about the pros and cons of each. You should be able to find them if you do a search.

[mike1961]

I see - I love the fact that Sage records everything; then if you are half way through a show and you really like it, you can still record it if you want. Also, I remember with the Tivo there was like a 15 or 20 min buffer and if you got too far behind time I don't recall if you could record or what you could do. I have mine set so that when we turn off the TV via the remote it also automatically sends a stop command and puts sage to sleep.

Thanks,
Mike

[jominor]

Originally Posted by mike1961

I see - I love the fact that Sage records everything; then if you are half way through a show and you really like it, you can still record it if you want. Also, I remember with the Tivo there was like a 15 or 20 min buffer and if you got too far behind time I don't recall if you could record or what you could do. I have mine set so that when we turn off the TV via the remote it also automatically sends a stop command and puts sage to sleep.

Thanks,
Mike

I agree. Plus the buffer ones, when rewinding, goes back through channel changes. Very annoying. I used BTV, former Snapstream first.

I didn't care for it.

[nielm]

Graphical interface garbage glitches

This was fixed with V5..

[stevech]

well we all have our perspectives.
I downloaded, trialed for a reasonable time all three (GbPVR, Beyond TV and Sage). I chose Sage and am satisfied. The WAF was B-A-D with GbPVR. I didn't like the price add-ons and feature set of BTV.

Sage's UI is rough. But the WAF is good. That's what counts here.

I do cringe each time a see a dirt-cheap TiVo ad.
And now I see $500 gets you a name-brand DVR with Microsoft's guide service. Thanks, but I don't care to send any more annuities to MS.

[IncredibleHat]

Wow, thanks for all the great feedback! I was worried that my (slightly?) harsh tone may garner me a slew of flames and "jer an eeediot" posts. Not so!

I am now seeing a few things I was unaware of with SageTV, and that is the very large backside configurability. The "Import Files", and various 3rd party apps (mostly free) that give even more power to already owned items. Interesting. Plus, the obviously great help found here on the forums.

Yes, I am kind of ashamed I bought the FireFly... but I had been led to the assumption it 'worked flawlessly with SageTV' when I bought it (bastard SnapStream people!). I knew I was going to have to choose between Sage and BTV... so I bought a (seemingly) nice remote that would work with both. Heh... I may end up buying a whole new remote here shortly.


The graphical stuff, yeah, its stock running SageTV, with latest DirectX drivers, and ATI catalyst drivers. This outputs to a Widescreen LCD HDTV (and does so flawlessly I was floored when I first configured the system). I will keep an eye on it, and try some of the suggestions to avoid the wackypolypoop.


"Back" ... hmm, I guess I looked over that when I was pouring through the SageTV manual and key settings. If its one of those settings that ONLY works with a "MessageID" event, then I am unable to set my Firefly to execute that type of action. Howeve, from what many have said, it looks like its just alt-leftarrow? I can assign that to the "Exit" button (if I can get rid of the double-press-bug ... ).


"Set to watched" ... heh! Now... ok... it sort of makes sense, but wow, I had no idea the effect would be to 'not record' it. Thanks for that tastey morsel of info!


"Updates every 24 hours". Ok, so, call me stupid on that one. Maybe our local cable company was just being lazy and gave wrong information. Likely huh! Thanks for the reassurance on that.


I'll look into the weather ideas given. Its not a deal breaker... I was just listing some things that came to mind.


Yes, I have to agree with the 'attitude' of SnapStream and their stuff. Having to buy this thing, and that thing, and some othe thing, and then run them ALL at the same time and jump around between them all. Guh. I also really didnt care for how they basically 'advertised themselves' to you in their own software you are using. Everything having lame "tm" and "(c)" stuff on it, or big long names (Like "SnapStream™-Online TVGuide©" for their TV GUIDE menu button!).


I will be purchasing SageTV. Overall, it appears to be great. The recording quality and playback part is solid. Not all glitchy and jerky like BTV was. And with all this new "STV" type configurations to mess with, it looks like SageTV can actually be tweaked like crazy.


So... now ... whats the 'best' remote to use with SageTV?

[IncredibleHat]

Oh, and the "turn off time-shifting" bit... yeah. I can just click to the TV channel changer and put SageTV to sleep. Not a big thing. I see your points, and I have noticed I was getting SPOILED by using SageTV with livetv... I would start watching shows 15 minutes late, so I could skip through commercials... be able to record one thing while watching a recording... and god I LOVE the setup of favorites... letting it just go and record all my favorite shows whenever they show up. That has helped me see a few expisodes of things I had once missed!!

[jefff]

Hey there Mr. Hat.

Sounds like you should try out the SageMC .stv, if you haven't already. You can customize nearly everything and add on a ton of stuff.

I use SageTV with the SageMC16x9 stv and the Weather Report Suite (WRS) stv import. Very flexible and customizeable if you have the patience to decipher the xml configuration file.

For a remote I use a Microsoft MCE remote with a USB-UIRT receiver and it works great. You have to program all the buttons in Sage setup but it's not hard and then everything works exactly the way YOU want it to.

It took me a while to get everything configured but now it's easy to use and looks great.

[IncredibleHat]

Welp, I am now a proud owner of SageTV. Got my huge 200thousand character long license code from PCAlchemy last night

I will definately look into all this 'stv' and 'xml' configuration importability. Being the casual programmer myself, I shouldn't have a problem figuring them out... actually kind of makes me giddy, knowing I can tweak the heck out of this to fine tune it to the way I do things with SageTV! Sweet!