Important Version 6 Upgrade Information

[Opus4]

The first post here contains the extent of the information SageTV has stated on the topic, as far as I recall. I doubt you'll get clarification beyond that for events that haven't occurred yet.

- Andy

[silkshadow]

Thanks for the reply! I've read that a while ago and it dosen't say anything about on-going versions or did I miss that? This would actually be a key piece of information. If the old policy is being totally changed, if I wanted to get out, now would be the time to do it before buying the first upgrade. I would have to look around and see what else is out there as I haven't looked in more than a year.

I do love Sage, but it does seem to be moving in a feature direction away from the things I am looking for, so paying US$40 every 6 months/yr borders on out of the question. I mean, I started at v3 back in 2004 so thats over US$160 per license of Sage I use + the original cost of clients (I understand there is no extra charge for the v6 client's right?) and I haven't seen any of the features I wished added ever added to Sage (I'm not including v6, which starts the charging, and I haven't tried yet). Very basic things like a decent music system and the flexible importation of meta-data into wiz.bin. I am actually, feature-wise, using the same features as I had in v3 (minus the great Cayars stv even ). I understand that I may not be the mainstream who wants placeshifting and extenders and the like and that was marginally acceptable, I paid for that v3 feature set and I got it. I only b*tch about not getting them once in a long while . I'm not sure I can get on board to a new system where I have to pay to just keep up with new plugins and the improving UI and not get any useful (to me) features.

So i'd like to know this answer as its important to me as a continuing customer who is very familliar with the progress of SageTV. Any idea how to get it? Thanks!

[nielm]

The upgrade policy has been discussed over and over again in the linked thread.

We have no idea what sage will do in the future.

All we know is that for the first time in several *years* and several versions, Sage have asked for an upgrade charge to V6 for the server only; and that there were free upgrades for people who bought sage less than about 6 months ago (v5 licencees).

Thats all we know. And thats all we are going to know until the next release comes out in who knows when. And who knows whether it will be a point or a major release. And who knows whether it will be a free or a paid upgrade.


Past behaviour is not a guide to future behaviour, but I would be surprised if they asked for upgrade fees until at least a year has passed...

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

If the old policy is being totally changed, if I wanted to get out, now would be the time to do it before buying the first upgrade. I would have to look around and see what else is out there as I haven't looked in more than a year.

Good luck finding any other product/company that doesn't charge for major version upgrades


Dirk

[blade]

Sorry if I caused any confusion. That was my interpretation of the new upgrade policy. I think many others have interpreted it the same way.

I do believe Sage will continue to provide fair upgrades. As nielm said, past behavior really isn't a guide to future behavior. All of us are just speculating as to what will actually happen.

I agree with nielm that I don't expect Sage would charge more often than once a year. If Sage does charge for all version upgrades I would guess they would probably have more point releases and fewer version updates. If they're worried about falling behind the competition in the version number game they might continue releasing new versions as before and only charge for the ones they feel warrant it based on features/development costs. They may do as before and wait several years before charging again. Since the post didn't imply that it was a one time charge I think most are expecting to pay for occasional ugrades now.

If I were new to Sage I would rather people prepare me to pay for upgrades than think they would be free and then get suprised down the road, but I should have been clear in my post that it was my interpretation and none of us know for certain.

[silkshadow]

Thank you for the clarification, Blade! I think its a bit wrong for Frey not to confirm or clarify this point. I agree with you Nielm, yearly updates is about what I expect as its been two years and I am just getting my 3rd x.0 upgrade at, pretty much the beginning of the 3rd year point. So that does give me confirmation that my speculation might be right . However, if I was charged both those times, I would not be a Sage customer today, to be honest. Now, however, it becomes a different situation because I am invested in multiple sage licences and client licences. On the other hand, that also means multiple upgrade charges which does balance that out somewhat, however my familiarity with Sage is the real balance point.

Good luck finding any other product/company that doesn't charge for major version upgrades

As I said, its been over a year but I can produce 3 off the top of my head: MythTV, GBpvr and MCE. With two of those being free. Yes I am familar with linux and yes I know what a pain Myth is to setup and, yes, I also know of its superior feature set, no I have not tried the client and don't know if its any good. GBpvr wasn't that great last time I tried it but I have read posts that it is vastly improved and it now supports a server/client system which has recieved some positive annecdotal reviews (which is what a review is whether published in a magzing or not). MCE, you buy it and any new feature, bug fixes, UI improvement etc are all free. With the 360 you get a HD client, a HD gaming console and a HD-dvd player as well as saving space on the AV rack. And I live in the Philippines, so the DRM aspect doesn't frighten me now that I have played with Vista Media center and see that most of its protectional stuff will never effect me (they will be migrating alot of that crap to MCE in the next rollup).

So let's not pretend that Sage is the only answer. And Y!GoTV is Meedio (a vastly superior media center) where they are working on a better PVR portion with Yahoo's money and will be free (is free now but in a beta). That has the added advanatge of giving me what I have always wanted which is one central HTPC front-end. And, as I said, this is the cast of old characters, I have not looked at what is new since.

I only say this because you asked (and I mean no offense, please, I do love SageMC on my weekend home installations and its because of you I finally have recordings groupings ) and I have read a few posts today with people saying basically, "you have no choice". I had choices 2 years ago and I picked Sage and been loyal to it. I recommend it on other forums, talk about it to people around me, encourage them to try it and I participate in forums where the PVR market is emerging and it would be smart for Sage to get their name in. I have done it. Part of why I picked Sage was because they said they would not charge or I should paraphrase it as try and not charge for updates. I was sure this was coming at some point, and I have not posted about it (besides once where I kind of jumped the gun because I was surprised to see it this soon). But if I am facing US$40 per year + my original costs per license (not to mention the threat that I could be charged yearly, as well, for client updates since the past is no indicator to the future as Nielm, who I find to have consistently the most trustworthy and accurate opinion over the years, said), of course, I have to seriously consider if I want to contiune with Frey when, as I said, I have not recieved any of the features I wish including the very basic "need a good music system" one and I haven't done the legwork on what is really out there now. So before I spend the time installing a host of other programs, it would be nice to know if its necessary. A one time charge I can live with but facing yearly fees is a different ballgame.

[insomniac]

Personally i think this response is well thought, and makes many great points.

I am a loyal sagetv customer too; but i can say that my loyalty has been tested with the recent change of policy.

How else is frey/sage/whomever supposed to know that it gets under peoples skin enough to push them away unless they vocalize it?

I.

[PGPfan]

Guys, let's not get our panties in a collective bunch yet. Keep in mind that SAGE has never said anything other than they TRY not to charge for upgrades. They haven't until now. That's 1 upgrade fee (regardless of how long you have been using Sage) since day one.

They aren't (imho) going to charge for upgrade every year - that's NO DIFFERENT than a subscription and Sage has been against that from the get-go.

-PGPfan

[doc]

The price of the upgrade in UK money was £16.48.

My monthly Sky satellite subscription is £47, so its nothing in comparison to that. I certainly wont be complaining at the charge.

They need revenue to continue developing it. If it was free forever they wouldn't be able to pay the developers would they!

I do understand the upset for some of being charged for an upgrade so soon after buying it, maybe free upgrades for a year would be an option, but you have to draw the line somewhere and finding a line thats fair to all is a hard one.

Can you imagine if it was Microsoft Sage, it would cost a hell of a lot more and you wouldn't be able to contact them about the bugs!

[Mark SS]

People complaining about upgrade fees is a total mystery to me. You pay money for a products feature set at the time you hand over the cash. If new features are added and a new version is offered for an extra fee, its your choice whether you pay to upgrade or not, you're not forced.

I do understand those people that have issues with bugs that were never fixed in V5 but are in V6, essentially forcing them to pay for an upgrade. For the majority however, go buy something else

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

I am actually, feature-wise, using the same features as I had in v3 (minus the great Cayars stv even ).

If this is the case, then what's the problem? Just stick with the v3 (or 4 or 5, whatever last version there was you used), and not worry about the upgrade fee until there is something you DO want from a newer version. Could be that the Music section never gets to where you want it, so you could happily run v3 (or 4 or 5) forever, not having any issues.

I for one think people are making mountains our of mole-hills. Until we see that they are going to charge per year or whatever, we just dont' have enough info to really base an opinion on either way. As is, looks like charged upgrades are about every 3 years or so, which I woudln't mind paying the 30 bucks for per server license. When it becomes too frequent, I'll weigh the added features with the cost, and make a determination from there.

[blade]

There is already a thread dedicated to this topic so there really isn't much need to continue the discussion here, but I will say every other company that sells a PVR app charges for upgrades. I don't see what is so different if Sage does it. Also people start threatening to switch to another product. Now if Sage doesn't charge for upgrades then how much good does it do for them to keep their "loyal" customers if they do not generate additional revenue. I understand about additional licenses, user community, etc... but people make out like Sage is going to lose so much if they move to another product yet they currently are not providing Sage with any additional revenue.

[FidgetyRat]

I found my server upgrade fee acceptable even though I was one of those people that purchased a v4 license 2 days before v5 was released and missed out on that free upgrade

What WILL however cause me to stop using sage would be if they charged client/extender upgrade fees. I simply cannot afford that.

[Kev]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

If this is the case, then what's the problem? Just stick with the v3 (or 4 or 5, whatever last version there was you used), and not worry about the upgrade fee until there is something you DO want from a newer version. Could be that the Music section never gets to where you want it, so you could happily run v3 (or 4 or 5) forever, not having any issues.

I would be happy with sticking with V5 other than the fact that Sage doesn't support it. The replies I have recieved to bug reports have been to buy V6. So basically I consider the upgrade fee to be a bi-annual support fee. I also don't care for the extra functionallity, I just want what I bought to work!

[blade]

Originally Posted by Kev

So basically I consider the upgrade fee to be a bi-annual support fee.

One upgrade fee over the last few years is hardly bi-annual.

[Kev]

Originally Posted by blade

One upgrade fee over the last few years is hardly bi-annual.

Main Entry: bi·an·nu·al
Pronunciation: (")bI-'an-y&(-w&)l
Function: adjective
1 : occurring twice a year[/I]

Bought it in March, charged to fix it's bugs in October.... Yes, that would be biannual.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Kev

Main Entry: bi·an·nu·al
Pronunciation: (")bI-'an-y&(-w&)l
Function: adjective
1 : occurring twice a year[/I]

Bought it in March, charged to fix it's bugs in October.... Yes, that would be biannual.

Using your logic if I purchase a copy of Windows XP right now and Vista is released in January it would be a fair statement to say there is a paid upgrade to windows released every 2 months. If I purchase a 2006 model car in March it would be fair to say car companies release new models every 6 months. Both statements would be about as ridiculous as what you're saying.

You're basing the length of time between paid upgrades from the time you purchased the product to when a fee was charged for an upgrade, which is an invalid measurement. Sage existed before you purchased the product and they have no reason to based their entire development schedule around your individual purchase. No offense, but I doubt you'll find anyone that sees what you describe as charging for an upgrade bi-annually. I've been using Sage for almost 2 years and this is the first time they've charged for an upgrade during that time. No amount of twisting of words is going to change that fact.

You have a valid complaint about bugs in v5 and requiring v6 to get them fixed; however, posting lies or misleading statements on the forums in an attempt to convince people of something that is untrue is not the best way to win people over to your way of thinking.

[Kev]

Blade, first of all, when you buy a product has nothing to do with when it is released. Second of all, per your windows XP/Vista example - when Vista is released, Xp will stil be supported.
My complaint is not the amount of upgrades but the lack of support for Version 5, which I had just bought this year. I bought it with the understanding that it would perform specific functionallity, which it doesn't. I have submitted bug reports, they recognize the problem but then say the fix for it will be in version 6 which requires a fee.
If they supported there products I would have no issue with the V6 upgrade fee.
The problem with the frequency of updates is that you have to be on the latest version to have bugs supported/fixed. If the latest version comes out every few months, then you will need to be upgrading alot. From my experience I paid in march and have to pay again in October. Per silkshadow's point, who know what they will do in the future. They will not make any promises so you have to assume it will be the same... which amounts to a biannual support fee.

Also I find it very interesting how these posts get conviniently moved deep into the 21 page abyss, never to be read by anybody. Nice work Opus! You need to spend more time supporting your products and customers and less time hiding our dissatisfaction.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Kev

Also I find it very interesting how these posts get conviniently moved deep into the 21 page abyss, never to be read by anybody. Nice work Opus! You need to spend more time supporting your products and customers and less time hiding our dissatisfaction.

You've tried starting arguments with me via PM in the past, now you want to see if you can start it publicly. I told you before: if you want to complain, write to SageTV.

This thread was opened for people to discuss this topic, so I find no reason to have many other threads for your same arguments that go on and on with no end, repeating your same gripes over and over and over. And, this thread is not hidden; it is 'stuck' at the top of this forum section & is thus always visible to anyone, no matter how recently the last post was made to it. It probably won't remain stuck forever, but it is for now. If you feel the need to constantly insert your same arguments in other threads, I'll continue to move those posts here.

Have a great day and I'm glad to see that you think I'm doing "Nice work". I can't tell you how much joy that brings to my dreary existence.

- Andy

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by blade

One upgrade fee over the last few years is hardly bi-annual.

However, to resurrect a point I made awhile back.... if we work under the assumption that Sage will charge for an upgrade with every major point release, then since my purchase of v2 back in January of 2005, there have been 4 major point releases of Sage (including v6). That amounts to two major point releases per year. So one might also assume that amounts to two paid upgrades per year.

Of course the numbering system and/or frequency can change going forward, but this is one data point to consider.